Book Your Stocking 2023 with Julia Drescher

On this year's Book Your Stocking, readers are sharing children's books from their past or present. Perhaps you'll stumble upon books you remember reading or somehow missed. Should the book find its way into a stocking near you, all the better.

Please welcome today's avid reader, Julia Drescher.

🎄📚

Both a Dress and Not a Dress

by Julia Drescher

My favorite book in elementary school was The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. When I was a kid, I suppose I was attracted to books that were sad with a tinge of a small, lonely triumph. I loved the fact that the main character did not have 100 dresses & very much did have 100 dresses, & I loved that they were an art project & not the "actual" things that would've helped her socially. Later, when I was made to go to church, I think this book led me to sit in the pew with a small spiral notebook & design/illustrate lots of fashion garments for the Virgin Mary statue at the front of the church. It was a lovely way to spend the time.

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About Julia Drescher: Julia is a poet, writer, editor, and librarian living in Colorado. Learn about her projects here: 

http://www.furtherotherbookworks.com

http://deletepress.org/julia-drescher/

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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🠊 More Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle 

Ann Tweedy reads Erin Pringle's Unexpected Weather Events

You've likely heard me read a number of poems by Ann Tweedy on Wake to Words. I happily met her work when we read together at a Hugo House reading, and the two of us later read at Last Word Books in Olympia, WA. Now she lives in the Dakotas, so I'll need to make a trek out there to read with her again. One of the best parts of our writership or frienwrit is the support we give each other's work. Although it's not typical for fiction writers to have poets blurb their books, I'm not typical and neither is Ann. So, when I asked if she'd read Unexpected Weather Events and blurb it, she said yes. I had no idea, of course, that she would write something as beautiful as this, and I'm absolutely honored and humbled. Because Ann Tweedy tells the truth, make no mistake.

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Ann Tweedy, on 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

Pandemic Meditations: 6 Months, a Meditation by Walter Moore

Dear Reader:

It has been only a week since our last shared meditation, and of course, the pandemic continues. Now, the current president (& co.) has received his own dose of the virus, and thousands more in this country have died. 

Last night, I had a nightmare that my six-year-old was diagnosed with COVID--we rushed him to the nearest hospital, he was put on a coffin of a stretcher and wheeled away. We later met him upstairs, and he was wheeled into our view, alive, and the doctor said he was fine, and we grasped each other and him with relief, then seconds later, he died. 

I knew, in the dream, what I had read about more impoverished hospitals, and the barriers those doctors/staff/patients faced with COVID in comparison to more affluent hospitals that had, of course, better outcomes (more people leaving alive than not). And in the dream, I was so angry that we had wound up at that kind of hospital, just by luck of geography. The staff didn't wear masks (because there were none), and while they said my fever was 112 my test returned negative. 

But 112, I said. 

Yes, they said. 

And then I had to call my mother to tell her that her grandson was dead. It was 3 AM her time, and after I told her, she said, I don't believe you--you're lying--it's all a hoax!

The nightmare continued. The grief was utterly immense, intense, and exactly as it would be were it not a dream.

I guess there's one thing the pandemic can't take from me--and that's my nightly nightmares.

So, here we are, readers, friends, onlookers. We are now into our second week of October and moving deeper into the list of artists joining Pandemic Meditations, a weekly series of reflections by artists who speak to the pandemic--in whatever way, form, or style that may take.

Today, poet Walter Moore shares his.

~E.P.

😷

6 Months, a Meditation

by Walter Moore

The Peacock, photo from The Corvallis Advocate

On March 20, 2020, I wrote this:

 

“Corona Diaries: Part X” a.k.a. “The Viral Twenties: Part 27” 

The season of spring was dark, and the sun was lonely as I walked this Oregon town dreaming of dadaists.

Squirrel’s was closed.

The Peacock: Closed.

Only me and a few skater rats and a handful of streetsleepers with face masks donned the sides of buildings; we walked in the middle of streets & red lights were laughable—but something serene about empty alleyways & no one shooting meth in the bathroom of the China Delight Bar. These were viral times . . . and I walked over the traintracks past a few tiny fraternity parties, a collection of cops at the Circle K, past empty parks and barren lots. It was almost midnight on Thursday during Finals Week in this college town—Thursday, what I call Little Friday—and hardly anyone was around. Not on campus nor downtown. A smattering of small groups of young people on a rooftop or in a neon living room, but that was all. Bars & restaurants closed, and all of the TVs were on in all of the houses.

