Stack of books: The Master Butchers Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich; Jewel, by Bret Lott; Anything Is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout; Foreign Bodies, by Cynthia Ozick; How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewellyn; The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott; The Owl Killers, by Karen Maitland; Waiting for the Barbarians, by J.M. Coetzee, When the Emperor Was Divine, by Otsuka; To Live, by Yu Hua; The final Solution, by Michael Chabon; People in Glass Houses, by Shirley Hazzard; Elegy, by Mary Jo Bang

There's fun to be had at the Shelter House book sale! 860 Quarry Rd, Coralville IA. Open tomorrow, too, 10:30 AM to 4 PM. Good books for a good cause.
#shelterhousebooksale #iowacity #coralville

Just finished reading Matthiessen's Killing Mister Watson (1990). Really immersive American frontier story, set in southwest Florida around 1900. Great historical fiction written by someone with deep curiosity about history, the natural world, and the human condition.
#bookrecommendation

Cheryl and Bru on their wedding day, head and shoulders of them in front of a stained glass window.

Twenty years ago today! Older, wiser, but still recognizable.
#weddinganniversary #happyanniversary #20Years

red envelope against a black background announcing a new book deal for SOON YOU’LL BE JUST LIKE US by chin-sun lee

so thrilled my new novel, SOON YOU’LL BE JUST LIKE US, has found a home with Creature Publishing!🩸i spilled my guts all over this weird, dark tale of psychological horror that while writing led me to truly unexpected places. i hope readers will likewise feel a delicious gasp of surprise.

Yes, gentle because it's about growing old in a community that cares about and supports one another. Growing old alone and isolated provokes much more anxiety!

Okay, so this made my day today!

A huge thank you to @immcarvalho.bsky.social for including me in her list of favorite poets on BlueSky and X and featuring one of my poetry films! So thrilled!!!

Check out the other fabulous writers who made Maria’s list and read their work here ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Prairie Ashes Check out Prairie Ashes - <p>Ben Nadler's latest novel, Prairie Ashes</em>, follows Barb-a Midwestern punk living on the West Coast in the 1980s. In the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, she recon...

bookshop.org/a/96594/9798...
#smallpress #minewar #illinoishistory

Cover of the novel Prairie Ashes, by Ben Nadler

Really enjoyed this novel, absorbing account of the Illinois mine wars pieced together by a 1980s punk with a demon of her own to exorcise. Historical fiction of the best kind, grounded in deep research and curiosity with a compelling personal story.
#americanbuffalobooks #prairieashes #bennadler

From Alison C. Rollins's poem "All the World Began With a Yes": "Morality flexes its musculature, trusts // that truth sets out to penetrate mysteries / only for man to rebuild them with fury."

#favoritelinefridays #alisoncrollins #libraryofsmallcatastrophes @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social #poetry

Review of Stewart O'Nan's novel Evensong, which launched last month. Good for those on your holiday list who might like stories about the challenges of aging, feisty older women, or Pittsburgh.
www.cherylwalsh.net/blog
#stewartonan #evensong #AtlanticMonthlyPress #aging #pittsburgh

I’m happy to announce that you can now find THE MONSTERS AMONG US on shelves at two excellent bookstores in New Paltz, NY:

Inquiring Minds and Barner Books!

A favorite line from Barbara Kingsolver's novel *The Poisonwood Bible*: "Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization."

#favoritelinefridays #barbarakingsolver #thepoisonwoodbible #womenwriters #postcolonialliterature

On Passing the New Menin Gate Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,— Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp. Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride 'Their name liveth for ever,' the Gateway claims. Was ever an immolation so belied As these intolerably nameless names? Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime. ~ Siegfried Sassoon, 1927

"On Passing the New Menin Gate" by Siegfried Sassoon, 1927
#RemembranceDay #ArmisticeDay #siegfriedsassoon #worldwaripoetry #wwipoetry

Friday essay: Debra Dank’s grandmother was a ‘drover’s boy’. Her stolen wages can’t be recovered Stella Prize shortlisted author Debra Dank reflects on how her family’s lives were scarred by stolen wages and colonial violence – and on the complexities of apologies.

For those who will bear witness. For everyone who pretends there was benevolence from 'employers' & governments, and no slavery in Australia; who believes Tony Abbott's version of history. Debra Dank writes with beauty and anger of the truth we cannot dodge.
theconversation.com/friday-essay...

#winningtheearthquake #JeannetteRankin #lorissarinehart #womansuffrage #suffragists #Progressivism #AmericanHistory

New blog post--review of a new book out this week: Lorissa Rinehart's biography of Jeannette Rankin. Someone I've always been curious about, and the book is a pleasure to read--there's lots about Progressivism, woman suffrage, and 20th-century American politics.
www.cherylwalsh.net/blog

Welcome news this afternoon.
www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2...

A favorite line from @jenniferfawcett.bsky.social's brand new book, *Keep This for Me*: "When did all their tiny movements get so layered with meaning? It was exhausting."

#favoritelinefridays #keepthisforme #thrillerbooks @atriabooks.bsky.social

Tommy Orange Illuminating the richness and complexity of contemporary, urban Native Peoples’ lives.

Tommy Orange got a MacArthur! HELL YEAH!
www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...

New blog post up today, a review of @jenniferfawcett.bsky.social's new thriller, #KeepThisForMe --out this week. As a child of the Great Lakes, I was totally into the Lake Ontario beach town setting.
www.cherylwalsh.net/blog
#bookreviews #thrillerbooks @atriabooks.bsky.social

New specs!

#newglasses

Come check out booth #223 at the Brooklyn Book Festival!

Black and white photo of two pairs of clasped hands, wrinkled and gnarled, next to each other from across a table, not touching.

Favorite lines from T. S. Eliot's poem "East Coker": "Do not let me hear / Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, / Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, / Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God."

#tseliot #eastcoker #favoritelinefridays #poetry

I'm sort of pinching myself here. I got a book signing in November at Barnes and Noble. SO very excited! Dopamine and the Devil, out now with Coffeetown Press. Thanks always to my wonderful friends!

"There was something comforting about handling a machine.... The inexplicable could be explained, the right decision implicit in the conditions. Incorrect decisions were measurable. And if something went wrong, there would be a solution. Or at least a clear reason for scrapping the heap." Unequal Temperament, Cheryl Walsh

In celebration of UNEQUAL TEMPERAMENT's second birthday, here is one of my own lines for #favoritelinefridays.

#unequaltemperament #debutnovel #WomensFiction #americanbuffalobooks #harpsichord #meteorology #booksky #writingcommunity

Happy birthday to UNEQUAL TEMPERAMENT, launched into the world two years ago today! To celebrate, I'm giving away a few copies--DM if you're interested.
#unequaltemperament #bookbirthday #debutnovel #harpsichord #meteorology #WomensFiction @buffalo-books.bsky.social

A favorite line from Jim Harrison's wonderful novel *Returning to Earth*: "I awoke delighted with life on earth despite its desperately compromised nature."

#jimharrison #favoritelinefridays

Today I made guacamole with garlic chive blossoms and it was fantastic!

#backyardherbs #guacamole

Photo of pine trees against a dark sky with the tips illuminated by moonlight.

A favorite line from Linda Pastan's poem "Cosmology": "Someone has spilled the moon / all over the trees."
#favoritelinefridays #LindaPastan #poetry @wwnorton.com

Oh, they are! However, when you cook them the purple speckles disappear and they just look like wax beans, though they are flatter than the typical wax bean, more like a runner bean in shape. Very tasty, though!