Tracks in the snow
around the headstone
lit by the moon
in their going somewhere—
sparrow, hedgehog, booted foot
lit by the moon determined and blue
and there! a wreath dropped
on a headstone fragrant and green
blanketed by snow and lit by the moon.
"The Organic Writer"
"Two wrongs may not make a right but a thousand wrongs make a writer.”
I'm excited to be invited to read from and discuss my debut novel Let Evening Come at Detroit's premier bookstore, Book Beat.
They've been specializing in quality Lit since 1982!! They even added some reviews. I'm sharing the night with another author, Donald Levin, who wrote The Ghosts of Detroit, there to talk about it just in time for Halloween.
It's been six months since my novel's release so this feels like a mini celebration for me. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get booktores to take a chance on a new (unknown) author, so I very much appreciate the opportunity and social media push.
Also, I just received a new review from the UK! And have you heard of Blackwells? In addition to normal retail outlets, the book reviewer has included a link to the bookseller based in Oxford, For some reason that seems exotic to me. (Delivery to the United States included in the cost.) Imagine seeing your novel on a bookshelf in a book store in Oxford. It might not be that big of a deal but it seems so to me.
It's been quite the publishing journey. I feel like I should have more words of wisdom but they elude me. For now I'm just sharing the epigram for the poetry compilation I'm submitting for publication. It sums up the feeling I'm feeling.
"I will love my crooked neighbor with my crooked heart" W.H. Auden
Stumps cut down in their youth
line the ditch. Roots full of life
with a
reach wider
than
their whacked-off crowns
cut off at the knees
(can you feel it?)
now
have nothing to feed.
The
parked bulldozer
(can you smell it?)
with
its claws in the dirt
is poised to make smooth
the way
of man.
But
wait.
(look closely)
Saplings
spring stubbornly
from stumps left alone.
The tree remembers.
Written for What's Going On Blog which challenges us this week to see both the dark and light in a world abounding with both and find a balance. Showing, somehow, the beauty and hope in a world that often feels dismal and divisive; with highlights to poems by Mary Oliver and Deena Metzger who do this all the time in their amazing poetry.
On the first warm night of summer she wore the sarong she bought in Venice Beach where everyone is beautiful. The drape of fabric, soft as a sigh, brought back the surf that smelled like seaweed, the muscle volleyball game, and the blackest man in America who mimed on the boardwalk to a growing crowd. Candle wax from the last time she'd worn it had hardened in little droplets down the front. She could lift them out with an iron and a piece of paper towel. But that would have to wait.
The rain came across the fields like wind through corn, and with it rose the howl from the barn, and what she had to do because he was gone overtook the carefree evening. She hung the sarong back in the closet, changed into the jeans that fit and pulled on the tall rubber boots that didn't, then loaded the gun, raised the hood on her anorak, and entered the night.
Flash Fiction can be looked at as a half circle. But what if this was just the beginning. Would you turn the page?
Not many things can beat sitting around a table with a group of like-minded people to discuss books.
I was recently invited to the monthly meeting of Town and Country, a local women’s group of lifelong friends. From historians to teachers to retired medical professionals, we gathered at a friend’s house over hors d’oeuvres, bourbon slush, and elder blossom liquor to discuss my novel, Let Evening Come.
Some in the group have a direct relationship to
Native Americans, and I learned of the four sacred herbs: sage, cedar,
sweetgrass and tobacco, a discussion that led seamlessly into that of my novel with its Indigenous components.
Other members of
the group are affialiated with the Daughters of theAmerican Revolution, the historic patriotic organization of forward thinking
women established in 1918. There were
bookmarks proclaiming The American Creed: I therefore believe it is my duty
to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to
respect its flag; and to defend it against all enemies. Penned by William Tyler Page in 1918, a
creed that seems more urgent today.
While they don’t call themselves a “book club”, on this day it was.
I had one of my best readings right here at our local township library. This man, with the evocative message on his shirt, made an indelible impression on me. I was honored he asked me to sign a book for his daughter.
My novel, Let Evening Come, is about the displacement of Indigenous peoples, love and loss, broken treaties and sundered promises. His shirt says it all and made me feel I had written something of worth. I'm sad that in the confusion of signings and surrounding conversation, I didn't get his name. That he had me sign it for his daughter, felt like the best tribute of all.
Regarding book signings, I'll be doing a Fourth of July giveaway. All you have to do is sign up for my newsletter here. I promise to keep the content interesting and the mailings infrequent.
