Category Archives: Book Review

by | March 30, 2026 · 6:37 am

Blog Tour for SCRAP is Over at Miriam Hurdle’s Blog!

Put on your cap to follow Scrap (I can’t help myself with these Scrap rhymes) over to Miriam Hurdle’s The Showers of Blessings blog! A big thank you to my sweet friend Miriam for hosting Scrap and me.

I worked on the memoir-in-flash for 18 years, and over that time I did end up with at least two different complete traditional versions. Then I decided to write Scrap in hybrid, using a lot of flash nonfiction, as well as poems, essay, etc.  Of course that means that there are stories that did not make it into the book. Miriam is sharing one today!

MIRIAM’S BLOG

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I’m looking forward to the blog tours for my new book Scrap: Salvaging a Family, published by ELJ Editions.

First up are friend blogs!

Joy Neal Kidney, March 21, book review

Liz Gauffreau, March 23, book review

Marie Ann Bailey, March 24, book review

John W. Howell, March 25, book excerpt

Miriam Hurdle, March 30, companion story to Scrap

Going to be on Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord on May 4!

Then there is an April and May tour through Poetic Book Tours, schedule in link.

POETIC BOOK TOUR FOR SCRAP

Click on the book image to order at Amazon.

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by | March 25, 2026 · 4:00 am

Tap Your Feet Over to SCRAP at John Howell’s Fiction Favorites!

Tap your feet over to see Scrap on John W. Howell’s blog

John W. Howell’s Fiction Favorites

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I’m looking forward to the blog tours for my new book Scrap: Salvaging a Family, published by ELJ Editions.

First up are friend blogs!

Joy Neal Kidney, March 21, book review

Liz Gauffreau, March 23, book review

Marie Ann Bailey, March 24, book review

John W. Howell, March 25, book excerpt

Miriam Hurdle, March 30, companion story to Scrap

Going to be on Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord on May 4!

Then there is an April and May tour through Poetic Book Tours, schedule in link.

POETIC BOOK TOUR FOR SCRAP

Click on the book image to order at Amazon.

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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

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by | March 24, 2026 · 6:15 am

Blog Tour for Scrap: Salvaging a Family: Check Out Marie Bailey’s Review!

I don’t think anybody has read as many versions of Scrap: Salvaging a Family as my friend Marie Ann Bailey. Flap your wings (you see what I’m doing there, right? flap/scrap) over to her blog to read her review of the finished product!

MARIE’S REVIEW OF SCRAP

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BLOG TOURS FOR SCRAP:

First up are friend blogs!

Joy Neal Kidney, March 21, book review

Liz Gauffreau, March 23, book review

Marie Ann Bailey, March 24, book review

John W. Howell, March 25, book excerpt

Miriam Hurdle, March 30, companion story to Scrap

 

Then there is an April and May tour through Poetic Book Tours, schedule in link.

POETIC BOOK TOUR FOR SCRAP

 

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by | March 23, 2026 · 5:00 am

SCRAP Blog Tour is Happening at Writer Elizabeth Gauffreau’s Blog

Tap into Scrap at Elizabeth (Liz) Gauffreau’s blog! Check out her review of Scrap: Salvaging a Family.

Liz’s Review of SCRAP

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BLOG TOURS FOR SCRAP:

First up are friend blogs!

Joy Neal Kidney, March 21, book review

Liz Gauffreau, March 23, book review

Marie Ann Bailey, March 24, book review

John W. Howell, March 25, book excerpt

Miriam Hurdle, March 30, companion story to Scrap

 

Then there is an April and May tour through Poetic Book Tours, schedule in link.

POETIC BOOK TOUR FOR SCRAP

 

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by | March 21, 2026 · 9:39 am

The Blog Tours for Scrap Begins with Joy Neal Kidney’s Delightful Blog

Thank you so much, Joy!!!

JOY NEAL KIDNEY

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I’m looking forward to the blog tours for my new book Scrap: Salvaging a Family, published by ELJ Editions.

First up are friend blogs!

Joy Neal Kidney, March 21, book review

Liz Gauffreau, March 23, book review

Marie Ann Bailey, March 24, book review

John W. Howell, March 25, book excerpt

Miriam Hurdle, March 30, companion story to Scrap

 

Then there is an April and May tour through Poetic Book Tours, schedule in link.

POETIC BOOK TOUR FOR SCRAP

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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

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by | March 6, 2026 · 6:20 am

Family in All Its Human Pain, Mystery, and Love

The official release for Scrap: Salvaging a Family (ELJ Editions) is in two weeks, but you can read about it now. The journal Your Impossible Voice has published an amazing review by Wilma J. Kahn. What a blessing to my eighteen-year project!

A memoir in flash, Scrap focuses on three discrete parts of Castle’s life in relation to her parents, especially her father. “Scrap” is a multivalent word around whose every meaning and nuance Castle fashions poignant—and sometimes horrifying—flash prose and poetry to reveal her family in all its human pain, mystery, and love.

REVIEW OF SCRAP BY WILMA J KAHN

On a related note, the journal Fictive Dream published my flash story, “The Nice Girls.”

