I’m delighted to announce that my chapbook Recycling Starlight, consisting of some eighteen poems I wrote over the past year while processing my grief over Bill’s death, has been accepted by Ce Rosenow for publication next year by her Mountains and Rivers Press.
I mentioned in my earlier post about my trip to the Pacific Northwest that I had shared poems with Ce on our three-hour drive down from Seabeck, WA, to Portland, OR. I read through the grief poems to her, and she was very interested in publishing them. I had already submitted the chapbook manuscript to a contest, so at first told her that I’d have to wait to see how it did. And that if it didn’t win, I’d certainly give the collection to her.
But Ce and I kept e-mailing back and forth about the book—discussing the poem sequence, where to integrate a couple of haiku and a new tanka sequence, how the book might best be designed and produced, etc.—and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted Ce to do the book. Also, since she is well-known in the haiku community, many of whom miss Bill and know me, it seemed a blessing that she wanted her press to bring out this collection. So yesterday, I sent a message to the contest folks withdrawing the manuscript from consideration (they accepted simultaneous submission and just wanted to be notified if a submission was accepted elsewhere), and Ce and I are a go for working together on the book. I feel so right about this, and I know Bill would be happy to have Mountains and Rivers Press do it. I’m sure it will be a beautiful book.