Monthly Archives: April 2026

by | April 15, 2026 · 7:17 am

New Book Review and My Little Cat Toby

There is a lovely new review by Tabi on “Tabi Thoughts.” Here is a quote:

Scrap is a story of forgiveness and making peace with the past. It will resonate with readers who appreciate introspective writing, stories about healing and complicated family relationships.

You can read it here:

Tabi thoughts about SCRAP

One of the characters of Scrap is my little cat Toby. He was an all black cat, and the story is bittersweet, especially bitter. It also is one of the memories that I choose to “interrogate” in the book. Because my cat Meesker was very reminiscent of Toby in looks and personality, and I just lost Meesker when he passed away in the bathroom while I was out of town and the pet sitter was here, it’s an old wound rubbed a little raw. Here is a pic of Toby.

 

Tour Schedule:

March 21: Joy Neal Kidney (review)

March 23: Liz Gauffreau, (review)

March 24: Marie Ann Bailey, (review)

March 25: John W. Howell, (excerpt)

March 30: Miriam Hurdle, (companion story)

March 31: Review Tales (review)

April 2: the bookworm (review)

April 9: Ashley’s Books, Cozy Home Delight (review)

April 13: What’s That Book About (guest post)

April 15: Tabi Thoughts(review)

April 23: Lavender Orchids (review)

April 27: The Reading Bud (review)

May 4: Chelsea’s Books (review)

May 4: Smorgasbord (excerpt)

May 6: Brotman Blog (review)

May 7: The Reading Bud (interview)

May 14: True Book Addict (guest post)

May 19: True Book Addict (review)

May 21: The Book Connection (review)

Follow the tour with the hashtag #ScrapSalvagingFamily

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Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Book Review, Cats and Other Animals, ELJ Editions, Family, Family history, flash memoir, Flash Nonfiction, hybrid memoir, Memoir, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Scrap:Salvaging a Family

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by | April 13, 2026 · 9:19 am

Are Those Fairy Tale Monsters in SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY?

I wrote a guest post, “From Grimm to Golden Books: Writing Myself Out of the Fairy Tale,” for What’s That Book About–about the fairy tale influence on my new memoir Scrap: Salvaging a Family. 

You can read it here:

From Grimm to Golden Books

 

Illustration by Walter Crane for “The Almond Tree” (or “The Juniper Tree”)

I would love it if you could leave even a 2 or 3+sentence review of Scrap at Amazon and/or Goodreads if you give it a read!

 

Tour Schedule:

March 21: Joy Neal Kidney (review)

March 23: Liz Gauffreau, (review)

March 24: Marie Ann Bailey, (review)

March 25: John W. Howell, (excerpt)

March 30: Miriam Hurdle, (companion story)

March 31: Review Tales (review)

April 2: the bookworm (review)

April 9: Ashley’s Books, Cozy Home Delight (review)

April 13: What’s That Book About (guest post)

April 15: Tabi’s Thoughts (review)

April 23: Lavender Orchids (review)

April 27: The Reading Bud (review)

May 4: Chelsea’s Books (review)

May 4: Smorgasbord (excerpt)

May 6: Brotman Blog (review)

May 7: The Reading Bud (interview)

May 14: True Book Addict (guest post)

May 19: True Book Addict (review)

May 21: The Book Connection (review)

Follow the tour with the hashtag #ScrapSalvagingFamily

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Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Book Review, ELJ Editions, Family, Family history, flash memoir, Flash Nonfiction, flash nonfiction, hybrid memoir, Memoir, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Scrap:Salvaging a Family

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by | April 10, 2026 · 11:38 am

The “Cottage” in Scrap

This week, Ashley at Cozy Home Delight reviewed Scrap: Salvaging a Family. 

[The book] brings up that complicated space where grief, resentment, anger, love, and even forgiveness all exist at the same time. The book does not try to simplify those feelings or resolve them neatly. It allows them to exist together, which felt very honest.

I thought I’d share a photo related to my memoir. I write about the cottage my father bought for us to reburbish. This is what it looked like near the beginning, although you really can’t see some of the details I describe in the book. But it gives you what I saw when we first pulled up outside it.