THE NICE GIRLS

LatinosUSA has put Kin Types on its Bookshelf! And MasticadoresUSA has published a poem from that collection: What Lies Inside

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The Sweet Acacias have blossomed! I have such a love-hate relationship with these guys. They are so sweet smelling, but gosh, everybody is “allergic” to them! They bloom at least twice a year.

I’ve mentioned here that I haven’t had time to write in the last few months, but I am trying to write a few tiny drafts now. If I can accomplish first drafts of flash or poems, a few a week, for a few weeks I will feel better. I don’t feel as well when I’m not writing. I feel distinctly WEIRD.

Lately, I’m reading a mystery series by Kate Ellis–the Wesley Peterson books–which feature contemporary murder mysteries with archeology stories. I learned about the Plague Maiden. Have you ever heard of her? She appeared before a community was hit by the Bubonic Plague or Black Death. She was a woman, sometimes a skeleton, dressed in white and carrying a rake or a broom to sweep away all the dead. In the book, she sometimes wears a red scarf.

Do a quick Google search if you want to be creeped out by the variety of depictions of this scary folk character.

I feel like she needs to show up in a story I write, but I have no idea how or when. Maybe you would like to write a story about her? If so, post it so I can read it!

 

 

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by | February 9, 2026 · 7:00 am

Prefer to Listen to The Weight of Snow and Regret? You’re in Luck!

Elizabeth Gauffreau’s newest novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret is now available on audio book. I think this is a fabulous move. Some people have vision issues and want to listen to novels. Some people have long commutes and like to “read” along the way. In fact, years ago, that’s how I first read Joy Luck Club–on my commute. The audio version at that time was read by the author Amy Tan.

I posted a review of Liz’s novel in October. Here it is if you missed it: REVIEW

Here’s the link to the audio version:

https://books2read.com/WeightofSnow

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by | February 2, 2026 · 6:20 am

Book Review of Carol Willette Bachofner’s New Poetry Collection

I once wrote a poem that ended with a man astounded at witnessing “a woman / blaze from the womb.” If ever an entire poetry book witnesses women blazing, it’s Carol Willette Bachofner’s new collection, Every Place I Look. Whereas I had only hinted at the phenomenon, Bachofner embraces it, even subtitles the group of poems, “women with embers at their feet.”

I’m sure it seems odd to start a review with a quote from my own poem, but I feel so connected with Bachofner’s new work that it’s as if the poems are siphoned from my heart—or, conversely, as if they fill my heart with their truths.

The theme of Eve and the apple runs throughout, as poem after poem documents what women have been had to deal with, starting with the mythology that she is created from Adam’s unimportant rib. Eventually, Bachofner has it out with the myth in the poem “Rib and Other Fantasies.”

We are not bone of anyone but ourselves,

not stolen property of biblical proportions.

My favorite lines are in this poem:

Why

think we are spilling used blood? We are cleansing

ourselves, making our inner home a temple.

For ages, men held to the notion that menstruation proved that women were inferior, even dirty. But, no, instead we are self-cleaning, creating something holy.

Brava to Bachofner for this thought-provoking, radiantly feminist poetry collection, Every Place I Look: women with embers at their feet. Drag your feet through the embers to find a copy for yourself!

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You can purchase a  copy of Every Place I Look at the publisher’s website here:

Every Place I Look

WE HAVE A WINNER: MERRIL D. SMITH HAS FOUND THE POEM IN DOLL GOD AND WILL HAVE A COPY OF EVERY PLACE I LOOK WINGING TO HER SOON!!!

One person who has a copy of my first book Doll God can win a copy of Every Place I Look:

First person (with an address in the U.S.) who responds in the comments below with the name of the poem and the page number (from Doll God) with the woman blazing from the womb, I will send you a free copy of Carol Bachofner’s new book! I will keep the comments open to give you plenty of time to find the poem (and the book–I realize it’s been eleven years)! (Hint: it’s not that hard to find the poem if you start at the beginning of Doll God).

 

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by | January 7, 2026 · 6:36 pm

Review of Candice M. Kelsey’s New Poetry Collection, Another Place Altogether

Candice M. Kelsey’s new poetry collection, Another Place Altogether (Kelsay Books 2025), is a brilliant exploration of a woman’s relationship with her mother, with her children, and with a world both beautiful and intensely dangerous. The book also explores her relationship with the two places she lives between: Los Angeles and Augusta, Georgia.

The book is divided between the first section, called “Endings,” and the second, called “Beginnings.” In the first poem of the second section, the poet arrives in Georgia from Los Angeles. In Georgia, the California poet experiences discomfort with remnants of the Old South she sees in Georgia. At the end of the poem, “Because Your Husband’s Shirt is Ironed,” Kelsey well demonstrates this culture clash. At the beginning of the poem, a coach assumes her husband’s wife ironed his shirt. Later, she mentions to the other “homecoming moms” that the dads don’t have a group chat, the women ignore her. She says, “O how the South hates a wrinkle.” I love how she moves from misogyny to that ending.

