Thanks to Renee at Unpacked Writer for this fabulous Doll God review!!!
Category Archives: Dolls
Book Review: Luanne Castle’s Doll God and Why I Loved it When I’m Afraid of Dolls
Filed under Book Review, Books, Doll God, Dolls, Nonfiction, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, WordPress
Follow MaryGold to a Free Book! #bookgiveaway
I thought it would be fun to let MaryGold off the shelf where she lives. She is going to participate in a little social media quiz fun.
MaryGold with Isabella Rose
If you don’t know who MaryGold is, she is the doll on the cover of my book. I held a vote here for her name.
Every Friday and every Tuesday I will post on my Facebook page and on Twitter a new adventure that MaryGold has taken (March 13, 17, 20, and 24). After four adventures, I will post a quiz on here on March 26 related to the adventures. The first three persons who email me the correct answer will each win a free signed copy of Doll God. My email is writersite.wordpress[at]gmail.com.
While you’re checking out Facebook and Twitter, feel free to “like” the page or “follow” writersitetweet, if you haven’t already. Also, I will watch for your Twitter follow and follow you back.
First adventure begins Friday, March 13!
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If you already have a copy of Doll God, I have a different quiz for you. This one is easy peasy. Be the first person to email me the quiz answer at writersite.wordpress[at]gmail.com to win a copy of James Arthur’s poetry collection Charms Against Lightning.
Here’s the quiz question: MaryGold shows up in a poem in Doll God. Don’t think it’s THAT easy haha! She doesn’t go by the name MaryGold in the poem. But she is the doll on the cover of the book and is found in a poem. What is the name of the poem and what page is it on?
Please do not enter both contests. One or the other . . . .
Filed under Book Giveaway, Books, Doll God, Dolls, Photographs, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Writing
The Gift of Doll God – Ellen Morris Prewitt
I wish I could figure out a way to reblog Ellen Morris Prewitt’s beautifully written and heartfelt review of Doll God. But I could not figure it out.
The Press This function is supposed to pick up part of the post, but of course it only shares the link. But here it is: a story of Ellen, dolls, poetry, and Doll God.
CLICK THERE—->The Gift of Doll God – Ellen Morris Prewitt.
Thank you, Ellen!
Please check out Ellen’s fabulous writing, accessible by her website. Bonus: she’s hilarious–and you can see that even by the review quotes she posts: from an internet stranger and from her mother. That’s the kind of sneaky humor you get by reading and listening to Ellen’s stories.
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Dad is chomping at the bit at the short-term care nursing home. He doesn’t like that they won’t let him move around by himself. I told him he’s like me–doesn’t want to follow institutional rules. He said that is true. Of course, it’s more than that. He’s in an extremely frustrating position. But I like to cheer him up by joking with him.
The kitties were great last night and say hi to everyone!
Nakana is my new favorite! She loves petting!
Filed under Blogging, Book Review, Books, Doll God, Dolls, Essay, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Writing
What Inspires My Poems
Is it annoying if I admit that I’m really enjoying reading the reviews of Doll God ? All but one have been highly positive (5 stars on Amazon and 5 stars with a 4 star on Goodreads, as well as written reviews).
Here are two blog tour reviews from the end of last week:
Harvee Lau at Book Dilettante is fascinated by the dolls in the book. I love her reading of the poem “Caught.” She shares the poem in the review. Check it out :).
Randi at Bell Book and Candle Blog says Doll God is “an outstanding collection of poems.”
Today I have a guest post up at Peeking Between the Pages
about my poetic inspiration. I’d be tickled if you go check it out.
MaryGold enjoying the Arizona weather
UPDATE: A review of Doll God is up at Peeking Between the Pages.
Filed under Arizona, Blogging, Book Review, Books, Doll God, Dolls, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Publishing
Websites and Nursing Homes
The guy who created my daughter’s website made one for me (ask me for his contact information if you are interested in hiring him). I might make a few small changes to it, but see what you think: website link. I wanted it to focus right now on Doll God, but to provide samples of my writing, as well.