So I walked, dreaming of those French Experimentalists and feeling the congested pain in my lungs. Twenty years of smoking things and my lungs were shot. Needed to quit, but damn if you can quit cigarettes during a crisis or national catastrophe. I couldn’t get healthy quick enough, but those cigarettes would be the last to go. Actually, joints of cannabis would be the last. After Prozac and coffee and ice cream and television.

I’ve never owned a Smart Phone, and I still drink beer.

The town was down. And I missed the bars, and I missed the people; I wanted to play pool or listen to bad renditions or hear a factually inaccurate story from a stranger, or maybe just not talk at all while observing the rest. No—there was no motion . . . there was no town, only scared & distracted individuals and small gatherings of young escape artists I could never be a part of. It would be too risky to co-mingle fluids, even if it’s exotic Oregon craft beer, with younger people during this thing. I was middle-aged with shitty lungs and a compromised immune system, The Virus having relegated me to some strange shadow status . . . so I walked at night when even fewer people were moving in this sad sparse bizarro world.

Some things did happen though . . . a man was snoring on the sidewalk with a blue sleeping bag and a mask . . . those three skater rats walked over a bridge in black t-shirt glory . . . a woman yelled out to me from a balcony . . . over a half dozen cars lined up diligently outside McDonald’s . . . those cops arrested some guy by that Circle K . . .

But of course the churches were closed, the schools were empty—the liquor stores and laundry mats and diners and hair salons all closed. My record store: Closed. My coffee shop: Closed indefinitely . . . with no community in sight. I was hoping on the side of The Best but preparing for That Worst . . . you know the hideous visions of rioting & looting and a depression worse than that Great One and the loss of millions of jobs with thousands starving and dying, or worse . . . you know the descension of the American Empire by the likes of which we had never seen before.

My heart had closed too to the betrayal of spring.

( . . . & sad dreams of the United States were drifting . . . )

At least I had cigarettes (and a dog & wife who loved me). Very lucky, believe me, I know, to be semi-healthy with a job and some cash after midnight on Little Friday.

Stay safe, everyone. Drink slowly, and try to sleep in if you can. Don’t forget to check in with your neighbors.

HI, HOW ARE YOU.

I love you THIS much.

*

 It’s now six months later, and my sweet friend Erin has asked me for a meditation on Covid.

 Well, nothing has changed. Or everything has changed. I only hope I have imagined all of it. That 2020 is my fault, my bad dream. I’ll take the blame. Put it on my back if it makes you feel better. I’ll never go to sleep again. I’ll never walk at night again.

God forgive me.

God, forgive all of us. We know what we have done. We knew.

We know what we have done.

That is the darker truth. The lighter truth or slightly less dark truth is that I went remote in late March, became a recluse, and was a nervous wreck through April. In May I got my shit together, started regularly exercising outside.

In June and July, back to reclusiveness, I was high on marijuana and drunk off beer every waking second of the day. In August, I dried out, lost my brain chemicals, drove out to the desert, and slit my wrist & lay in a bathtub—not to actually die but to feel physical pain and see my own blood mesh with water.

In September, more of my brain chemicals replenished, I still no longer smoke marijuana or cigarettes; I don’t drink alcohol. And I can barely watch the news. Yet I am healthier. I meditate and exercise daily and tell my wife I love her. My dog licks me constantly.

What do I miss about the pre-Covid days? Seeing all of you in person. Most things, really.

I love you THAT much.

And, yes, How are you? 

But make no mistake. This Trump cult feels terrifyingly real. A lot of it crippling. I fear some kind of violent revolt in November, maybe a civil war by Christmas, a sad “reconstruction” in 2021.

After that, maybe tubes in outer space . . .

God forgive us.

God . . . 

GOODBYE, don’t ask?

