This week’s other featured books, “Done Being Single,” by Treva Brandon Scharf, “So Close,” by Sylvia Day and “Exit-Sky,” by Warren Woessner, can be found by scrolling down below this post, or by clicking the author’s name on our Authors page.
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THE BOOK: How We Disappear: Novella & Stories
PUBLISHED IN: 2022
THE AUTHOR: Tara Lynn Masih THE PUBLISHER: Press 53
NOTE: This book won a Florida Book Award for 2022 in the general fiction category,
SUMMARY: Tara Lynn Masih offers readers transporting and compelling stories of those taken, those missing, and those neither here nor gone—runaways, exiles, wanderers, ghosts, even the elusive Dame Agatha Christie. From the remote Siberian taiga to the harsh American frontier, from rural Long Island to postwar Belgium, Masih’s characters are diverse in identity and circumstance, defying the burden of erasure by disappearing into or emerging from physical and emotional landscapes.
Described as “masterful” and as “striking and resonant” (Publishers Weekly), Masih’s fiction, crossing boundaries between historical and contemporary, sparks with awareness that nothing and no one is ever gone for good—and that the wilderness is never quite behind us.
WHY THIS TITLE?: When I was putting together the collection, I discovered much of my writing had the theme of disappearance: physically, emotionally, culturally. WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? I think these past few years we have all been grappling with the issue of disappearance. Many of us have lost loved ones and friends and colleagues to covid; many of us feel forgotten, even fear for our lives; many worry about climate change and how the world will be for our children and grandchildren. I hope these stories give acknowledgment to that pain and also some hope for how to cope. Some of the stories are historical, and there is mystery: in a detective story, and in the disappearance of Agatha Christie and in the kidnapping of a sister. Readers will travel all over the world, from Florida to the Taiga, from Montana to Puerto Rico.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“Masih’s collection is a beautiful and carefully written work that deftly searches below the surface for the personal feelings of the diverse characters and blends them with the oftentimes stunning outside world. . . . Luminous . . . ” —Kirkus Reviews.
“Tara Lynn Masih’s exceptional short story and novella collection presents a sprawling range of characters, unique voices, and exotic settings [and] showcases the considerable talents of Masih, particularly in creating characters that manage to feel unique and yet familiar at the same time, and settings so full of sensory details they become characters in themselves. This fine collection is a worthy addition to any bookshelf.” —Southern Literary Review
“Rarer is the writer who leaves no traces of herself, allowing the characters to wield their own singular voices, yet Masih has achieved it in each of her far-ranging yet intimate stories. Some characters yearn to disappear, some for only a time, ultimately realizing their paths follow or align with another; some characters have no choice. But they all do what the best of fiction does, they stay with the reader.” —Lit Pub
“Through elegant prose, complex characters, and breathtaking images, Masih has crafted a collection that is not only a joy to read but also incredibly cathartic.” —Necessary Fiction AUTHOR PROFILE: I grew up on the north shore of Long Island sound. I spent many hours in the woods and meadows and on the beaches, so my writing is invested in nature and place. I’m a bicultural author: my father was an Indian American professor and watercolorist, my mother of European descent. I write in many voices.
SAMPLE: Go to the Amazon page.
WHERE TO BUY IT: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or find it through Indiebound
PRICE: around $16 for the paperback, varies on sites; also available in hardcover and audio (from Blackstone)
CONTACT THE AUTHOR: You can contact me through my website, TaraMasih.com. I answer all emails!
THE BOOK: Done Being Single: A Late Bloomer’s Guide to Love
PUBLISHED IN: March 21, 2023
THE AUTHOR: Treva Brandon Scharf
THE PUBLISHER: Greenleaf Book Group Press
SUMMARY: The Tell-All that Helps All: You’re Never too Old, and It’s Never Too Late.
Treva Brandon Scharf paid her dues in the dating world. She survived countless romances, relationships, boyfriends, breakups, heartaches, and heartbreaks. She loved and lost, dumped and got dumped, and finally became a first-time bride at the age of 51. Scharf, a gifted blogger and writer, is ready to share all the juicy details of her long road to the altar.
Her debut book is part self-help/dating advice, part-memoir, and 100% delightful. If you can stop laughing long enough, you’ll realize you’ve just met a one-of-a-kind force of nature who has managed to acquire an invaluable store of knowledge on life, love, and personal growth. Done Being Single: A Late Bloomer’s Guide to Love is a universal source of inspiration and practical advice.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a late bloomer or early blossomer; male or female; single or partnered; millennial or midlifer. It doesn’t matter if you’re divorced, widowed, new on the market, stuck in dating hell, dreaming of getting married, or just dreaming of getting laid, there’s something for everyone.