Then I wanted to add something fun related to dolls and art, in honor of Doll God. So I asked blogger mareymercy if I could put up her recent doll photographs. Here they are! If you want to find her photos from the home page of my website you click on DOLL GOD and then go to Dolls as Art. There is a reason her blog subtitle is “Photography and Frivolity”–so much fun!
On my links section, I have mareymercy’s photography links. If you know of other doll art that is appropriate, good-natured, and high quality, post me the link in the comments here so I can consider adding it to my list of links.
PHOTO BY MAREYMERCY
My dad is in the nursing home now. He’s not happy to be there, and I completely understand. My experiences with nursing homes have not made me too keen on the places–even the best of the nursing homes are still “institutions” with all the potential problems of institutions.
When my grandmother was in a nursing home for rehab after surgery (years ago), a large lady named Frieda gave her baths, shoving and slapping her. Grandma had a panic attack and called me, telling me how she needed to get out of there. It’s the same for my dad. He had a nightmare that he was in jail.
Those of you so inclined please pray for him. And he will be thrilled with good vibes, virtual Reiki, and all manner of well wishes.
Filed under Art and Music, Blogging, Creative Nonfiction, Doll God, Dolls, Nonfiction, Photographs, poems about dolls
Review of Luanne Castle’s First Poetry Book “Doll God”
Jennifer very kindly read Doll God and reviewed it. Thanks so much for your support, Jennifer!
Also, a reminder that I am doing a Goodreads Book Giveaway through the weekend.
Good luck to you!
ENTER TO WIN A FREE BOOK
Filed under Book Review, Doll God, Dolls, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Publishing, Writing
Vote for a Name
Here are the names that you suggested for the doll-that-needs-a-name. Please vote for one name. We’ll see what happens!!
Filed under Books, Doll God, Dolls, Nonfiction, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Publishing
A Doll in Need of a Name
Thank you so much for your support for the publication of Doll God. I had no idea there is so much work involved with the birth of a book. I’m running on little sleep and learning everything from scratch.
I feel like I did when my son was a baby. Nearly headachey through the eyes, foggy, and sleepy. But definitely not crabby. Hahaha.
If you did or do order a copy of my book and you like it, please write a couple of nice sentences over at Amazon (and Goodreads if you’re on that site). Apparently this is very important to the sale of the book. It doesn’t have to take much time; it’s more important that it be heartfelt.
So what have I been doing? Too much and I’m too tired to make a list, I’m afraid, but I can tell you that at both Amazon and Goodreads I set up author profiles. I spent hours reading a book telling how to market a book on Amazon only to discover that the information was so old that it’s no longer applicable. Most of the bells and whistles the writer referred to are no longer available. I contacted friends by email about Doll God.
It’s also important for me to pay it forward by reading and reviewing other poetry books (along with my memoir and some fiction reviews).
With all this hubbub, I don’t have anything brilliant to say. But I do have a shot of the doll from my book cover cavorting in my flowers. Note that these flowers were saved from the freeze this year by lots of hard work by hubby and by me. We had to cover all the shrubs and flower beds and even the cacti and succulents when we had a freeze that lasted a week.
This doll has been through the mill, as my mother would say. She’s been face down in mud puddles and tide pools and traveled back and forth between Arizona and California several times (through the USPS). This photo is proof she has a face, too. In the book cover below, her face is hidden.
I think she needs a name. My daughter, who took the original photo for the book art and who took the photo of her in the flowers, as well, thought she needed a name, but we never settled on one.
Any ideas on a name for the doll?
Filed under Art and Music, Book Review, Books, Doll God, Dolls, Nonfiction, Photographs, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Writing
Searching for Angels
Woohoo! My book is available. (Where’s that champagne bottle again? Empty?)
Since Doll God is now up on Amazon here, I thought I would tell you a little more about the collection. Here is the full description:
Luanne Castle’s debut poetry collection, Doll God, studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects–a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.
