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website of Erin Pringle
writer of fictions,
tender of small fires,
dreamer born out of the Midwest
Monday, October 2, 2023
Unexpected Weather Events on Spokane's KPBX, Arts (P)review
Sunday, October 1, 2023
How did that book release party go, Erin Pringle? Very well, thank you!
“Reading Unexpected Weather Events is like looking into a snow so mesmerizing and crystalline you are unable to turn away, at once illuminated and profoundly lost. They are stories of winter madness—troubling, tender, and hallucinatory—stories of connection and misconnection, of love and grief and isolation in the increasingly dangerous and tenuous reality of our contemporary condition.” — Polly Buckingham, author of The Expense of a View and The River People
Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (October 1, 2023)
Poems:
- Night Letter by Diane Thiel (from her book Resistance Fantasies)
- Under Stars by Tess Gallagher (from her book Under Stars)
- Ghosts by Jack Gilbert (grime his book The Great Fires)
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Sunday, September 24, 2023
Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle--now listed on Small Press Distribution (SPD)
If you have a favorite bookstore, please let them know about Unexpected Weather Events. The book is now up on the distributor website, which is where they’ll hunt it down:
https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781736765968/unexpected-weather-events.aspx
Your conversation might go like this:
You (approaching book counter): Oh my goodness I can’t find my favorite writer’s newest book on your shelves!! (Hands to cheeks for emphasis and bewilderment.)
Bookseller: Gracious me! How can that be? Let me help you. What’s his name?
You: Her name is Erin Pringle.
Bookseller: Thinking then typing.
You: Pringle like the potato chip.
Bookseller: Backspacing. More typing. Hmm. I can order it for you. It retails at $25.
You: Great! I’d much prefer to order it through your store than through [insert infamous online bookstore and seller of everything else].
Bookseller: Thanks so much for your support!
You: I remember when a paperback cost 1.25.
Bookseller: Or even 5.99.
You: But bread was 10 cents.
Bookseller: And gasoline 99 cents/gallon.
You: My mother quit smoking when a pack cost 50 cents. Too rich for my blood, she said.
Bookseller: Nodding.
You: Thanks again for keeping culturally important spaces in the community.
Bookseller: Thanks for reading!
You and Bookseller start to dance together among the aisles, and others join.
(Curtain)
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Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (9/24/23)
Today I'm reading Anne Sexton's poem "The Maiden Without Hands" from her collection Transformations.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Twelve Days Until Book Release: The Countdown Begins
Today begins the official twelve-day countdown to the book release party for my newest story collection Unexpected Weather Events. And so I bring to you 12 blow-mold snowmen, as one of the stories in the new collection features two snowmen decorations that have been in the story's family for several generations:
- More information about the reading here: https://spokanelibrary.libnet.info/event/9066628
- Unable to attend? Reserve a copy from the press, and it will appear in your mailbox soon! https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
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Sunday, September 10, 2023
Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee 9/10/23
Poems:
- To be of use by Marge Piercy (from Poetry Foundation)
- September, 1918 by Amy Lowell (from Poetry Foundation)
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Sunday, August 27, 2023
Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (8/27/23)
- What is This Air Changing, This Warm Aura, These Threads of Air Vibrating Rows of People by Ariel Yelen (from Poetry/March 2022)
- Contentment by Rüştü Onur, trans by Hüseyin Alhas and Ulaş Özgün (from Poetry/March 2022)
- A Great Nowhere by Öykü Tekten (from Poetry/April 2022)
- Tablets VI by Dunya Mikhail (from Poetry/April 2022)
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Saturday, August 26, 2023
Unexpected Book Events: Release Party at Shadle Library, Spokane
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Shadle Library Event Room |
Like a perfectly created conference room without stuffy carpet or generically interesting art, the large event room in Shadle Library looks more like a modernist theatre, but with floor-to-ceiling windows that look out into the surrounding park.
- Reserve your copy of Unexpected Weather Events from Awst Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
- Plan to attend the book release party on October 1st, Shadle Library at 2 PM
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Sharma Shields on Unexpected Weather Events: "Nostalgia falls here like snow, death like a lightning strike"
- Reserve your copy of Unexpected Weather Events from Awst Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
- Plan to attend the book release party on October 1st at Shadle Library, 2 PM
Monday, August 21, 2023
Yes, You Should Read The Full House and the Empty House by LK James
Yes, You Will Enjoy The Full House and the Empty House by LK James
- Learn more about LK James at her artist website: https://www.lkjames.com/
- The Full House and the Empty House is published by Ripple Grove Press. Book available at their website (among others): http://www.ripplegrovepress.com/the-full-house-and-the-empty-house
Sunday, August 20, 2023
Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (August 20, 2023)
Today's poems are both by Tony Hoagland from his book Donkey Gospel.
