It’s a Wrap!

After months (four to be exact) of work, sorting through and considering hundreds of submissions, sending out acceptances and declines (thank goodness for Submittable), asking for and recording permissions and adding contributors to my database, re-reading and arranging the book, creating a cover image (many thanks to Cynthia Yachtman for her art that graces the cover), sending out the proof copy, publishing the digital version here, answering hundreds of emails, re-reading and making edits and more, woodlands (Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, 2022) is finally ready!

This beautiful anthology includes the work of forty-nine writers and artists (we’ve included full-color art this time) from across the United States, Canada, and South America, most of whom are accomplished, seasoned writers.

The title poem and the concept for the book were generous gifts from Spirt Thom. His poem, 14 Ways to Stay Awake is the finale for the book. Many thanks, Thom!

Here is a sample poem that won the Editor’s Choice Award, an award I give to exemplary work in each anthology I publish. This poem is by Jean Ryan. I love it!

Lichen

Bonded to a boulder, 
living on air and random rain,
a forty-year-old lichen 
claims a thumbprint of space.
Centuries from now it will be 
the size of a dinner plate,
will still be young
when the millennium turns—
not that age applies
to a thing designed to override death. 
Maybe this doesn't sound 
like much of a life: 
stuck on stone, nothing to do
but make more crust.
Or maybe it’s a thrill a minute,
living up to all that potential.
I would like to find out: 
to lie on a sun-warmed rock
and give myself up,
to become with steady assurance
all I was ever meant to be.

As the title suggests, the book is full of nature poems, most of which feature trees or forests but many which speak to the mythology around trees and tree worship and some revisit real-life or fictional mysteries, ways the woods have seemed to swallow people whole.

Visit the digtial version.  If you like it and  you'd like to own or gift a copy, you can.  Here it is!

Namaste!
d