If you’re freaking out in your 20s, hyperventilating in your 30s, living a life of not-so-quiet desperation in your 40s (like Treva was), or needing a jump start in your 50s and beyond, she’s got you covered.
As a late bloomer, here’s what she’s discovered: You don’t need to have it all figured out by a certain age. There’s no date to be married by or deadline for achievement. Just because you don’t hit your benchmarks in a timely fashion―or hit them at all―doesn’t make you a failure; it just makes you you. Even if you’re not technically a late bloomer, there’s always time to become who you really are or want to be. But the truth is, everyone is a late bloomer in some way. We’re all works in progress, and the learning, growing, and evolving never stops. Remember―your timeline is yours and yours alone, and you’ll bloom when you’re ready. The amazing thing is that once you do start blooming and see your talent, creativity, power, and potential begin to blossom, you’ll realize you had it in you the whole time.
Some other things she discovered as a late bloomer are: Life doesn’t come with a grand plan, but if you’ve got one, follow it. You don’t need a vision of your future, but if you see it, keep it in your mind’s eye. You don’t need a road map, but if you have life GPS, use it. The only thing you need to do is be proactive. So start now. Go now. Launch now. Reinvent now. Bloom now. Envision the person you want to be and go be it.
THE BACK STORY: The book came out of the blog, “The Late Blooming Bride.” After a few years of blogging about conquering single life and finding love later in life, Treva decided to tell the story behind the blogs—the trials, tribulations, and triumphs. Why was she a late bloomer? What took her so long to get married? What obstacles did she put up? How did she prevail? What was going on in her head all those years being single? Her backstory is the backbone of the book.
WHY THIS TITLE?: When Treva was offered an opportunity to turn her blogs into a podcast, it was her husband Robby that came up with the name “Done Being Single.” For the book title, Treva added “A Late Bloomer’s Guide to Love.” It’s not just Treva’s story, it’s also Robby’s, so the title was a team effort.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? This book checks off a lot of boxes: it provides guidance for single people, motivation for seekers, and support for late bloomers. But people of all ages and relationship statuses will find something that resonates, elevates, and empowers at the same time.
AUTHOR PROFILE: Treva is a late bloomer, born and raised in Beverly Hills by two Hollywood talent agents. She is the product of divorce, an admitted commitment-phobe, serial dater, marriage first-timer at 51, and badass with a heart of gold.
Treva co-hosts the podcast Done Being Single with her husband Robby Scharf, a fellow late bloomer. Together, they deliver dating intervention and relationship advice to listeners all over the world.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: “I feel so passionate about sharing my story, and making my voice heard on the issues of love and life, that I’m already writing my second book in my mind.”
THE EDITOR: Maxine Hitchcock, Hilary Sares, Claire Bowron THE PUBLISHER: Rōnin House
SUMMARY: From the #1 USA Today bestselling author of the CrossfireÒ saga comes the beginning of a twisty tale of obsession and rage. In SO CLOSE [Rōnin House, March 28, 2023], author Sylvia Day takes her fans on a darker and more suspenseful journey than ever before.
Widower Kane Black is still ruinously married to his late wife, Lily. Grief has hollowed him—until he sees a woman with his wife’s inimitable beauty in Manhattan. Kane takes her home to his towering penthouse, where reminders of Lily are everywhere. Aliyah, Kane’s mother, and Amy, his sister-in-law, are suspicious and distrustful of the new “Lily,” who wields dangerous control over Kane. As Aliyah fights viciously to stay on her family’s throne and Amy spirals deeper into the rage of a woman betrayed too many times, the formidable women in Kane’s life attempt to uncover each other’s secrets. But Kane is happier than he’s ever been and will do anything to stay that way.
The first novel in the thrilling Blacklist Duology, So Close is the propulsive and compelling story that Day’s die-hard fanbase has been waiting for. In this steamy psychosexual thriller, readers will experience Day’s trademark themes of survival and vulnerability on a never-before-seen level of emotional intensity and intrigue. Day’s prose are vividly descriptive and entirely unforgettable – readers of So Closewill want to return to the book again and again to re-experience its brilliantly intricate mysteries and scorching love story.
So Close is perfect for fans of Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive and Caroline Kepnes’s You series. This story is domestic suspense with gothic elements in the vein of Rebecca with a cast of strong female trauma survivors who are dangerously committed to never being vulnerable again. THE BACK STORY: “My last series, the Crossfire Saga, was five books but covered less than a year in the lives of the characters. For my next series, I wanted to explore a longer period of time.”