The price of libraries is small compared to the price of an ignorant nation.
My hope now is that the first print run sells out and they have to do a second printing so the four (yes 4!!) typos a friend and sister found can be corrected.
Bird’s plaintive cry o’erpurple nestling on the walkFlees in silent flight.
A story about them is in the Flapper Press this month.
After my mother died, I found a mink stole wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of the cedar chest . . .
Yes, living where I do, we have rat stories, mink stories, weasel and skunk stories, the knock-in-the-night stories. Nocturnal stories.
Fodder for a memoir. Would you pull up a chair?
In good company at Eras Bookstore
Thanks to the way bookshops and libraries organize books, I'm butting up against one of my favorite authors! I couldn't ask for a better position. We even happen to be color coordinated. 😃
To cap off my novel's birthday month I spent the afternoon at this new bookstore in Oxford, Michigan.
If you are a writer, could you base a novel on a single solitary memory from your childhood?
Sometimes that's all that's needed to jumpstart a story.
For me it was a barefoot boy beckoning from an adjacent dock on a Northern Michigan lake, the boomerang that wouldn't come back, and the boy who lived with his family in a migrant's shack and one day stopped coming to school.
Writing is a solitary business (why writers love to write). Yet we eavesdrop and belly up to the bar where interesting people rub shoulders and words flow and ideas percolate to flow off our fingertips onto the white expanse of a screen or a notebook or a bar napkin.
Some of the reasons I'm passionate about writing and the natural world are explained here (the scary out-of-the-way, desolate places our dad would park our pop-up camper on family vacations), along with some of my favorite immersive fiction from 2023 and the novels whose readers I felt would enjoy Let Evening Come. But I wonder how accurate my assumptions are.
I've been asked, if I had to do anything other than write, what would it be? I would like to hide in the upper branches of a tree. Drop raspberries in a basket tied at my waist and stomp grapes. Walk the fencerow to the rear of the farm to see the eagle's nest I've heard tell of, a mere hundred-acre walk away.
With one project complete and out of my hands while another is stalled and yet another still percolating like a an old coffee pot, I'm stuck in that out-of-sorts time for a writer. So, why not do some of those things? Why let a 20-mile-an-hour wind dissuade me, or a cold rain, or a mass of turbulent clouds skuttling across the sky to hide the sun as if another eclipse were underway? Why do I let the mundane eat away at the day, like the moon to the sun, or suddenly find myself daydreaming in front of the open refrigerator as if dinner will miraculously appear? Why let the out-of-sorts-time interfere with a walk along a fencerow to discover an eagle's nest rumored to be as big as a dining room table and maybe . . . maybe even catch sight of an adult in the act of remodeling or adding to last years structure.
Now that would be something to write about!
MIRACLES OF SPRING
While answering questions about my writing in an Interview with the publisher, two plump robins engage in a mating dance on snow-crusted grass outside my window. They fly their affair into the maple, bare as a February field, and find foothold in the crook of a branch for spring is coming and there's work to be done.
The miracle of the greening.
The poets at What's Going On (the mighty foursome!) reminded me that all around there are miracles in our midst. We only have to stop and look to see the plump robin in a new light, how she fends off the blue jays through patience and perseverance.
Then there's the first pop of green in the towering birch trees that seemed to happen overnight.
We appreciate what we have after we no longer have it
A cache of eggs in a bowl of straw.
Brown and warm, chocolate and tan
Hens who like to sit, murmur, and coo
Beneath a watertight roof safe and secure.
Puffed-up doves preen in the rafters.
One flies
overhead, east to west, the length of day.
Temperatures
drop, wind rifts through the cracks
The sound of eaves dripping,
November come calling.
But the
mow stays dry, a refuge from the farm on the farm.
I write in here. If I were a bird I’d nest in here.
If I were an owl, I’d sleep in here.
If I were a architect I construct this here.
But they don't make barns like this anymore.
The resident cat from a long line of felines is on patrol.
When dad had dairy there were many of them.
Does
she have a batch of newborns curled in a ball
In grandpa’s hay mow?
A melodic song from high in the rafters
Stirs the hair on my arm.
No common
sparrow this trilling song. Doves don’t mind
Our looking
at them but somewhere up there—
Where no light can shine, nor eye can see
Perches an uncommon bird warbling a song.