This cottage came with a dirt floor which had been applied over the old linoleum. And yet somehow my father supposedly found a pair of pristine white ice skates with red pompoms in my size in the dirt crawl space (Michigan cellar) underneath.

Tour Schedule:

March 21: Joy Neal Kidney (review)

March 23: Liz Gauffreau, (review)

March 24: Marie Ann Bailey, (review)

March 25: John W. Howell, (excerpt)

March 30: Miriam Hurdle, (companion story)

March 31: Review Tales (review)

April 2: the bookworm (review)

April 9: Ashley’s Books, Cozy Home Delight (review)

April 13: What’s That Book About (guest post)

April 15: Tabi’s Thoughts (review)

April 23: Lavender Orchids (review)

April 27: The Reading Bud (review)

May 4: Chelsea’s Books (review)

Mary 4: Smorgasbord (excerpt)

May 7: The Reading Bud (interview)

May 14: True Book Addict (guest post)

May 19: True Book Addict (review)

May 21: The Book Connection (review)

Follow the tour with the hashtag #ScrapSalvagingFamily

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Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Book Review, ELJ Editions, Family, Family history, flash nonfiction, Flash Nonfiction, hybrid memoir, Memoir, Nonfiction, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Scrap:Salvaging a Family, Writing

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by | April 6, 2026 · 6:00 am

Poetry Mentions

Happy National Poetry Month!

While I think of my new memoir Scrap as being hybrid (a mix of genres, such as flash, poetry, playscript, essay) with flash the predominant genre, I thought I’d look at references to poetry in the book.

I mention how much I loved Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry when I was young. This poem, which she wrote when she was nineteen years old, I listened to over and over again on an LP album.

“Renascence” is a dramatic poem, perfect for reading aloud, much different from the short and pithy Emily Dickinson poems I also read in my late teens. Here is one I remember reading in high school lying on my bed:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

I also mention Omar Khayyam, not for his poetry, which I didn’t know at that age, but because I knew of him and his Rubaiyat and ate dinner at a restaurant named after the poet. Khayyam was a Persian poet who lived one thousand years ago.

sample from THE RUBAIYAT

Most significantly in Scrap is a reference to Anne Sexton and “The Starry Night.” Here is the poem:

The Starry Night

“That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.” Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.
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That poem is depressing with its dark sky and its dark theme, but remember what the official 2026 National Poetry Month poster tells us: “Even if the darkness preceds and follows us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine.” You can read about Arthur Sze, the poet responsible for that quote in his poem “The Chance,” here: Arthur Sze. The poem here: THE CHANCE
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by | April 2, 2026 · 11:48 am

A Big Thank you to Scrap Reviewers or Reviewers of Scrap or Scrappy Reviewers!

I just found a review of Scrap: Salvaging a Family from Jeyran Main. I love it!

Castle’s prose is spare yet evocative. The flash form intensifies the emotional resonance, allowing each vignette to stand alone while contributing to a cohesive emotional arc. Readers who appreciate memoirs that experiment with structure while remaining grounded in emotional truth will find Scrap especially compelling.

Jeyran Main

Additionally, the Poetic Book Tour began today with a review at The Bookworm. I found it interesting that The Bookworm reads the book as poetry. I am thinking that the flash pieces might be read as prose poetry. The line between flash nonfiction and prose poem is different for every reader.

Tour Schedule:

April 2: the bookworm (review)

April 9: Ashley’s Books (review)

April 13: What’s That Book About (guest post)

April 15: Tabi’s Thoughts (review)

April 23: Lavender Orchids (review)

April 27: The Reading Bud (review)

March 31: Review Tales (review)

May 4: Chelsea’s Books (review)

May 7: The Reading Bud (interview)

May 14: True Book Addict (guest post)

May 19: True Book Addict (review)

May 21: The Book Connection (review)

Follow the tour with the hashtag #ScrapSalvagingFamily

Leave a comment

Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Book Review, Creative Nonfiction, ELJ Editions, Family history, Flash Nonfiction, flash nonfiction, hybrid memoir, Memoir, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Scrap:Salvaging a Family

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