WHY THIS TITLE?: The family in the Blacklist series is like a tangled bed of snakes. The title was chosen to reinforce that feeling of claustrophobia. WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? The Blacklist Duology is like a puzzle. I’ve provided the clues, but the reader must decipher and piece them together to form the full picture. This is made difficult by a cast of unreliable narrators. Readers who enjoy mind games will find plenty to chew on.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“A dangerous and sultry novel about lies, secrets, and the line between love and obsession. The perfect first entry of a two-book series, So Close drew me in and kept me reading, desperate to know what happened next. Domestic suspense at its sexiest.” —Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author
“Sylvia Day…fans are going to be delighted with her latest offering, a dark, brooding, gothic story in her inimitable style that will have you gripped from the first sentence. Everything is not what it seems in this page turner.” — Glamour UK. AUTHOR PROFILE: Sylvia Day is the #1 New York Times, #1 USA Today, and #1 international bestselling author of over twenty award-winning novels, including ten New York Times and thirteen USA Today bestsellers. Her work has been translated into forty-one languages. With over twenty million copies of her books in print, she is a #1 best seller in twenty-nine countries. Day served as the 22nd President of Romance Writers of America and presently serves on the Board of Directors of the Authors Guild and the Authors Guild Foundation. Her work has been covered in Time, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, People, the Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, the Associated Press, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly, among others. Her bestselling novel Afterburn / Aftershock was developed into a motion picture by Passionflix and released in November 2017. The documentary following her 2016 world tour, Beyond Words: Sylvia Day, was released in October 2018. Bestselling titles in Sylvia’s canon include Bared to You, Reflected in You, Entwined with You, Captivated by You, One with You, Wish List, A Touch of Crimson, Eve of Darkness, Seven Years to Sin, and more. The sequel to So Close and the final chapter of the Blacklist Duology will be entitled Too Far. Connect with Sylvia on Facebook,Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Goodreads, or at www.sylviaday.com.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: The Blacklist Duology explores toxic femininity. The three main female characters either express this toxicity or are damaged by it.
SAMPLE: Readers can access the first six chapters of So Close on my website. It gives readers a chance to experience all the main character POVs. sylviaday.com/books/so-close/
THE EDITOR: Jim Perlman. THE PUBLISHER Holy Cow! Press
SUMMARY: These are new poems, written after “Clear All the Rest of the Way” (2008)
THE BACK STORY: Iris and I had been visiting Martha’s Vineyard since 2003 and now live there about 50% of the year. Although I had always considered myself to be a “Midwestern Poet”, I now had an entirely different ecology to explore. Many of the poems in “Exit ~ Sky were written under the influence of the “Vineyard”, and I continue to learn about its people and places.
WHY THIS TITLE?: Many if the poems are built around birds and birding. Birds are one of the few creatures that can use the sky to exit the earth.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
”Warren Woessner’s poems are models of lyric compression. His is an animalistic world where crows ‘are like works/in search of a poem/no one wants to write’ and summer storms ‘chase each other like huge black cats’. There is something of Han Shan in his taste for the elemental and something of Merwin and Bly in his ability to enter the deeper strata of our ancestral experience of nature” —Thomas R. Smith. AUTHOR PROFILE Warren Woessner has authored six collections of poetry. He has been widely published and anthologized in journals and reviews, including Poetry, The Nation, Epoch, 5 AM, Iconoclast and Pairie Schooner. He co-founded Abraxas Press and WORT-FM, a community radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin. Warren currently lives on Martha’s Vineyard and in Minneapolis, where he words as a biotech patent attorney.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: I once called my poetry a type of “sensitivity training” when that term was popular. Maybe today it will help you to get “woke” to poetry and others arts.
SAMPLE: For some sample poems, see https.//www.holycowpress.org. Exit ~ Sky and a number of my earlier books are also available from amazon.com.
WHERE TO BUY IT: Amazon.com. I believe it is also available at Cronig’s market on Martha’s Vineyard.
PRICE: $16
CONTACT THE AUTHOR: I can be reached at wwoessner@slwip.com
Our currently featured books, “Selling the Farm,” by Debra DeBlasi, “Dark Braid,” by Dara Yen Elerath and “High Tide,” by Ed Meek can be found by scrolling down below this post, or by clicking the author’s name on our Authors page.
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UPCOMING ON SNOWFLAKES IN A BLIZZARD, MARCH 21-27
“HOW WE DISAPPERAR,” BY TARA LYNN MASIH
Tara Lynn Masih offers readers transporting and compelling stories of those taken, those missing, and those neither here nor gone—runaways, exiles, wanderers, ghosts, even the elusive Dame Agatha Christie. From the remote Siberian taiga to the harsh American frontier, from rural Long Island to postwar Belgium, Masih’s characters are diverse in identity and circumstance, defying the burden of erasure by disappearing into or emerging from physical and emotional landscapes.