- Hearing Aid as Memory
- Arrows
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Saturday, August 19, 2023
Unexpected Weather Events on KYRS with Neal and Erin
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KYRS's Neal and Erin |
So, when I knew my next book was slated for publication, I sent him the manuscript, and he asked when we should do the interview. Neal continues to volunteer at KYRS, hosting a weekly music show, and helping in the recent relocation of the station from the community building to the newly renovated central library.
I had not seen the new studio yet, and it's much shinier than the former studio with its exposed brick walls, ghostly sightings, and long history. It's probably not even worth comparing the spaces, in the same way one gets nowhere comparing a vintage store to Target.
In its new location, the station's accessibility has allowed it to take on an even more present community presence, as it now functions as a gateway for locals to learn about broadcasting, use the attached studios for recording, and other outreach opportunities. Whereas before, a code was needed to enter the door to the three flights of stairs to the studio, now you can simply walk into the library, go to the third floor, and sit outside the glass window and watch a radio show in progress.
Today was my first interview about Unexpected Weather Events, and I'm lucky that it was with Neal since we have a flow to our conversation that makes for a good practice for future interviews. I'm also thankful to have such a good reader in Neal, for it's always different talking with someone who has read your writing and who enjoys reading, too.
We had an interesting conversation about houses and their function in my stories, I read one story aloud ("A Game of Telephone"), and we deliberated over the dread that comes into every story fairly early.
I hope that you had a chance to tune in and that you've marked your calendar to attend the book release on October 1st at Shadle Library, 2 PM.
(The show aired live and a recording will be available in the future. I'll post that when the time comes.)
In sum, the new book was a good excuse to get together with Neal, the new KYRS studio is shiny and bright, we enjoyed a coffee at Atticus afterward, and we may return to the studio sooner than later, as a new radio series could be in the works.
Stay tuned.
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- Stream KYRS shows no matter your location at their website: kyrs.org
- Listen locally by turning your radio dial to 88.1/92.3 FM, Medical Lake/Spokane
- Reserve your copy of Unexpected Weather Events from Awst Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
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Inside the KYRS studio, photo by Erin Pringle |
Sunday, August 13, 2023
Reading The Member of the Wedding on Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (8/13/23)
Yes, You Should Absolutely Read The Member of the Wedding
Unlike all the other Sundays, today I'm reading prose because I find myself away from home and poetry. Please enjoy the beginning of Carson McCullers' novella, The Member of the Wedding. It's an absolutely fantastic book that I began a few weeks ago and quickly devoured. If you haven't read it, I hope that this serves as a gateway into the full book. It is definitely one of the best books I've ever read and one that I'll return to. The writing is thick and smart, wry and hilarious, deeply observant and packed with pitch-perfect sentences.
The story takes place in the mid-century South and follows Frankie, a twelve-year old girl walking the tightrope into adulthood and the grim reality of such a balancing act. She lives with her widower father and spends her time with her younger cousin John Henry and her nanny/house-help Berenice. Frankie is finding herself less drawn to pastimes that used to take her whole summer, such as digging a swimming hole with neighborhood children or putting on shows in the back yard.
Like Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankie is more interested in throwing knives than playing dolls, but as an older version of Scout, she's becoming more curious about the larger world, her place in it, and the town she's grown up in. When she learns that her eldest brother is to be married, she starts fantasizing about becoming a family with he and his bride after the wedding--despite receiving no invitation or even a gesture toward it. She decides that this will be her way out of town forever and into the world and goes about dreaming the dream until she has convinced herself of its truth in her attempts to convince others.
She begins to experience the town and her home as though she will never return, and like the childhood she is leaving behind, she starts to feel both the loss and the excitement of living a different version of her life than she has until now.
Evidently, the novella became a movie only a few years after its 1946 publication (and again 50 years later), and was one of McCullers' best known or most heralded works--aside from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
I so very much wish that I'd read McCullers before now, but I'm so happy and grateful to read her work now that I've cracked it open. Much like my experience first reading Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, I reveled in the discovery of every sentence and scene. McCullers is amazing. From the way she designs the telling of the story to her observations about the characters to the vivid, perfect details (from John Henry's quiet perfectionism to Berenice's blue glass eye and stories of her deceased husband to Frankie's meticulous pantomime pretending to be a jeweler in her father's store window).
