I haven’t been very available on here in the past few months. A lot of my time has been taken up with my mother’s affairs (financial, medical, moving arrangements). Last week she moved into Memory Care, and it’s been a very difficult journey there–and her adjustment is, as she described, rough. My mom still knows everyone very well, can discuss family news, etc. but she doesn’t know which day of the week it is–or the date. She has hallucinations. It’s a horrible kind of limbo to be in since she understands so much.
Coincidentally, today Editor Barbara Harris Leonhard published a story I wrote before I knew this would happen to my mother. Missing His Birthday This story is dedicated to my mom.
On this double pub day, Editor Nolcha Fox has published three of my poems. Three Poems
The middle poem is another Little Red that I wrote after the publication of Our Wolves.
I’m grateful for my brother who moved my mom and visits her often. We’re a team. I do all the stuff that can be done long distance, and he does the in-person.
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“Deeply moving and unforgettable…” —Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works
Luanne Castle’s new hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family(ELJ Editions 2026), is available for pre-order now.
Scrap. A piece cut from cloth. Something left over. Scraps from the table. A small child: a scrap of a girl. An altercation: the kids got in a scrap. Torn fabric, bits of cloth swept from the floor of a dress shop. Fabric remnants. What remains.
Scrap: Salvaging a Family explores the stain of childhood fear and anxiety on the adult spirit and the experience of reconciling with an aging or dying parent. A daughter has grown up in a household with an angry and abusive father. He keeps the secret of his own biological father’s identity from his daughter for decades. Can this family be salvaged?
“Luanne Castle’s Scrap is a memoir in flash. . .a family story told in bursts of memory and image, puzzle pieces waiting to connect. . . an exploration of the long roots of generational trauma and identity erasure and a vivid look back at growing up female in mid-century America.”
~ Kathryn Kulpa, author of A Map of Lost Places
Luanne Castle’s story, “Garden Seasons,” was selected for Best Microfiction 2026. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, Grist, Verse Daily, and Lunch Ticket. She has published four award-winning poetry collections. Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University (Certificate). Luanne lives with her husband and four cats in Arizona along a wildlife corridor.
I used to say I wouldn’t read ebooks because I loved real books. Then I needed to read some because the books written by some friends were only available for Kindle. Before long, I needed larger font and a bit of backlighting. The last blow was that I was diagnosed with macular degeneration. Now I LOVE my Kindle, which is already an older model of Paperwhite.
These days I read much more on my Kindle than I do paperbacks. Yet all of my own books have only been available in paperback (and hard cover for Rooted and Winged). This is because the majority of poetry small presses continue to just offer paperback books.
But I started to wonder and then to investigate.
And now I have a book available as EPUB on Amazon!!! The publisher of Our Wolves was very helpful and willing to list the ebook on Amazon alongside the paperback. Available for $5.50, the price he chose. I am hoping that this makes the Red Riding Hood revision collection more accessible to more readers. (Fingers crossed that this version works well for most readers’ devices!!!)
P.S. update: I should have mentioned (humbly haha) that Our Wolves was First Runner-Up for the Eric Hoffer Award.
Yes, I’m pretty stoked, I’ll admit that. My wee chapbook Our Wolves is on the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize (grand as in a $5,000 check to the big winner) SHORT LIST alongside the big books.
Yesterday, Kathleen Cassen Mickelson coincidentally interviewed me about Our Wolves. She provides a great idea of what the collection is all about.
Kathleen Cassen Mickelson graciously interviewed me about my poetry collection Our Wolves. I hope you enjoy the exchange. If you would like to comment, please do so at One Minnesota Crone to keep Kathleen in the loop! Thanks for reading :).
You really have to be paying attention to see the beginning of winter in Phoenix. It is a little cooler, but it is still as warm as a Michigan summer. The sky is still bright blue. Our flowers are brilliant, and the sun shining through the leaves of the bushes and trees is a painting.
Still, according to #TankaTuesday, this is the first week of The Beginning of Winter (November 7 – 21) Ritto 立冬. I thought I would try a new-to-me form, the gogyohka. This form is not truly syllabic, but Colleen Chesebro’s research has shown it to be more about breaths. It is a five-line poem, like a tanka. A gogyohka does not need a kigo word, but I am playing along with the seasonal prompts, so I am including “long night” as a kigo.
Some super cool news this week. Both my full-length collection Rooted and Winged and my chapbook Our Wolves are finalists for the American Book Fest 2023 awards! https://americanbookfest.com/2023bbapressrelease.html
I’m so pleased with how my books have done with the awards, but they could both use more reviews on Amazon (and Goodreads, too, but especially Amazon). It only takes one or two sentences to help the algorithm, so if you have read the books and liked them, please consider taking the time to drop Amazon a line or two.
It’s been over a week that I have been walking every day. I am so happy that I have been able to sustain this routine, and that my health has permitted. It’s a beautiful walk near me, and so far it’s been almost eventless. I am a little dismayed, though, how few birds I am finding this year. Has anyone else noticed this where you live or is it just here?
Writer, poet, and critic Elizabeth Gauffreau has written a magnificently brilliant review of my new chapbook Our Wolves. Her reviews are as engaging to read as any poetry or fiction.
With son and DIL living here, we have their dog Theo here as well. He’s such a little goofy guy, and I get to let him out when his mom and dad are both gone for three hours or more. I can’t physically handle walking him on a leash, although in a pinch I can take him on the driveway on a leash because he’s very good for me. But I like to let him roam the backyard, which is fenced. He’s very loved and what’s rewarding for me is that he loves his Grandma! In his photo you can see a very typical expression he gets on his face as he is always trying to figure out what’s going on.