“SO CLOSE,” BY SYLVIA DAY.
From the #1 USA Today bestselling author of the CrossfireÒ saga comes the beginning of a twisty tale of obsession and rage. In SO CLOSE [Rōnin House, March 28, 2023], author Sylvia Day takes her fans on a darker and more suspenseful journey than ever before.
Widower Kane Black is still ruinously married to his late wife, Lily. Grief has hollowed him—until he sees a woman with his wife’s inimitable beauty in Manhattan. Kane takes her home to his towering penthouse, where reminders of Lily are everywhere. Aliyah, Kane’s mother, and Amy, his sister-in-law, are suspicious and distrustful of the new “Lily,” who wields dangerous control over Kane. As Aliyah fights viciously to stay on her family’s throne and Amy spirals deeper into the rage of a woman betrayed too many times, the formidable women in Kane’s life attempt to uncover each other’s secrets. But Kane is happier than he’s ever been and will do anything to stay that way.
“DONE BEING SINGLE,” BY TREVA BRANDON SCHARF.
Treva Brandon Scharf paid her dues in the dating world. She survived countless romances, relationships, boyfriends, breakups, heartaches, and heartbreaks. She loved and lost, dumped and got dumped, and finally became a first-time bride at the age of 51. Scharf, a gifted blogger and writer, is ready to share all the juicy details of her long road to the altar.
Her debut book is part self-help/dating advice, part-memoir, and 100% delightful. If you can stop laughing long enough, you’ll realize you’ve just met a one-of-a-kind force of nature who has managed to acquire an invaluable store of knowledge on life, love, and personal growth. Done Being Single: A Late Bloomer’s Guide to Love is a universal source of inspiration and practical advice.
“EXIT-SKY,” BY WARREN WOESSNER.
Writes one reviewer: ”Warren Woessner’s poems are models of lyric compression. His is an animalistic world where crows ‘are like works/in search of a poem/no one wants to write’ and summer storms ‘chase each other like huge black cats’. There is something of Han Shan in his taste for the elemental and something of Merwin and Bly in his ability to enter the deeper strata of our ancestral experience of nature” Warren Woessner has authored six collections of poetry. He has been widely published and anthologized in journals and reviews, including Poetry, The Nation, Epoch, 5 AM, Iconoclast and Pairie Schooner. He co-founded Abraxas Press and WORT-FM, a community radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin. Warren currently lives on Martha’s Vineyard and in Minneapolis, where he words as a biotech patent attorney.
This week’s other featured books, “Dark Braid,” by Dara Yen Elerath and “High Tide,” by Ed Meek, can be found by scrolling down below this post, or by clicking the author’s name on our Authors page.
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THE BOOK: Selling the Farm: Descants from a Recollected Past.
PUBLISHED IN: October 2020
THE AUTHOR: Debra Di Blasi.
THE EDITOR: John Gosslee.
THE PUBLISHER: C&R Press. From the publisher: “Literature matters because words let us explore and share the best of what we think, and who we can be. Good fiction, nonfiction, and poetry grow our knowledge and imagination, take us into new lives, and illuminate truths we never knew.” Regarding the Press’s nonfiction preferences, which lend further enlightenment regarding the structure of Selling the Farm: “Concept-driven nonfiction and creative nonfiction with a strong point of view. Visionary writers, disruptive ideas, hope for the future. We look for lively and meaningful nonfiction.”
SUMMARY: Winner of the 2019 C&R Press Nonfiction Prize. Lyric Memoir. “The old house burnt to ash. Acres sold to strangers. So many dead…” Raised in a family of seven, in a small ramshackle farmhouse without plumbing, award-winning author Debra Di Blasi maps a candid and eloquent memoir of a Midwest childhood both land rich and dirt poor, both heaven and hell. Surrounded by creatures big and small, rolling fields and pastures, weedy lawn, deep woods and shimmering waters, she wrestles with the complexity of a crowded family shaped by place and doomed to tear itself apart. Selling the Farm explores the difficult intersection of grief and love, and the many contradictions in nature, life and death, and memory itself. Her lyrical recollections move from season to season with language visually and aurally shaped to reconsider the ways that we bear witness to any place and time—and to ourselves amid all.