It's on-point, as the kids say. (Do they still say that?)
Do yourself or your book-loving friend a favor and find a copy of The Member of the Wedding.
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Thursday, August 10, 2023
Unexpected Weather Events: New Stories by Erin Pringle
- Hometown Reading and Book Signing
- 2:00 PM (Central Time)
- Casey Township Library (307 E. Main)
- Teaser Reading for Pre-ordering Unexpected Weather Events
- 9:00 AM (Pacific Time)
- Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/1011613133194272
- Book Release Party for Unexpected Weather Events
- 2:00 PM
- Shadle Library (2111 W. Wellesley Ave.)
- Reading and book signing
- 7:00 PM
- Fact and Fiction Books (220 North Higgins, Missoula, MT)
- Reading with Rachel King
- 7:00 PM
- Annie Bloom's Books (7834 SW Capitol Hwy.)
- Reading with Rachel King
- Time TBA
- Last Word Books and Press (501 E. 4th Avenue East)
- Rendezvous with a Writer Out West
- 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)
- Tune into L.A. Talk Radio
- Now booking for Unexpected Weather Events Book Tour!
- For event updates, follow my author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle/
- I'm always happy to visit book clubs at their virtual meetings or if I'm near the physical location
- Contact me for more information regarding speaking engagements, appearances, and book signings: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/contact-her_12.html
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
Mczyzniejewski on The Whole World at Once: "Pringle writes haunting, stark narratives that send her characters out to investigate"
My time with Erin Pringle’s stories in The Whole World at Once was well spent. Pringle writes haunting, stark narratives that send her characters out to investigate what they can’t understand, be it a snowy ravine, the death of another, or the imminent death of the self. Curiosity is a solid trigger for any story, and Pringle handles her sleuths with an adept hand, getting close enough to look over their shoulder, though not close enough that we know their names. Mortality, and their existential relationship with it, makes for some tremendous pondering. - Michael Mczyzniejewski from his review of The Whole World at OnceI'm not sure how I missed sharing this wonderful review of The Whole World at Once, my last collection of stories. This review came out in 2020, three years after the book's publication and a few months after my novel Hezada! I Miss You was published (which corresponded with the pandemic).
I remember reading the review and messaging Michael about it. I maybe even promised to send him a copy of Hezada! but I don't think I did. I guess that was the way of life back then. Covid affecting our physical environments led to a shift in how we stored our memories. Or how I did, anyway.
Regardless, he said some super awesome words about the stories, and it's damn fine luck when your book falls into the hands of someone who can spin such words and wants to.
It's easy to forget that writing a book is for someone to read--to absorb the feelings and thoughts that you carefully created over so many hours and years and find the experience worthwhile in a way that affirms both your experiences of reality.
Now it's three years since he posted his review, and I'm back at the point of marketing a new book of stories (Unexpected Weather Events); I'm at the Sisyphus part--at the bottom of the hill, pushing the ten-ton boulder called Publicity up Nobody-Cares hill, yelling about it every step so that readers will emerge from hiding and start whisking the book away. If I'm lucky, a reader will find these new stories worthwhile, too. It's a magnificent bonus when awesome words appear a few years later.
- Read Mczyzniejewski's full review of The Whole World at Once here: https://story366blog.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/may-6-2020-the-lightning-tree-by-erin-pringle/
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Tuesday, August 8, 2023
Ann Tweedy reads Erin Pringle's Unexpected Weather Events
In prose rich in metaphor, Pringle masterfully and hauntingly narrates the interior lives of children and adults facing life’s greatest struggles. Pringle’s characters are inspiring and courageous as they encounter unthinkable catastrophes.
In these stories, we see from the eyes of children watching a parent die from cancer, witnessing a parent’s ongoing struggle with mental illness and the debilitating effects of medication, and experiencing a holocaust-like mass killing of residents in their town. We see adult characters who escaped horrific childhoods question the viability of their own happy lives to the point that everything begins to crumble.
Pringle’s stories deftly and unsentimentally address heartbreaking and sometimes taboo topics like the grief of miscarriage and the destructive force of homophobia. Often, the lines between reality and delusion blur, and the reader becomes unnervingly ensnared in the protagonist’s confusion.
Many of the stories are quintessentially Midwestern, infused with wide cornfields and an ethos of practicality and personal limitation that is brought into stark relief by Pringle’s uncritical presentation. Pringle’s many gifts as a writer are in full force here. Particularly striking is Pringle’s ability to powerfully and convincingly evoke a child’s point of view. As always, Pringle’s work will break you open and at the same time fortify you.
