Category: Uncategorized

This is a book that will take up residence on my “keeper” shelf. From cover (bright and wild) to titles (intriguing) to memorable verse, Every Ravening Thing is a read that I’m happy to have taken a chance on. Consider some of this sampling of titles: “Poem for the parched,” “Star Pine” and “Space-time Tsunami.” The poetry is well-crafted and fresh, rife with imagery. The final poem, in perfect placement within the collection, is breathtaking. “To the Grandmothers” includes the epigraph, “Chernobyl, thirty years later” and contemplates the wild space abandoned by disaster and the “Old women with side gardens and jars / of moonshine alone in empty villages…” Each poem included here offers the reader and moment of surprise, if not more. Well worth the read!

Thank you to Poetry Editor Ashley Blake for including “Katie’s Cabin” in this handbound publication, Cartography.  Inside, a plethora of directional, wayfaring writings.  I love their note just inside a page or two:

If we could candy words, we’d eat them to bellyaches every afternoon.  We carry journals and collect chapbooks like Smaug ripping through a gold-sequin disco.  If we’re lucky enough to leave something behind that enriches the dialogue of writerly types around the world, so much the better.  Send us your stuff — we’ll only hoard it for a little while.

Whiskey Island Magazine is a literary magazine published by Cleveland State University. It is a biannual publication.  While I’ve never been to Cleveland, or really the surrounding area for that matter, I do love the description of place featured on the magazine’s homepage:

It is currently the site of a salt mine, the largest marina on the great lakes, and the last refuge of the Cleveland-invented, industry revolutionizing Hulett Ore Unloaders: city landmarks on their way toward extinction, see 1 or 2. A rich mythology of bootlegging on the island has been unavoidable, along with eponymous burgers at various area restaurants and an array of empty Canadian beer cans.

Whiskey Island (the land mass) is actually a peninsula and can be found at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. A distillery was built there in 1836, hence its name. The island has suffered multiple incarnations: it has been a dump, a US Coast Guard Station, a ship graveyard, and a predominantly Irish immigrant shanty town.

The journal has proven to be the perfect match for a poem I penned last summer for my traveling friend, Karen, titled “Men Who Serve You Coffee.”  Thank you to the editors of Whiskey Island Magazine for giving this one a home.

Much gratitude to Editor Terri Karsten for publishing two of my poems, “No Plot of Earth for Me” and “Top of the World Highway” in the anthology Lost and Found:  Tales of Things Gone Missing by Wagonbridge Press (Check out their Facebook page).  The work of 57 writers is gathered here, a healthy balance of prose and poetry.  Terri Karsten held a Facebook launch of the anthology, a great use of social media and opportunity for contributors and interested parties alike to share their thoughts on the collection and writing in general.    The anthology promises to be an engaging summer read!

Cirque is a journal committed to publishing the work of writers and artists from the North Pacific Rim.  That’s the formal description.  The more personal description is that twice a year it offers a reunion among writerly friends among its pages.  I have come to submit with intention work that I think long and hard about, that I revise over and again, because I know that when the final journal arrives in my mailbox, I’ll see in its table of contents mentors, UA faculty, peers, friends, current or former students, writers from Blue Canoe, etc.  There is always a familiar name and Cirque offers a window through which to see what folks have been up to in their writing pursuits.  If you click on the link, you, too, may recognize many familiar names, especially if you dig Alaska writers.

Long live this beautiful publication.  Its editors Mike Burwell and Sandy Kleven gift it with such vision. I thank them for publishing my poem, “Hygge and Sisu in 3 Parts.” My hard copy is scheduled to arrive Saturday and you bet I’m tracking it three times a day in hopes it may land early.

Goodreads Review

Loved it! Second only to Lende’s If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name. I actually bought this book four years ago during her book visit to Sitka. At the time I also bought copies for my mom and mother-in-law. Why it’s taken me so long to read? Don’t know, but I devoured it yesterday. I especially enjoyed the essays, “Be Sure Your Dog Walks You,” “Take the Kind of Happiness That Comes Your Way” and “Make It Shine.” The last is about Hilma, a woman I came to befriend during the summer I worked at the Halsingland Hotel in 1994. In fact, I so enjoyed this last essay, that I ran down to Old Harbor Books to pick up a copy for a friend who also knew Hilma that same summer. I think like many Southeast Alaska towns, Haines is very divided. The experience of living in these little towns can be quite individualized and personal. I wonder if Lende’s experience on the local assembly has in any way changed her views of living in Haines and look forward to her next book, whatever it might be. Such a unique walk in such a town – author of obituaries. Such an eye for what matters. I quite enjoyed this read.

Thank you to the editors of Little Dog Poetry for including two poems in the Spring 2019 issue:  “Diminishing Wind” and “Nebula.”  There is a sweet collection of poetry in this current issue.  And if interested in submitting work, their window opened today, May 15th.  You can check out their submission guidelines here.

Happy to publish “Now” in the pages of Snapdragon:  A Journal of Art & Healing.  There are so many things to appreciate about this journal.  First, its editorial board is organized by women writers, including Editor-in-Chief Jacinta V. White.  The journal’s explanation behind its name carries an exquisite link to the writing process.  From the website:

At its deepest level, the Snapdragon flower essence helps the soul to distinguish its use of creative forces — especially those which radiate from the lower energy centers, and those which are used for spoken word. 

Finally, I love that when you publish with Snapdragon, you get to supply the journal with the email address of a friend.  They’ll then send a copy of the journal not only to you, as writer, but also your friend.

PC: Rosalie Sanara Petrouske