So much of my work emerges from an interior place, an inner knowing, a sense that yes, now I should write this story, or yes, right now this poem is forming in my thoughts. No matter how many lists or outlines I make of what I want to write, I find that I cannot keep to them because something else is rumbling within.
I am learning to pay attention to the interior world first. As the new year approached, I somehow knew that this would be the year that I would search for a publisher for my first collection of poetry. I am only now, as spring begins, delving in to the list to see which one might be a good fit for my work (or more importantly which one would accept my work).
On a side note, I have a poem called “The Northern Lights” in the most recent publication of the Schuylkill Valley Journal (I have no idea how to pronounce the name). 
In the meantime, Luanne Castle, my office mate in graduate school and still my dear friend twenty-four years later, has published her second collection of poems, a chapbook called Kin Types (Finishing Line Press, 2017), which comes out June 23. She has been generous with encouragement and suggestions, and I am always inspired by her work.
Luanne’s first collection, Doll God, won the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.
You can read my review of Doll God by clicking here. You can order it by clicking here.
Kin Types is a remarkable collection of works that contains sketches of late family members in both poetry and prose. Luanne’s strong interest in genealogy has enabled her to amass a large collection of stories and photographs of her ancestors. She has told many of their stories in this collection, which is unique in its approach and content. The poems struck me as being “elegaic,” and in the broadest sense, they are elegies for the members of her family represented in the poems.
I already ordered mine! You can order pre-order a copy by clicking here.
You can read my review of it by clicking here.
Inland Empire writers will know of Cindy Rinne, who is so active in the area that I think she has clones appearing for her in all places at once. Cindy has an eclectic set of talents, as you can see if you visit her website, http://www.fiberverse.com/.
In addition to her recently published novel in verse, Quiet Lantern, published by Turning Point Books, 2016, which you can order by clicking here (see my review here), Rinne has a new chapbook coming out, Listen to the Codex, a remarkable collection of poems that sent me to the edge of my imagination. Listen to the Codex is part of the Native Blossoms Chapbook Series edited by Anne Yale at Yak Press. You can find out more about that series by clicking here.
So creativity abounds, and we are all the better for it. Have you put together a collection? What was your method? What governed your decisions? Feel free to post your ideas.
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