Böcker utgivna av Minerva Rising Press

From arcing fireworks to a bat in the belly of a church organ, Emily Kerlin's poems explore the expansiveterritory of farewell. Each poem enshrouds the reader in a mystery of loss, some minuscule, others astronomical, coaxing them toward revelation. And in what striking forms these revelations manifest: a boy lost forever as "Mice scuttle in the hay,/ brittle leaves scratch/ in the autumn chill"; a husband struggling with "the constant problem/ of breath"; a plague and its wake of "crocuses pushing purple into this cold March morning." Kerlin's poetry compels you to lean in a little closer, to listen and look with more intention, then rewards you with "a spill of starlight" and "the fragile lace of the human lung."

When Janice Airhart was an infant, her mother was committed to a Louisiana mental hospital, and she spent most of the next 13 years institutionalized until her death in 1966. That no one in the family would speak about her schizophrenic mother convinced Airhart it was shameful to ask questions and that fears of inheriting her mother's illness were justified. Mother of My Invention explores the unique challenges faced by motherless daughters and suggests that mothers can sometimes be found in unexpected places if we're open to finding them.

Wide Open Writing is designed as an experience of what can happen when you take the time and space for your essential writer to emerge. It is in the fashion of an in-person retreat based on the first WOW getaway.  Every chapter contains at least one writing prompt.