Poetry of soil and wound, a new writer's fellowship at the BPL, a mobile romance bookstore
New England Literary News
Dear pals, colleagues, writers, readers, poets, everyone, local and far-flung, the tomatoes out the window are green but getting there in the late-July sun; five fat cukes got pulled from the vine yesterday; I’ve been eating pounds of cherries, spitting seeds into the compost bin. A triathlon is taking place nearby; a supporter just walked by dressed up as a banana. Deep summer now and I recently read Ben Lerner’s 10:04 and admit to being taken with it, having mouthed off about Lerner now for the last 14 years since I read, and hated, Leaving Atocha Station. You eating the good summer fruits? You reading anything that’s speaking to you? I’d love to know. And now to the literary news.
Bouwsma’s year of ‘melt and bleed’
Intimate is Julia Bouwsma with the soil. Intimate is she with the land. Intimate is Bouwsma with chicken death, with season rhythm, with questioning (“raised to believe that questions are a form / of love”), and intimate is she with the known-unknowns in the blood. “What does one haul with / a body that doesn’t know its own ghosts?” she asks in her new collection of poetry Death Fluorescence (Sundress). Bouwsma, Maine’s sixth Poet Laureate, who lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine, writes of what we inherit, what we squander, what history has wrought and how it lives and repeats like composted trimmings carrying blight kept warm over winter and coming back stronger next year. “I come / from a people ordered to dig our own graves,” she writes. “My first instinct is to flee / to the garden.” She stays, though. She taps the trees and bends over beds and the news of violence and hatred, of stockpiled guns and massacres, the fight that’s been and the fight to come, sink deeper into the body and the land. There’s a matter-of-factness to Bouwsma’s language, a bodily sense of what is, and a devastating lyricism, too: a black hole is an abscess “thrilling all the astronomers with its sphincter of promise / & schism.” And earlier: “This land / is abscess we refuse to drain. This pus this blood this rock this tooth / it mines us. / Let it,” she implores us. She does not shy from the tight clenched orifice, from filth and death. She stays in the garden, wrist-deep in soil, beholding the here-and-gone-and-here-again, and what’s healed and unhealed in this vast bodyland. “We already knew: / the wound was us.”
A new Children’s Book Fellowship at the Boston Public Library
The Associates of the Boston Public Library recently announced the launch of a new Illustrated Children’s Book Fellowship geared toward emerging New England writers developing original illustrated books for children. The year-long fellowship includes a $25,000 stipend with an additional $2,500 for editorial or coaching support, and does not require the fellow to work on site at the BPL. The program is aimed for authors who live in New England who haven’t previously published any children’s books. Their book projects, in fiction, non-fiction, memoir, or poetry, must be intended for one of these reader age categories: board books for ages 0-2; picture books and early readers for ages 3-8; and chapter books/younger middle grade for ages 8-10. The Associates point out that this fellowship is intended for a writer; illustrations are not a requirement. And using AI for any aspect of the submission is prohibited. “Particular attention will be given to works that convey memorable or unique characters, distinctive settings, and an emotionally compelling plot.” The deadline is August 15 and the winner will be announced in early October. For more information, and to apply, click here.
A mobile romance bookstore in Maine
Two pals in Maine, Lotti Ziervogel and Cailyn Wheeler, have converted a diminutive trailer into a roving romance bookstore. Novella Books, run by Ziervogel and Wheeler, rose out of a shared dream the friends had of opening a romance bookstore, and they’ve been moving around the state and slinging books at markets and stores this summer. They have to keep things tightly curated in the tiny space, but there’s still a range of subgenres and sections, including one for non-romance readers. The pair also emphasize indie authors. They carry the big names, and are also committed to getting lesser-known romance writers into people’s hands. Romance reading took off during the pandemic, and sales have continued to rise. The New York Times, reporting last summer on the trend of romance-only bookstores opening, noted that print sales for romance more than doubled in a short period, from 18 million copies in 2020 to 39 million in 2023. For more information on Novella Books, click here.
Coming Out: Books of note out this week
Pan by Michael Clune (Penguin).
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde (Riverhead)
Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy by Tre Johnson (Dutton)
Booksellers Best: Staff picks from New England independent bookstores
Madeline at the Brookline Booksmith recommends Modern Nature by Derek Jarman (University of Minnesota): “Written after his AIDS diagnosis in 1986, the book chronicles Derek Jarman's day to day life tending to his cottage on the coast of Dungeness in diary entries of his garden, memories of childhood, his career in film, the deterioration in health of his infected friends and loved ones, as well as his own encroaching mortality. It remains as Derek once was: uncompromisingly honest.”
I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for reading. This is a pleasure to do, and it is work. If you can afford to pay, please pay.
I had similar feelings about 10:4, though I read it long ago. How could it be so good when there was so much to roll your eyes at?!