THE BACK STORY: Death becomes grief. Grief becomes the ineffable. Yet, I have always tried to expunge heartbreak by forging language into an “object” outside me, something I can set aside and thus manage what is lost. Thus, when my lovely older sister died an excruciatingly painful death in 2009, I began writing about her absence:
“I’ve seen a blue whale’s descent in every dream since your death, Sister, just a fragment, sliver of tail and the foamy slush-hush of froth folding back over itself.” —from “Wallace’s Line”
A few years later I was living in Hong Kong, far away from where I grew up on a northern Missouri livestock and crop farm. When my 93-year-old father began leaning precipitously toward death, one of my siblings sold the farm without my knowledge. These losses—of family,
farm, childhood—produced a protracted desolation. Because the new owners forbade us from visiting the farm, the only way to return to it was to capture those fecund acres in recollections. Part lyric essay, part poetic memoir, the ‘descants’ attempt to create a literary cartography describing the 880 acres where I grew up, and how my family and I were shaped by those astonishingly beautiful acres—for better and for worse. From creek to fields, wild animals to tame, stifling house to outhouse, Selling the Farm seeks the poetry hidden inside grief. WHY THIS TITLE?: The phrase Selling the Farm has two definitions relevant to the book. The first is literal, of course, simply describing what happened. The second refers to a phrase meaning to risk everything for a pie-in-the-sky venture. I wrote to recreate the farm, to make it live again just as it was in my childhood, knowing such a thing is not fully possible: I learned that diving that deeply into memories can cause more grief, even in dreams. The subtitle, Descants from a Recollected Past, suggests that this is not a conventional memoir. In addition to being as much a biography of a place, the language strives toward lyricism, as in a descant, a melody played over the main melody.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? The people who react most positively to Selling the Farm are those who understand the nuances of language, the musicality and the architecture of words on a page. They challenge their own perspectives and appreciate, as W. Somerset Maughm wrote, “lucidity, simplicity, and euphony.” To that list, I would add precision and, though it may seem contradictory, ontological complexity. My creative writing education was predominantly poetry, although I am considered primarily a fiction writer. I dislike categories. It’s important that a piece of writing (or book) take the scope, shape and sound that the subject matter demands. Readers who enjoy getting lost in language, who enjoy subtle word play and meticulous descriptions, who see literature as an art, might appreciate Selling the Farm. I suggest reading it aloud, slowly, attentively.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“Selling the Farm is a work of rare sophistication, a source of beauty amid calamity.” –Full-Stop Magazine “Selling the Farm, winner of C&R Press Nonfiction Award, defies traditional notions of genre…. This quiet experiment is emboldened by context because as a long-standing member of the small-press world, Di Blasi, an award-winning author of eight books, is like many successful small-press literary figures, especially women: celebrated yet largely unknown. Her choice to make the landscape the protagonist of her memoir is ironic, courageous, and bittersweet because it allows the artist to recede into her art.” — Heavy Feather Review
“Marrying prose and poetry, Selling the Farm is the kind of book you want to read with a pen on your lap, to mark its slippery metaphors and juxtapositions…. It speaks to Di Blasi’s skills as a writer that she’s able to turn [an] ordinary event—stomping through fresh snow—into a transcendent statement on time’s impermanence.” –-Brevity
“Rhythmic and lyrical language is the medium through which Di Blasi uncovers the emotional cores of the seasons. The memoir blends poetry and prose in a way that makes you want to mark every line to revisit and unpack later. Some lines are feasts of images, drawn so clearly and layered so tightly that one clause reveals as much as an entire vignette” –- Hippocampus Magazine.
AUTHOR PROFILE: As much as I loved the farm, I also hated it and couldn’t wait to see the world beyond. Thus, I’ve made choices many people would find frightening or simply too far off the beaten path. From London to Paris, Florence to Barcelona, Honk Kong to Hanoi, South Africa to San Francisco…from hanging out with Kansas City mobsters or drug dealers to hanging out in penthouses with scions of the rich or actors in Hollywood homes. From working in advertising and publishing to writing art criticism and teaching creative writing at college… I wanted a life as interesting as a great novel. A life of ideas, experiences, erudition. Even now, I’ve chosen to live in Portugal, where every day is a beautiful adventure. More: http://www.debradiblasi.com.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: As personal and global extinctions loom in the foreground, and family farms become increasingly scarce, the elegiac ruminations in Selling the Farm remind us how much has been—and will be—lost to us all. SAMPLE:
You couldn’t stop the winter cows from calving. Always, there’d be one born in the middle of a snowstorm. My father’d go searching the dark’s whiteness for a trembling black newborn or the cow with placenta still hanging under her tail. He’d steal the calf from the bawling mother and carry it home.