❤

Dr. Walter Moore teaches in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University. His book of poems, my lungs are a dive bar was released by EMP Books in 2019, and his novel The Phalanx of Houston will be released later in 2020. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with wife Erica and dog Lloyd. Learn more about Walter and his work at https://www.waltermoorepoems.com/

Walter Moore, photo by Erica Fischer 
(used with permission)

❤ Read more Pandemic Meditations here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/pandemic-meditations-series.html

"People as stories performing like poems": Poet Julia Drescher Reviews Hezada! I Miss You

Julia Drescher

Words by Julia Drescher on Hezada! I Miss You

Here are just a few of the various nostalgias that we live with & work through that Hezada! I Miss You asks us to attend to: the frequently brutal nostalgias for a past we believe to be better than the present ; the nostalgias for what we are supposed to desire ; & the hopeful nostalgias (that break the heart too often) for a future where we are loved (& so accepted) for who we are.

Here is a book that gives in novel form—people as stories performing like poems (“Where did your death come from?”) Where language is velocity & mass whereby the turn of phrase is the continually changing way people fall into or out of collective speech, demonstrating how our vulnerabilities to each other can transform into our feeling with others.

Here, as readers, we are asked to attend to the cruelties (banal or otherwise) that we perform when we insist on reading people or towns or countries or times as contained, as only one thing. Which is to say the meanings we make to make ourselves feel like we have “a place in this world.” Too, the profound grief when making these meanings will no longer do—when what we think it means to have a place in this world might be the very thing that undoes us, that guts us.

Here is the circus as the representation of this crisis & the attempt to perform that crisis’ relief (if only for human beings).

Here is a story reminding us of what we forgot we knew: that the wonderful, the devastating, often walk this world wearing the same shoes.

Here in this book in your hands right now.

🐘

This is the story of how Julia Drescher came to read Hezada!

Or, how I came to befriend her

(by Erin)

Though I've not been a smoker for six years, some of my best friendships came from that aspect of my life. 

Julia Drescher and I used to smoke cigarettes between teaching classes at Flowers Hall on the Texas State University campus. We were adjuncts, knew it, and met in our rain boots and confusion as to how we came to be at this point of our lives. 

During one smoke break, she brought me examples of the journal she and her husband Chris had put together and she had stitched on her sewing machine. 

On another smoke break, she brought a glossy proof of the volume she'd put together with Chris, this time of deletion poems. I'd never seen a deletion poem before. I'd never met anyone like Julia before.

Another smoke break, she carried a handful of thesis statements.

Her ideas about whales.

News about moving to a different apartment.

Advice for her sister, but that I took to heart, about walking at night with 9-1-1 dialed into your phone so that all you have to do is push a button.

News that people were stealing political signs out of her parents' front yard.

Texas, she'd sigh. Then roll her eyes, which she can do without doing it. That's how wry yet calm her face can be.

She imparted wisdom about poetry readings. Have you ever gone to a house poetry reading? she wanted to know. I hadn't. She nodded. They look at your books, she said. It's a thing poets do. They wander around looking at your bookshelves. They expect to see their books there, too. She nodded as wise people do, as though to punctuate and assure at the same time. Ever since then, I wander my own house, wondering what poets would think of my books--if my selections would offend, irritate, bore.

In retrospect, I couldn't have stopped smoking in those years because it was the only way I knew how to keep seeing Julia Drescher. I'd drop by her office. She'd appear in mine. 

You ready? she'd say. 

Want one? I'd say.

Our offices flanked the entrance, hidden away by beautiful blue tile. The tiles were beautiful, so much so. But it's hard to tell the truth about anything around such tile.

So there we'd be, meeting on the low brick wall that runs outside by the stairs. 

We watched Lyndon B. Johnson appear, after many curious stages of his creation, from a pedestal to orange cones, and then, him, reaching out.

We were there when a group of students kicking hacky-sack appeared every day at the same time for a full semester.

We were there and there and there, trying to figure out where else we could be. We'd gone through the MFA program at the same time, but she was in poetry, and I was in fiction, and so we might as well have been on opposite sides of the country as far as shared events or shared classes went. The only class I had with her was the one to prepare us to teach 101. She taught me (the class) not to erase the chalkboard side to side. She demonstrated by erasing with one hand, pointing at her bottom with the other, then pointing at the invisible students who watched, amused or horrified. 

Erase vertically, she said. 

We laughed.

She smiled.

But I erased as she said, and would for the next thirteen years of my teaching career, from Texas State to Spokane Falls Community College.

Now she's in Colorado. I'm in Washington. Sometimes, a package will suddenly appear in my mailbox from her. A bookmark she's made. A collage-painting. A chapbook.