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- Visit Ann Tweedy's website: http://anntweedy.com/poet/
- Order Unexpected Weather Events: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
Monday, August 7, 2023
Yes, you should read Lord of the Flies by William Golding (even if you've lived under a rock for the past 50 years)
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Upon finishing Lord of the Flies, barefooted |
A few years ago, I bought this copy of Lord of the Flies in one of those weak moments in a bookstore when you find yourself at a display shelf of new covers on old books, and decide that yes, you need this book, despite the fact that you can locate it in every library and used bookstore in the same city.
(I somehow missed every class and professor who assigned this book, yet found myself reading The Great Gatsby three or four times. This is neither here nor there but simply the power-ball situation that is syllabi book lists.)
And this week, I finally read it. The book has saturated our culture to the point that nothing was surprising about the story or its pointed questioning of the world. When left to our own devices, child or adult, will some kind of internal, ethical compass save us from our human desire for power? What in us gravitates toward reasoning, democracy, and community? What external forces prevent us from descending into an irrational death spiral in which we take out anyone who seems weak as a way to solidify the group?
The answer in Lord of the Flies is that a few people will have an ethical, well-meaning compass and follow it, no matter the cost to themselves, but for the most part, everyone else will kill you first and worry about it later, if at all.
It was, of course, novel for Golding to situate such questions within the world of children; much of the story's horror comes from the collision of the murderous adult world with the idealized perception of children as innately good, prone to kindness, and perfectly innocent.
Lord of the Flies begins with a plane crash on a remote island, with a couple dozen surviving children--perhaps members of a church or boys' choir. No adults survive the crash, and so the remaining children eventually gather, begin trying to create a livable situation and tend an ever-burning fire such that a nearby ship might see and come rescue them.
All manner of books and stories have since explored the same theme and questions. Most popularly, the Hunger Games series, any number of Stephen King books (e.g., The Running Man or The Long Walk), the well-known story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, and innumerable others.
This isn't to say that writers should stop exploring the human heart, its drive to be all-powerful and revered, or how murder and war are a terrifying cycle from which no one can seemingly save us, child or adult. Unlike fire putting out fire, war does not seem to put out war.
What I do think is that Lord of the Flies is a well-told story, but it will not shake anyone to the core now that we live in a world where children shoot each other in schools, roadsides, and homes. Where children bully each other online until the bullied child dies by suicide. Where children haze each other until someone accidently dies, and everyone feigns surprise. Where adults with guns barge through schools, malls, concerts, parades, and movie theaters. Where we can daily find images, should we choose to search--of dead immigrant children washed onto beaches, drowned with their parents, or if by luck, starving into a slow death. Children left in pieces in bombed cities or left to live, blind and torn apart by landmines left over from old wars.
In Lord of the Flies, the children elect one of the older children, Ralph, to be the leader. The children talk about themselves as tribes and savages. There's another kid who wanted to be leader, and eventually, that desire for power leads to the mayhem and murder that come toward the end of the book. Early on, the children go about the business of creating a mirror of what they know: shelter, food-finding, a democracy in which every child is allowed to speak as long as he's holding the beautiful conch shell. Later, once the child who yearned to be leader successfully kills a wild pig with the help of others, the monstrosity of the killing starts the slow plunge toward anyone now being seen as nothing more than a wild pig--or less than, since the children who later die serve no purpose other than to terrify the others into following the new leader/tyrant.
Here are some reasons to read it:
- Everyone else has read it, so you ought to read it in order to understand how deeply the book has permeated the culture;
- It will shed some light on the era of its publication, and the concerns that come out of WWII and the Holocaust;
- You'll be reminded of how saturated our lives are with murder and death, such that this book does not feel full of terror as it must have many decades ago;
- Should the book-banners remember this book exists, it will be banned again, and one ought to know what others find worth censoring (I just learned that it's one of the top ten most challenged/censored books);
- To have an uninterrupted time dwelling on why people form groups and how that can go terribly wrong with the leader who takes power;
- The scene wherein you learn why the book has its title and then dwelling on that and its implications regarding the children;
- Perhaps you are a teacher and need to assign a book like Hunger Games that will not be immediately challenged by parents. I'd think that this seventy-year old book will have slipped off the radar of the well-meaning censors. (But, if it's still in the top ten challenged, I clearly know little about any of that.) You will need to deal with the book's savage/civilized duality and the writer's implications that native people are representative of destruction while white people are inherently "civilized." That the story exists without girls, except for the off-stage mothers that the children yearn for, should be factored in when selecting it and be a topic of discussion. "The Lottery" would be a well-chosen companion reading.
