I just did a second round of corrections for slight faith, which will be published on May 1st.  I’m looking through these poems, and somehow, I can’t believe I wrote them, or maybe I just don’t remember the actual writing of them. Some of the poems are a decade old, and I worked on this manuscript for at least 4 years before finding a home for it with Lana Ayers at MoonPath Press.

This is no complaint, far from it. The manuscript is so much better now than it was four years ago! Lana accepted it in the summer of 2016, asking if I was willing to wait that long for publication. I immediately said “yes”, loving her press so much, and wanting more than anything to have a book published by a Pacific Northwest publisher. And, of course, I continued to edit and fiddle with the poems until this past December.

The feeling of not believing I wrote these poems uncovers layers of emotions  that are erupting now that I am watching the work transition from manuscript to actual book: a lack of faith in myself; tremendous gratitude to every poet on earth, to whom I owe my love of poetry;  astonishment  that the poems are good; questioning “are they good?”; the anxiety of knowing the next phase (promoting the book) is likely to lead to some mixture of joy and disappointment; and wonderment at the poetic collective witchery that was tapped into in the writing.

It’s been a long gestation. The book is really beautiful and the cover is awesome (thanks to Mary Meriam for tirelessly  searching for the right art work). I’m quietly excited as all hell.

But I’d be seriously giddy for you to pre-order slight faith.