My breath freezes in frame like a cat on the prowl
But this diminutive bird
Compelled to sing of the day
Remains hidden from me.
For dVerse, a poem about a building that was more than a building to me.
I have a guest post on Anne Allen's blog, What Happens After "The call".
My novel releases one week from today. I hope you'll add it to your bookcase.📚 I just got an advance blurb from Dave Essinger, author and editor. I'm geeked about it.
Let Evening Come is a compelling contemporary Northern coming-of-age tale, gripping in its conflicts and transfixing in its prose. - Dave Essinger, author of Running Out, and Editor, Slippery Elm Literary Journal.
The hardest thing for an author to articulate is the one-sentence pitch. I've made a hundred adjustments and it still doesn't feel right. 😕
Let Evening Come is the story of an Indigenous person displaced from his ancestral home in Canada and the motherless farm girl from Michigan who befriends him.
Since I'm within ten days of my book launch (shiver, shake, commiserate) I thought I'd give last call for my newsletter signup. Sign up by April 2nd and your name will be included in the drawing for an autographed copy with some other goodies. Signed first printings are worth a lot!! 😀 My heartfelt thanks if you have already done so.
The Worm Moon is shining in my window like a headlamp, illuminating the snow-covered landscape such as you wouldn't need one. A beacon in the darkling night while the world sleeps.
The seasons of the year left their trace
on you
til there was nothing
to drop on the dresser but lint in the folds of your hanky.
Leaves weighted by rain drop from a gunmetal sky,
swirl and land on the freshly dug grave,
the mound of dirt unsettled and coarse,
unlike your face clean-shaven on the blade of the mortician.
Lids drawn over the sterling blue eyes,
tie straightened and mouth closed,
tight-lipped, as our father never was.
The mouth isn’t
right, my
sister whispered
as the kneeler wobbled under our connected sorrow.
I checked his pockets, like a child for a coin,
climbing on a lap, cool, deep, and empty.
For Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings: In Memoriam
Publishing Note:
A Dead Man's Pockets appeared in the 2021 Slippery Elm Literary Journal
What the UPS guy brought me yesterday!
Now that I have my advance copies, I'm counting down the days to the release of my novel on April 2nd. I'm extremely nervous about how the public will receive it. I practically have the darn thing memorized, but what you think is what matters.
"Let Evening Come is penned by author Yvonne Osborne in the literary style and the interpersonal drama and coming-of-age subgenres. Author Yvonne Osborne has crafted a truly emotionally resonant novel that delves into themes of loss, displacement, and cultural conflict. The up-close and detailed portrayal of Sadie and Stefan's budding romance against the backdrop of their respective struggles was both captivating and poignant.
I loved the way their unique dialogue was presented and readers will feel the dynamics between the lines. The exploration of cultural misunderstanding and the challenges faced by Indigenous communities was an incredibly poignant touch that is really focused on and never used as a gimmick, fostering genuine empathy and understanding. As the characters navigated adversity and sought connection across borders, I found myself deeply invested in their journey, rooting for their love to transcend the obstacles in their path. Overall, Let Evening Come is a recommended read and a compelling tale of love, resilience, and the human capacity to overcome adversity amidst cultural divides."
--Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
I understand it can be intimidating to leave a review. Even if you enjoy a book, it puts you on the spot. But honestly, it doesn't have to be long. It can be one sentence, or even one word! They mean so much, especially for a new, unknown author. Editorial reviews might carry more weight but reviews from readers are more personal and meaningful to the author.
This Daylight Savings Times gives us late morning darkness but my inner clock tells me it's time for a cup of coffee!
At the rear of the yard are the stones we
can’t read
all the names swallowed up by the cold.
Bare of epitaph, they lean against each other,
even their stones are tired.
Then there are the markers that only bear a
number,
like the tattooed at Auschwitz.
One straggler is off alone and we wonder
if he wanted it so.
The rounded stone juts white from Earth
like a tooth.
And what of those who couldn’t even get
inside the fence—
separated from the gilded, even here.
To celebrate Swedish Nobel Laureate Tomas Transtromer, dVerse's Bjorn Rudberg asked us to write a poem of exactly 144 words, including a line taken from one of the Nobel writer's poems. In case you can't guess, it's all the names swallowed up by the cold.
More at dVerse on this renowned poet and how he captured the long winters of Scandinavia in his writing.
Note: All the photographs herein on my own. No peeping AI on my shoulder with his shudder eye.