Sunday, August 6, 2023
A Game of Telephone on Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (August 6, 2023)
Today is a departure from the usual poetry of Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee. I'll be reading the story "A Game of Telephone" from my forthcoming story collection Unexpected Weather Events. Reserve your copy now from Awst Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
This was recorded for a live Facebook event.
If you live in the Spokane area, I hope you can attend the book release EXTRAVAGANZA on October 1st, Shadle Park Library, 2-4 PM. You're absolutely invited.
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Friday, August 4, 2023
Read a Book in the Park: August 5, 2023
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Read a Book in the Park |
READ A BOOK IN THE PARK
I realized that as a writer, I can hardly fret over people buying but not reading my books if I myself have a difficult time reading books. Social media, true-crime podcasts, animals behaving hilariously on reels--all of these not only suck my time into the black hole of a quickly passing present, but also make it difficult for me to focus or transition to a concentrated activity that requires mental participation.
An idea was then born that seems silly when you first think about it: Read a book in the park. Together.
And so here we are. I'm officially inviting you to join me in Audubon Park tomorrow morning (Saturday, August 5) from 8-9 AM. We will read our books together--but silently, alone, and from our own blankets, hammocks, or other reading apparatus.
Bring the book you're reading or have been meaning to read.
Leave your cellphone in the car or at home. (Audio-bookers are encouraged to read a print book for this event.)
No book? No blanket? No worries. I will have both for borrowing--for all readers: infants to teens to those who crave Cormac McCarthy on a bright Saturday morning. Ha!
At the end of our hour of reading, we share what book we're reading or we don't. We pack up and move into the rest of our day, or we read for longer. The first time we gathered (and we've so far only gathered once), a reader remarked on the revolutionary nature of the event--how it felt like she was participating in a silent protest.
Yes. I want my brain back. I want books back. If you feel the same way, join us.
Then maybe we'll wind up reading in a park near you, and if you're not near us, I hope you read in your park.
- Saturday, August 5
- Audubon Park (Southeast side, closer to Northwest Blvd. than to Finch Elementary)
- 8:00-9:00 AM
- Free
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NOTE: More reading-in-a-park sessions have been scheduled. Our next one is Saturday, August 19 (same place and time). For updates, new reading meetups, or to share and enjoy pictures of books and parks, join the FB group Read a Book in the Park: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fusediversity
Erin Pringle talks writing with Spokane Public Library's THE HIVE
A few years ago when I had a writing residency at The Hive in Spokane, they interviewed me on the good old camera and microphone. I talk a little about my creation process, thoughts, and goals. Here's the result!
Thursday, August 3, 2023
October 19: UNEXPECTED WEATHER EVENTS in Missoula, Montana
Meet me in Missoula
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Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle from AWST Press (cover art by L.K. James) |
I'll be reading from my new book of stories, Unexpected Weather Events, at my favorite Montana bookstore, Fact and Fiction Books. I had a reading there for Hezada! I Miss You, and first met their acquaintance at a Montana Book Festival in 2017 for my last book of stories The Whole World at Once. I've always appreciated the friendliness and warmth of the staff, and have been extra pleased since the store was bought by Mara, who seemed to be the unofficial coordinator of the festival--if coordinating means knowing everything, answering every question, selling all the books, and directing confused writers to their events.
October 19
7 PM
220 N. Higgins Avenue
Have a BOOK-READING FRIEND in Montana?
Send them my way!
- Order Unexpected Weather Events from AWST Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/unexpected-weather-events
- Official release date October 1, 2023
Sunday, July 16, 2023
Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (July 16, 2023)
Poems:
- Waking at Night
- Cherishing What Isn’t
(Both by Jack Gilbert from his Collected Poems)
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Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Liz Rognes on Unexpected Weather Events: "These stories visit the tender space between the living and the dead"
“Erin Pringle crafts an immersive, vivid world where time can linger, sit down, or turn itself inside out as characters survive the beautiful complications and layers of their lives. These stories visit the tender space between the living and the dead, between right now and memory, between reality and dreams. There are ghosts and shadows and memories and forewarnings as the people inside these stories face the hardest parts of being human—climate change, cancer, suicide, war—while finding love and meaning in the sweet impermanence of safety.”
— Liz Rognes, singer/songwriter RED FLAGS and TOPOGRAPHIES
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