So many calves in the kitchen! Legs splayed on linoleum. And piglets too, piled up on each other in big metal buckets set in front of the furnace vent. And kittens. And puppies. Fish and a blue parakeet.
It was a life, on that farm, of saving and killing, of watching flora and fauna come and go.
And it was all right.
It was okay the way we each were borne into a system furious with incident, divining our day or night when the snows would come on blinding and no one staggering to carry us home.
LOCAL OUTLETS: Support independent bookstores and buy through Indiebound. Or support small publishers and buy through C&R Press or Small Press Distribution.
WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: You can also buy at Barnes & Noble, and as an ebook or paperback at Amazon.
PRICE: $18.00
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
To protect my writing and the joy of living, I left behind all the dull noise of social media. I still have some accounts, but I rarely if ever check them. As I’m in the midst of researching and writing the second book of my Eros and Thanatos tetralogy (the first book, Birth of Eros, was published November 2022), I’m not terribly easy to reach. I do try to read and respond to emails from readers, but the response time can be very, very slow. That said: debra@debradiblasi.com
SUMMARY: Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by Doug Ramspeck. Through the use of imagination, fairy tale and persona Dark Braid bridges the universal and the personal, focusing on the body, problematic relationships, illness (both mental and physical) and feelings of being an outsider.
THE BACK STORY: Many of the poems in this collection were written during my MFA and shortly after I graduated. I was trying to make sense of my identity as a writer and Dark Braid contains these early explorations. While it is very much a work of the imagination, it captures the state of mind I was in at the time I wrote it and expresses my growing (and continued) interest in fabulistic and imaginative poetry and literature. During my MFA I was engaging with hybrid authors such as Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Mary Ruefle. These influences may not be immediately apparent in my work; however, their model of genre-crossing literature formed the basis of my interest in the prose poem. Dark Braid contains a number of these unlineated poems, which have become central to my poetic interests.
WHY THIS TITLE: The title of this book was drawn from a poem I considered including in the collection but ultimately cut. The central image in the poem was that of a braid of black hair (belonging to a lover) that eventually transforms into a noose; this image seemed to encapsulate some of the themes of the book, it also addressed the notion of toxic symbiosis—the braiding together of love and dysfunction that can characterize certain relationships. When considering this weaving I was thinking not only of poisonous threads that might bind us to others, but threads that might be internalized to constitute the warp and weft of our beings.
WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: This collection would appeal to someone who is drawn toward dark, imaginative writing with a fable-like, fairy tale orientation. My work, overall, tends to straddle the line between poetry and prose, so I would recommend Dark Braid to those who might typically read fiction or flash fiction and are interested in exploring poetry.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“In Dark Braid, Dara Yen Elerath’s dark and disturbing debut collection, the poet crafts fables for the body. In ‘The Survival of My Wound,” she writes:
‘Will you tend me, my wound asks, as you tend your garden?’
“With a scrupulous eye for the body’s frailties, the poet crafts urgent and eloquent elegies and autopsies, the scalpel of her language exposing bone. In poem after poem, Elerath chronicles in spare and suggestive narratives the fairy tales of living inside the confines of skin, and exposes the feral underbelly of personal myth.” — Doug Ramspeck, prize judge
“Dark Braid, Dara Elerath’s first book of poems, leads the reader into parallel worlds where beauty exists alongside the grotesque; animals, flowers, and food sit alongside death. Like dripping jewels, each of Elerath’s poems is a glimmering collage of images clipped from anatomy and botany books, old Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales and from the pages of fashion magazines. Mythic, and yet grounded in the contemporary, these masterful poems are delightful: a surprising and exquisite poetry collection.” — – Cynthia Cruz
“Dark Braid is a gift from the sky: its violence, its beauty, its endlessness, its suffocation, its water, its wind. The book reimagines the poetic line and touches our face with new possibilities of sound, rhyme, form, and image. There is something about the southwest and its influence on the poets who call its high deserts and big skies home; I think it’s the evening.” — Jake Skeets
AUTHOR PROFILE: Dara Yen Elerath is a mixed-race, Chinese-American author born in California and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Initially drawn toward the visual arts, she received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of New Mexico and a BFA in Graphic Design from the Southwest University of Visual Arts. She went on to receive her MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and published her first collection, Dark Braid, in 2020. Her work is informed by her interest in imaginative, fabulist and hybrid literature. A multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the recipient of both the Bath Flash Fiction Award and the New Flash Fiction Review Award. Her work can be found in journals and venues such as the Academy of American Poets, POETRY Magazine, the American Poetry Review, AGNI and Poet Lore among others.
