Snow is falling today, as it always does in April, no matter how mild the winter. Huge flakes are drifting lazily to the earth and may stick around for a little while. By later this week they’ll have melted into the ground, but for now, winter and spring are still undecided. It feels like spring with the moisture the air, and the new green shoots poking up through brown, but it looks like winter as the landscape turns bright white for now.
After Collisions of Earth and Sky1 came out in early 2023, I thought to myself, ‘hmmm. I should take a little break from publishing to replenish the promotional stores.’ It takes a great deal of energy, a very different energy than actually writing and editing the words in the book that’s being published, to continually promote, distribute, and give talks about said book. When I published my very first book, Prairie Grown2, back in 2016, I remember thinking, “Sweet. Book’s out, now I sit at a table at the local shop for an hour to sign some of them, and done.” Turns out that’s not how this works….as an author you’ve got to sit at LOTS of book signing tables, and you almost always have to solicit or at least organize those opportunities yourself. And make images to post to social media, and give interviews, and appear on podcasts, and create additional resources like retreats based on the content of the book or workshops that center the ideas therein. It can be a lot. Sounds like a full time job, right?
For some it absolutely is, but for the vast majority of us who publish via small indie presses, publishing—even if you publish multiple titles—just doesn’t pay all the bills. It helps, but almost every author I know has an additional source of income.
My friend and fellow poet Chris La Tray3 shares a bit about this in his latest newsletter that went out recently, too—for small presses and the authors who publish through them, the climate is tougher than it’s ever been. Many indie presses are feeling the loss of viable distribution options:
Berkeley’s Small Press Distributors is a distributor of books published by tiny, independent presses who lack the means to be distributed by larger operations, and they’d been doing it for over half a century. Last week they abruptly shut down, leaving many publishers, and the writers and poets they publish, in a significantly desperate lurch. How will people and bookstores get their books now? It’s devastating in a world where convenience dominates to the point where many people can’t be bothered to click more than once or twice to order a book, or pay a fair amount for what it’s worth.
All this to say, if you enjoy a poet or author whose books are made possible by a small press, keep buying them! Even if Amazon says “out of print” it’s likely you can still get copies via the publisher’s website or directly from the author. Buy as close to the author as you can. It makes a difference.
So anyway, even though promoting takes all that energy, and even though getting those books, especially the poetry collections, out into stores is more challenging than ever, here I am with another book to promote and distribute. Because as it happens, even when promotional energy wanes, the energy to continue writing doesn’t. As a poet who draws on nature and society for inspiration, there’s always something to notice and mull and write down. Often that becomes a poem or a paragraph, and after awhile enough of those poems and paragraphs come together into an organized collection that someone else may wish to read.
Here’s how Just Wild Enough starts out. May you wish to read more. ;)
Most of the time I don’t feel wild, not really—not like I imagine a wolf or river otter or loon must feel wild. Yet I do feel like at least a part of me is akin to rivers and lakes, soil and trees, and all the wild things that still crawl the earth, swim the seas, and soar the skies. That’s the part I want to focus on. The part that’s just wild enough. Attention to that part is a prayer, the kind that rises from the ordinary, the kind that harmonizes with all the other wild parts of creation in a collective song of everyday devotion, a song that persists through all seasons, across all borders, and rides on the winds of time.
I was in my hometown of Brookings, South Dakota over the weekend to visit my parents and celebrate Easter with them—so it worked well to have the first bookstore event for Just Wild Enough this past Saturday. The Nook is a fairly new addition to downtown Brookings, and they are wonderful supporters of local authors and independent presses. If you need a signed copy of any of my books, they’ve got ‘em in stock!
And finally, to wrap up this slightly rambling installment of Ordinary Collisions, it’s National Poetry Month. So, I’ll leave you with a word on how to become poetry from Just Wild Enough:
How to become poetry
Find the verse in birds singing
in fallen feathers
in rustles of old leaves
in ripples that caress calm waters
in softness that stretches out inside summer heat.
Allow it to fill you up,
skin absorbing every line,
a reminder that you are song walking—
old leaves rustling
calm waters rippling,
a softness that hovers
coaxing attentiveness into art.
April event:
I’ll be at the Yoga Branch in North Branch, Minnesota, on April 27. There will be a short reading at 11:30am and books available for sale!
Collisions and 12TT are published through a larger publishing house than my other books, so distribution isn’t an issue for them, generally speaking. But it’s still best to get them from your local indie bookshop!
Now officially out of print, as the publisher went out of business. Two folks came looking for this book at the signing I did over the weekend, so I may try to republish it in some form in the future…
Also poet laureate of Montana and also has a not-to-be-missed book coming out in August! Preorder Becoming Little Shell here: Fact & Fiction Books. Where you can also get his poetry collections.
Congrats, Heidi. This was beautiful to read! I graduated from SDSU over 20 years ago, and I’ve been wanting to visit Brookings again. I’ll be sure to look for this bookstore.
Heidi, congratulations on yet another book for us! I have mine on pre-order and hope it arrives soon. And you are correct, this gig ain't easy. I do write for my living but the bulk of the income comes from a combination of my newsletter and what I call writing "adjacent" pursuits. Workshops, speaking engagements, etc. I consider myself very fortunate to be pulling it off, even if it is a precarious, wobbly structure my whole existence depends on. But at least no one is telling me what to do. Here's to you on your big day!