Now and then we'll exchange an email.

She wrote for the Summer Library Series (here); she wrote for the Book Your Stocking (here and here); I interviewed her about her newest book, Open Epic (here).

I asked if she'd review Hezada! I Miss You. 

She said she'd give it a go.

When she sent me the email with her words in it, I cried. 

Poets. 

Poets know your mind better than you think anyone will.

That is the danger and importance of poets.

That is Julia Drescher. 

And this is why I wanted to share her thoughts on Hezada! on this day, the day Awst Press officially releases into the world.

• Order her poetry book Open Epic here: https://deletepress.org/julia-drescher/
• Learn about the press she runs with CJ Martin, Further Other Book Works: https://furtherotherbookworks.com/
• Read a sample of her work at likestarlings: http://www.likestarlings.com/author/juliadrescher/

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(P.S. If you are reading this on February 9, 2020, I hope to see you at the celebration of Hezada! today at 2 PM at Washington Cracker Building, 304 W. Pacific, Spokane.)

"A tale about magic, about longing, about the crushing weight of dreams": Ann Tweedy on Hezada! I Miss You

"Pringle’s writing is lush and poetic.  Her weaving together of her characters’ disparate lives is nothing short of masterful.  In sentences sprinkled with unexpected metaphor, Pringle deftly renders this heartbreaking story of the meager and sometimes desperate lives of the residents of a rural Midwestern town, lives inextricably tied—through imagination, excitement, and, in some cases, blood itself—to the circus that visits every summer.  Readers will empathize and identify with Heza and Abe, the quirky and wise ten-year-old twins at the heart of the story, siblings who, like their single mother Kae, don’t quite fit in here and yet may not be able to escape.  The lives of Pringle’s characters are freighted with tragedy and sorrow and yet what am I most struck by is the love and compassion delivered when the protagonists most need it by unlikely strangers and acquaintances.  This is a tale about magic, about longing, about the sometimes crushing weight of dreams.  About the flashes of excitement that keep us alive." 
 

— Ann Tweedy, author of The Body's Alphabet 

🐘

Ann Tweedy

This is the story of how Ann Tweedy came to read Hezada! I Miss You, which is also the story of how I met her.

The Hugo House had a good idea to have Washington writers read. I was one of them. As I'm from Illinois, and will celebrate only my tenth anniversary of living in Washington, I was excited to learn about who these Washington writers would be and what they were like. Ann was one of them. And as it happens when excellent poets walk up to a microphone and begin to speak, I felt chills. The urge to lean forward. The wish that she would see me listening.

I felt too shy to talk to her, and she seemed enveloped by a similar feeling. My friend Walt had come to the reading, and we were standing near the front door and the rainy sidewalk as Ann left. Walt told her he liked her poetry. Walt's a poet. Walt has no concerns about speaking, or saying lovely words to strangers like, Good poetry. Or I enjoyed your poetry. Whatever it was he said in an easy way. 

Ann said thank you and walked into the rain. 

Like anyone who is better at written words than out-loud words, I messaged her online. Later, she would write a piece for the Book Your Stocking Series (read here). 

I would imagine renovating my backyard into a reading space and having Ann come read under strings of bulb lights, amidst lawn chairs of kind people and warm summer air. I have yet to do that. I still imagine it.

Ann, however, used reality, and organized a reading for us at Last Word Books in Olympia, WA. It was an intimate reading, filled with Ann's friends, and we had a wonderful, thoughtful conversation afterward. One of their group had died suddenly and recently, and we spoke of grief and friendship. It was like a temporary living room had been created among the books, and we sat together in it while the rain went on outside.

And although it is not typical for a novelist to ask a poet to blurb her work, I did. And she said yes.

You can listen to Ann read here:

• Learn more about Ann at her website: http://anntweedy.com/
• Purchase her book of poetry, The Body's Alphabet
• Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ann.tweedy.5

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2018 Summer Library Series: Library Time by Rachel King

Welcome back to the 2018 Summer Library Series in which writers remember their childhood libraries. This week's writer hails from Portland and shares the kind of magic that only you, dear reader, would know of. Please enjoy this week's reflection.

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Hillsdale Branch Library,
an earlier version of itself

Library Time

by 
Rachel King

I grew up near the Hillsdale branch of the Multnomah County Library system in Portland, Oregon. Based on the fact that my parents were readers, and that Multnomah County Library items are checked out at four times the rate of the national average, it’s not surprising that I received a library card as soon as I could write my name.

