Soon to be Released
You’ve heard me mention Family Stories from the Attic (Hidden Timber Press), the anthology I’m co-editing with Lisa Rivero. Publication is just around the corner (I finished reading the proof over the weekend), and though I have seen these stories many times over, they still affect me in powerful ways. Even the introduction, as it reveals the way this book emerged from an unexpected find, is a piece I will return to again and again:
This anthology has its origins in another time, in secrets and questions, in family stories and a woman who died before I was born. ~ from the Introduction by Lisa Rivero
From beginning to end, this is a beautiful collection. With works by authors from both sides of the country, several states in between, and Australia, these stories pull at roots near and far, reach back in time, and carry family history into a present understanding of who and why and “where I’m from.”
The book launch is set for Saturday evening, May 13, 2017, at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee. If you’re local, I do hope you’ll come meet a few of these wonderful authors and listen to excerpts from their stories. If distance keeps you away, consider buying the book (follow @HiddenTimberBks on Twitter or subscribe to the newsletter for upcoming information on ordering).
We–as a society, as a family–are many-layered; sometimes it’s in the writing and the reading where we uncover those layers. The pieces in this book will get you thinking about your neighbor, your own history, your own collection of stories.
Out this Week
I’m thrilled to share another book with you this week as well: Renee Macalino Rutledge’s The Hour of Daydreams (Forest Avenue Press), released yesterday, March 14th. I have never been disappointed in anything that leaves the doorstep of Forest Avenue Press. This quiet novel takes you into the lives and imaginations of Filipino characters, where love, suspicion, and folklore bring them together and set them apart. I have a review of Rutledge’s debut novel on FICTION WRITERS REVIEW this week (my first! Many thanks to editor, Eric McDowell):
Renee Macalino Rutledge builds her debut novel, The Hour of Daydreams (Forest Avenue Press), on the bedrock of fairy tales, embracing myths prevalent in rural Filipino towns and using them as literary devices. Through vivid imagery and multiple perspectives, this story of a young Filipino doctor, Manolo Lualhati, and his wife, Tala, takes readers on a winding journey deep in the Philippine countryside, in and out of the real and the imagined, and unites characters in ways they might not otherwise connect.
READ the rest of the review HERE, and consider bookmarking Fiction Writers Review for more posts on novels, story collections, and literary journals, as well as interviews with authors and articles on the craft.
Now that you know what’s on my bookshelf, what are you reading these days?
“I entered this house a new baby, coming home from the hospital in 1922. I wonder how many people have planted trees and built rock gardens in the yard and told stories in this layered house since then? I would walk right down to the bakery on Vliet Street (was it Meurers?) and bring back cupcakes for all of us to enjoy. Or walk up to Washington Boulevard and take the bus downtown to Wisconsin Avenue. Somehow there must be a way to bridge the magic fog between then and now.”
“I am here to write and to teach, and it is the writing I mull over…while I look out toward the still, blue lake, while I feel the warmth of the sunlight and the cool of the tree shadow on my face, on my shoulders. I wind through the woods and the marshes and watch for deer, for their horizontal movement amidst this vertical landscape. I can feel their presence, even when I can’t see them, these deer. They are like an idea in the making: There. Close. There.”