Luanne Castle – Writer & Poet

admin — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 01:12:15 +0000

The blog tour for Rooted and Winged has begun:

Review Tales – Luanne Castle Interview

The Bookish Elf – Luanne Castle Interview

The Bookworm – Luanne Castle guest post

Anthony Avina’s Blog – Luanne Castle Interview

The Book Connection – Luanne Castle Interview

Celtic Lady’s Reviews – Luanne Castle Guest Post

The Soapy Violinist – Luanne Castle Guest Post

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Harbor Review has published a review by Carla McGill of Rooted and Winged. You can find it here: Harbor Review: Rooted and Winged Review by Carla McGill

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To celebrate my new poetry collection, I am holding a prose and poetry writing contest! Eligibility ends on July 15, so read the guidelines now: Rooted and Winged Writing Contest Guidelines

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I am happy to announce the debut of my newest poetry collection Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line Press, 2022).

The poems of Luanne Castle’s Rooted and Winged are embedded in land and weather. “Bluegills snap up larvae in slivers of illusory light,” she writes early in the collection, hinting at the sensibilities of the companionable speaker who will usher us through the book.

—Diane Seuss (2022, Pulitzer for poetry)

The presale ends on July 15! The number of copies of books sold during the presale determines the press run, so if you are interested in my book, it would be much better to purchase it during the presale.

As an added motivation (during the presale period only), for each book sold, $5 will be donated in the purchaser’s name to Liberty Wildlife, an amazing wildlife rehab center in Phoenix (presale purchasers who provide me with their name and email address will get an email receipt from LW at the end of the presale period).

Preorder here: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/rooted-and-winged-by-luanne-castle/

Rooted and Winged is a fitting title for this collection of poems that plant themselves in reality but often hint at the surreal.

–Karen Paul Holmes, author of No Such Thing as Distance.

To whet your appetite, here is a poem from Rooted and Winged:

Tuesday Afternoon at Magpie’s Grill

Flickering afternoon light slatted and parsed.

At 3PM, the booths empty except for me

and my notebook.

Would I notice if not for my companion,

my need to recognize and remember?

Without a record, will I hear the ice crashing

into the sink, the Dodger talk at the bar

at the end of the room under the Miller Lite

neon confident and beckoning?

My mother used to say about me,

In one ear and out the other, as if the words

flowed through me without stopping,

without truly entering me, leaving little

effect, as if I had no memory

of all the little parental transgressions.

Why am I not under the sycamore I spot

through the blinds in this Tuesday sunshine

listening to the very song with the shady tree?

What have I done with my life? When

I should have written a poem, I didn’t.

When I did, I didn’t get it quite right.

How can a poem do so many things:

wishing for the shade and thirsty for a beer,

feeling an urge to move my pen and noting

the tiny feet and brush of cuticle,

the solitary fly on my bare arm, while

imagining the chattering of the birds that swoop

from sycamore to jacaranda as if the parking lot

and dumpsters and broken bottles don’t exist.

No matter what I notice,

no matter what I record, I will never

capture the ease of wind-filled wings,

tail feathers a translucent backlit fan,

as my hollow bones jettison the detritus

to fly upward against the source.

Recently published:

Poetry

Poem at Tipton Poetry Journal: “Thank you for meeting me for coffee,” a Little Red Riding Hood poem

Prose

A Long Time from Burdick Street. North Meridian Review. Fall 2021

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Luanne Castle’s KIN TYPES has been named a 2018 Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award.

Read the official press release here.

Kin Types, published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press, is a collection of lyric poetry, prose poetry, and flash prose that imaginatively retells the lives of private individuals from previous generations. Using family history research, the writer has reconstructed the stories of women and men from Michigan to Illinois to the Netherlands. Read together, the pieces create a history of women dealing with infant mortality, vanity, housewife skills, divorce, secret abortion, the artist versus mother dilemma, mysterious death, wife beating, and a brave heroine saving a family’s home.

Her debut poetry collection, Doll God, winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Poetry Award, 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.

You can read excerpts from Doll God and Kin Types, as well as samples of Luanne’s other writing at Samples of Luanne’s Writing, or read her latest blog entries at www.writersite.org.

Uncategorized – LUANNE CASTLE

Recent Publications

If the poems are online, the titles are links so click away.

Luanne Castle – Writer & Poet