THE BACK STORY: Lyric poems rooted in concrete details and imagery.
WHY THIS TITLE?: High Tide can refer to peak times but it can also refer to floods and climate change.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Poetry gives us chance to slow down and meditate on what’s important using sound and metaphor to transport us.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“Every poem in this carefully crafted volume is well worth reading.” — Zvi Sesling.
“One function of poetry is to help us learn to see.” — Bill Littlefield.
AUTHOR PROFILE: Ed Meek writes poetry, fiction, essays and book reviews. He has had work in The Sun, the Paris Review, The North American Review, The Boston Globe. This is his fourth book of poems.
SAMPLE:
On the Outer Cape in August
100 miles south of Boston, where the Cape curls up like a dog’s tail, a gazillion stars redefine the night.
We’ve stepped out onto the porch to search for falling stars which aren’t stars at all but meteorites —white streaks of cosmic dust— flaming out like dreams at dawn.
In August they announce the coming end of summer. Meanwhile, in the garden, fireflies surprise us with their ethereal presence and the miracle of bioluminescence.
Maybe it’s the timing that makes us savor these sacred gifts.
(Chicago River dyed green. Photo by Pat Nabong, Chicago Sun Times).
Our currently featured books, “Lost Sierra,” by Amanda Traylor and “Musings,” by Don Tassone, can be found by scrolling down below this post, along with the Monthly Replay. Or, just click the author’s name on our Authors page.
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UPCOMING ON SNOWFLAKES IN A BLIZZARD, MARCH 14-20.
“SELLING THE FARM: DESCANTS FROM A RECOLLECTED PAST,” BY DEBRA DiBLASI.
Winner of the 2019 C&R Press Nonfiction Prize. Lyric Memoir. “The old house burnt to ash. Acres sold to strangers. So many dead…” Raised in a family of seven, in a small ramshackle farmhouse without plumbing, award-winning author Debra Di Blasi maps a candid and eloquent memoir of a Midwest childhood both land rich and dirt poor, both heaven and hell. Surrounded by creatures big and small, rolling fields and pastures, weedy lawn, deep woods and shimmering waters, she wrestles with the complexity of a crowded family shaped by place and doomed to tear itself apart. Selling the Farm explores the difficult intersection of grief and love, and the many contradictions in nature, life and death, and memory itself. Her lyrical recollections move from season to season with language visually and aurally shaped to reconsider the ways that we bear witness to any place and time—and to ourselves amid
“DARK BRAID,” BY DARA YEN ELERATH
Writes one reviewer: “Dark Braid, Dara Elerath’s first book of poems, leads the reader into parallel worlds where beauty exists alongside the grotesque; animals, flowers, and food sit alongside death. Like dripping jewels, each of Elerath’s poems is a glimmering collage of images clipped from anatomy and botany books, old Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales and from the pages of fashion magazines. Mythic, and yet grounded in the contemporary, these masterful poems are delightful: a surprising and exquisite poetry collection.”
“HIGH TIDE,” BY ED MEEK.
Writes Ed: “High Tide can refer to peak times but it can also refer to floods and climate change. Poetry gives us chance to slow down and meditate on what’s important using sound and metaphor to transport us.”
This week’s other featured book, “Musings,” by Don Tassone, can be found by scrolling down below this post, along with the Monthly Replay. Or, just click the author’s name on our Authors page (Tassone 9).
THE AUTHOR: Amanda Traylor THE PUBLISHER: Florence & Reynolds
SUMMARY: 27-year-old Daphne Barlow escapes her parents’ ruthless expectations as the heir to their Fortune 10 organic food brand and finds a different kind of ruthlessness—the remote town of Sierra Ridge in the inhospitable Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California. With a new PhD under her belt and eager to avoid her pre-determined path at the company named for her, Daphne seeks out an idyllic Mayberry existence in a small town where residents might appreciate her personal brand of homeopathic techniques and herbal cures. While she manages to gain a small collection of clients, she is mostly met with cold skepticism from the locals. When her favorite client—John Sharpe, an army veteran in his 70s—goes missing and no one in the town seems to be care, Daphne is deeply concerned. He saved her life once and she is bound and determined to return the favor.
Pitting herself against the townspeople, who assure her that Sharpe is just on a bender despite all the evidence she finds to the contrary, Daphne is drawn deeper and deeper into trouble, all while a wildfire rages closer and closer to the town.
It seems as if a local biker and a civilian deputy sheriff are willing to help, but the first could be hero or villain and the second winds up dead on Main Street. She’s told to leave her search for the truth alone by multiple people, and still she persists. Then her house is ransacked and a knife is held to her throat with a clear warning to be gone by the next morning. But the wildfire has finally arrived and she cannot find any place that’s safe.