From the first poem, which reveals the child’s wish to be godlike, to the final poem, an elegy for female childhood, this collection echoes with the voices of the many in the one: a walking doll, a murderer, Snow White. Marriage, divorce, motherhood, and family losses set many of the poems in motion. The reader is transported from the lakes of Michigan to the Pacific Ocean to the Sonoran Desert.
These gripping poems take the reader on a journey through what is found, lost, or destroyed. The speaker in one poem insists, “I am still looking for angels.” She has failed to find them yet keeps searching on. She knows that what is lost can be found.
It’s really hard to describe your own book! Seriously. I wrote the above description, but it seemed agonizing to do so. After all that work crafting those three little paragraphs, you better believe I’m going to use it ;).
If you’re so inclined to buy Doll God and see what I’ve spent so much time on for the past 20 years, I will be thrilled to hear how the poems make you feel. Because above all, poems should be felt as a sensation or series of sensations.
I was so blessed to get pre-publication reviews from some absolutely stellar poets and writers. Although Stuart Dybek is most well-known as one of the most important short story writers of the time, he began his writing career as a poet and has published two poetry collections, in addition to many other books. Matthew Lippman and Caroline Goodwin are highly successful and absolutely wonderful poets. Their styles couldn’t be more dissimilar, and yet they both write exquisite poetry. You can find these blurbs on the back of Doll God.
“Every day the world subtracts from itself,” Luanne Castle observes. Her wonderfully titled collection, Doll God, with its rich and varied mix of poems part memoir, part myth and tale, shimmers as it swims as poetry is meant to, upstream against the loss.
Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of Streets in Their Own Ink
In her haunting first collection, Luanne Castle has created a space where “the sounds/of the schoolchildren/and the traffic/grind down/to nothing” and where the reader is invited to experience the lasting echo of our primal human past. Who makes our toys, and why? Which toys and in whose likeness? With startling imagery and a keen eye for the subtler shapes of violence and redemption, Castle asks us to consider and re-consider these questions. Like a “world of broken mirrors waiting” the poems call us back to ourselves, our childhoods, and the potential rewards of prayer and reflection. I find both hope and despair in these pages, where “every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing/is immune,” and every object contains a voice and a story. This is a fierce and beautiful book.
Caroline Goodwin, author of Trapline
Luanne Castle’s new collection, Doll God, is sublime. The manner of these poems– that they embrace the doll and bring to it humanity and divinity–is something to behold. The voice in these poems is tender, visceral, and wonderfully human. Ms. Castle has forged a vision that feels like something you want to dance with, dress up, talk to like a child, but with an adult’s sensibility. I love these poems with my whole heart because they make me feel both childlike and grown, simultaneously. Doll mistresses, primordial conches, Barbies, infuse these poems with tremendous humanity, and they delight with purpose, sadness and joy, and an incredible range that will leave you breathless.
Matthew Lippman, author of American Chew
I’m so nervous and so excited for you to read my book. I hope you like it. Better yet, I hope some of the poems resonate with you and your life.
Filed under Books, Doll God, Dolls, Essay, Nonfiction, poems about dolls, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Publishing, Writing
Cover Reveal of Doll God
At long last (as if anybody has been waiting for this moment but moi hahaha) I can reveal the cover of Doll God, my poetry collection. Here ’tis.
Here is a quote from the book description:
Luanne Castle’s debut poetry collection, Doll God, studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects–a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.
All I can say is: FINALLY.
We had all kinds of problems transferring the artwork to the book cover. It took four book proofs to get it right. The original photograph was taken by my daughter and artist Kenneth Nicholson created the art. Well, finally. The book should be available online later this week, so I will post the links when I get them.
More champagne is called for. Good thing it’s on my new diet!
Filed under Art and Music, Books, Doll God, Dolls, Photographs, Poetry, Poetry book, Publishing