The poems in this book are threaded with or even end on darkness. Some of the most stunning of these dark poems are about her treatment by her mother. In “Flesh and Bone,” she writes that her mother is “declaring me her own / flesh and blood. Nailing me to her.” Contrasted with her mother in this poem is her dead mother-in-law who offers supportive advice (emails from the beyond) and inspires her.

I found the introduction of this “found mother” very powerful and relate it to another aspect of this collection. Kelsey’s poetry here is inspired by other poets, especially women poets. “Menopause: A Cento from Female Poets Laureate” is the most obvious example of this. The homage is very welcome as a hopeful note that balances darker scenes, such as the friend’s brother who molests her when she’s 12-year-old and the friend’s father who abused his wife over her weight. In fact, the gender norm dictating a woman’s slimness is a theme that pops up several times. The poet’s mother was complicit in this emotional torture.

Most hopeful are the poems about the poet’s children. Love and pride shine through even the challenging times. And although sometimes she might want to act like her mother, she does not. In “Mothers & Daughters,” she would have good reason to send a nasty text (because she feels bad herself and her daughter is being selfish, a typical teen), but she does not, whereas her own mother would not have held back.

Near the end, even with the sound of her mother’s critical voice in her mind, she overcomes so that she can love herself: “Whispering Candice, I touch my ear / and hear self-love with these lips.” Read Another Place Altogether and you too will love Candice Kelsey and her powerful words.

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You can find Candice on Instagram at feed_me_poetry

 

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by | January 1, 2026 · 1:54 pm

It’s a New Year!

Welcome to 2026! I’m not asking for amazing things for the year; I’d just like it to be gentle with me.

2025 was difficult, although I did have some writing successes in journals, have been working with the small press, ELJ Editions, that will be publishing my flash memoir, and had my manuscript inspired by painter Remedios Varo accepted by Shanti Arts.

*Scrap: Salvaging a Family, a hybrid flash memoir, will be out March 20, 2026

*Hunting the Cosmos, flash fiction and poetry for Remedios Varo, will be out fall 2026

I should have a cover reveal soon for Scrap. Can’t wait to share it with you!!!

The problem with the new year, though, is it springs from the old and all the unresolved issues of 2025 will go on in 2026. My mother’s dementia is one of those things. Taking over her affairs is very stressful and time-consuming, but worse is the dilemmas of communication with my mother. I can still have good conversations with her if I ignore the little idiosyncracies (the “critters” that have taken up residence in her apartment, but can only be seen by her), hearing about her going to a service two hours early and waiting for others to show up, etc.

Both Perry and Meesker have serious health issues. As you may remember, Perry was diagnosed with issues two years ago, but I don’t like to talk about it. All I can say is I am constantly feeding sick cats who need food all day long and cleaning up diarrhea, pee outside the box, and dramatically hurled vomit. And Lily still hates Sloopy Anne. Last night she threw herself violently against the gate we have up to keep them apart, trying to get to Sloops.

2025 was productive for me for writing, up to a point. I haven’t written anything for weeks now. Between grandbaby duty, my mom’s stuff, and these cats (on top of regular work and business), I’ve been too busy and very tired.

I read some good mystery series this year, though, as that’s a good way for me to unwind. Actually, I read far more than I usually do, but then I did have hip replacement surgery in May, so mysteries helped out a lot when I was suffering before the surgery and then during the recovery. Here are the series: Yorkshire Murder Mysteries by J.R. Ellis; Dark Yorkshire, Misty Isle, and Hidden Norfolk by J.M. Dalgliesh; Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming; Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Mysteries by Deborah Crombie; China Thrillers, Lewis Trilogy, and Enzo Macleod by Peter May; DCI Craig Gillard Mysteries by Nick Louth. (To give you a clue, I am a fan of Louise Penny, Ann Cleeves, and Elly Griffiths, and the series I’ve listed here are more like the Griffiths and possibly the Cleeves than the Penny books. The Spencer-Fleming series is a lot like the Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway books, notably because of the hot love affair in the middle of the mysteries.

In addition, I read some wonderful stand-alone novels and poetry collections. I reviewed just a few of them for this blog. If I reviewed your book in 2025 and didn’t list it, please let me know!

POETRY

Review of Robert Okaji’s Our Loveliest Bruises

A Gorgeous Collection Combining Genres of Poetry, Genealogy, and History

Review of Merril D. Smith’s HELD INSIDE THE FOLDS OF TIME

FICTION

Book Tour Stop: Book Review of Deborah Brasket’s When Things Go Missing

Elizabeth Gauffreau’s Masterful New Novel, A Review

Christmas Magic

Just got a call from my son. He miscalculated the days this week and asked if I could watch Hudson again tomorrow. Sure! (Good thing I fell asleep on New Year’s Eve at 8PM). The other night the Gardener put together a tricycle for Hudson. He’s almost two, and his feet barely reach the pedals, but we can work on learning to pedal a bike again tomorrow. 🙂

Let’s work on making 2026 a tender, playful, happy year! If we all puts our heads and hearts together .  . . .

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