WHY THIS TITLE?: Lost Sierra is a nickname for the particular geographic area. Explorers nicknamed it that because it was a slice of the beautiful Sierra Mountains that the rest of the world has seemingly forgotten about. That plays into the theme of a community surviving in micro-isolation. WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Readers who love a McGuffin mystery will love this slow-burn story of a woman determined to unravel the spider web she has unwittingly found herself in. It will appeal to psychological thriller lovers who love a twisted plot but also enjoy rich settings and developed characters.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“This was a really well-done mystery novel and I really enjoyed getting to know Daphne Barlow.” – NetGalley Reviewer
“What a wonderfully paced thriller!” – NetGalley Reviewer
“This book was fantastic! I really enjoyed it and it kept me guessing throughout, which is difficult for most books to do. I felt like I connected with the characters and really enjoyed the plot!” – NetGalley Reviewer
AUTHOR PROFILE: Amanda Traylor grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, spending her childhood in the hustle of Silicon Valley and then her teenage years in a sleepy wine village of only 1,000 people. She attended undergraduate at not far from the fictional town of Sierra Ridge, earning a BA in English and Journalism. After college she moved to Southern California where she had a fantastic time living the beach life. She graduated Cum Laude from CSU, Fullerton with a master’s degree in Mass Communication Research where she was also Graduate Student of the Year and earned Kappa Tau Alpha honors for excellence in journalism.
After way too much education, she started in the corporate world, working in internal communications and creative consulting before finally getting up the courage to write a book. She lit a match to her corporate life to write full time in 2018. She fell in love with a dashing hero (or is he a villain?) who dragged her away from her precious San Francisco. Now, she and her husband are a bit nomadic, having moved eight times in seven years (as of this writing) including five states and two countries, and currently call Colorado home with their toddler daughter.
Amanda has published eighteen works of fiction, including thrillers, mysteries and romantic comedies. AUTHOR COMMENTS: “While I wrote Lost Sierra simply to tell an entertaining story, many issues of the day did come to the surface during its creation. The story revolves around a rural mountain town that while only a few hours from the wealthy, bustling San Francisco Bay Area, feels like a different country entirely. Daphne is a progressive, idealistic trust fund girl with romantic visions of what life in. Sierra Ridge will be like. The reality is that rural California, just like rural America in general, is facing serious hardships, from lack of medical care and jobs to growing anger, racism and feelings of desperation. The COVID pandemic hit while I was in the middle of writing the story and it changed my direction and tone as the world started to unravel.”
SAMPLE:
Page 94
“The Lost Sierra they called it. Nestled at the base of Plumas National Forest, this stretch of the Sierra Nevadas was an alpine wonderland of towering mountain peaks dotted with at least fifty glacially carved turquoise lakes, miles of hiking and trails. Sweeping vistas were around every turn—fertile valley floor farms beneath the rolling hills and snowcapped peaks. Hidden lake trails led to stunning views of rugged mountaintops. And best of all—there was room to breathe.
At just nine people per square mile and a thousand miles of river, the beauty of this hidden Valhalla was that it felt like a preserved relic of the Wild West, a manifest destiny luring wanderers away from the city to escape into the humbling grandeur of the mountains, to swirl a pan in the Yuba River, where little sparkling nuggets could still be found. Unlike many areas of the Golden State, the full spectrum of seasons came at you full force. The trees gave way to an autumn rainbow of colors, snow fell just enough to give it a Swiss-like vibe, and the bounty of spring flowers juxtaposed against the lingering view of snow-capped peaks made the winter chill endurable.”
Page 116
“As twilight descended, the wind picked up again and now ripped through the trees with an agenda. A gray blanket was settling over them, their leaves now a rainbow of reds and oranges as fall moved in. I shivered despite the heat and pulled my long sweater more tightly around me. Dark things were coming and they were quickly accelerating.
Nights could turn on you quickly this time of year, coming in with a dark inky blanket, coating the region with a crisp frost. The air was growing thinner, darker, more menacing. But like most things up here, the weather was unpredictable. Lingering summer battled against the mountain fall, vying for dominance over the region. Blistering days could sink into a sweeping chill without warning. It could then blaze again as fires raged in the dry valleys.
I first thought of this place as a mountain paradise. But that’s not quite what I found, was it? This place was a land without law, without mercy and heavy on judgment. A place that the rest of the world had abandoned. Maybe there was a reason for it. Maybe places that the world had left behind should be left alone. Perhaps you shouldn’t go digging where you didn’t want to find the body.”
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 