I remember the tire swing in the park across the street from the library where my siblings and I pushed each other until we felt like vomiting; the kind and reserved children’s librarian who for some reason let us show our rabbits as an extension of the summer reading program; the day at age eight that I walked toward the children’s section on the back wall of the library, saw a book on the second-to-bottom shelf, and my life changed. The book was Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.

I don’t remember where I read it: maybe in a clearing between bushes at the back of the library park, maybe in the magnolia tree in my parents’ side yard, maybe on my bed on the top bunk, probably in the blue recliner in the living room where I tuned out family noise to focus on the written word.

Rachel King reading as a younger version of herself

I do remember I cried while reading the final paragraphs. As Cassie says, “I cried for things which had happened in the night and would not pass. I cried for T.J. For T.J. and the land.” It was the first book over which I cried, and I don’t cry over much. If a book could get me to see these characters and this place so clearly, then books were magic. And I’ve never stopped thinking that.

After childhood came the Knight Library at the University of Oregon, where I practiced conjugating Russian verbs on a study room blackboard; the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, where I checked out dozens of books at a time, which I read in between working various jobs and trying, for the first time, to write seriously; the Wise Library at West Virginia University, where I found amazing poets while shelving books in an empty, elegant Robinson Reading Room at midnight or one a.m.; the Louisville Public Library, where I used the free internet once a week to talk to my friend on Skype; my current local library, the Midland branch, where I go to check out New York Review of Books Classics and browse Russian books and DVDs; the Oregon City Public Library—my mom’s childhood library—where now, as an on-call library assistant, I help patrons.

When I moved back to Portland, I went to the Hillsdale library. The old library building had been demolished, and replaced with a larger one on the same site. But inside was the same children’s librarian from my childhood, and to me, she looked no differently. And most importantly, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry was still on the shelf, for another generation to discover.

Hillsdale Branch Library as its newer self

📖

Rachel King,
photo used with permission

Today's library writer:

Rachel King is a writer and editor who lives in her hometown, Portland, Oregon. Her stories have most recently appeared in One Story and Flyway; her poetry chapbook Between Work and Light is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Learn more about her work at www.booksrachelking.com

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Continue enjoying reflections from the Summer Library Series: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/summer-library-series.html

A Reading and Conversation with Ann Tweedy and Erin Pringle in Olympia, Washington

Did you know that there's a highly expected chance of rain showers in Olympia, Washington this Friday?

It's true.

So, I think, What better way to spend a rainy evening than at Last Word Books listening to Ann Tweedy read poetry and then discuss, with me, language, the body, grief, memory, and identity? I'll be reading, too.

I think rain and a bookstore will be lovely. And I look forward to the sounds meeting.

Last Word Books

111 Cherry St. NE

Olympia, WA

Friday, March 23, 2018

7-8:30 PM

Free and open to the public

Erin Pringle

Ann Tweedy

Last Word Books, 111 Cherry St. NE, Olympia,WA

Click: Event page on Facebook

Book Your Stocking with Maya Jewell Zeller

Book Your Stocking: December 24

Christmas Eve!! That's what today is, and Book Your Stocking sweeps in again to save your day, especially if you're a last-minute book-buyer and this is your last minute.

Please welcome Maya Jewell Zeller who is sharing her reading wishlists and giving lists.

📚🎄

Wishlist

White Blight, by Athena Farrokhzad; translated by Jennifer Hayashida

The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz; translated by Celina Wieniewska 

The Undertaker's Daughter, Toi Derracotte

The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson (first woman-translated edition of The Odyssey)

 

Giving list 

Soup for Breakfast, Calef Brown

Book of Exodus, Kathryn Smith

Patterns and In Between, both by Mita Mahato

There are More Beautiful Things than Beyonce, Morgan Parker

📚🎄

Maya Jewell Zeller,
photograph by Ellie Kozlowski
(used with permission)

About today's reader:

Maya Jewell Zeller is the author of Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts (a collaboration with visual artist Carrie DeBacker); Yesterday, the Bees; and Rust Fish. She teaches poetry and poetics for Central Washington University, and lives in the Inland Northwest with her family.

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Check out more recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors: 

http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html