Sara Backer's Blog, page 10

2015 Turtle Island Poetry Award

I won! I am over the lucky blue moon about this. My chapbook about place, wildness, ethics, beauty, and balance, BICYCLE LOTUS, will be published by FootHills Press around December. "I have never seen so much insight, understanding, passion, and fight packed into any chapbook before. This is what a chapbook should be all about--a precise and mind expanding voyage into a state of mind that could not be entered into through a longer work--and yet contains more than any work of similar size possibly could."--Jared Smith, Editor, Turtle Island Quarterly

Rust + Moth published "Blindsided"

Check out my poem about fathers, daughter, and living blindly. http://rustandmoth.com/work/blindsided/

"Chess Therapy" in Anima

My poem "Chess Therapy" made it into the debut edition of the intelligent and well-produced Anima. Here's hoping Anima will stick around for many years providing food for thought.

"Candle Ritual" in Crannóg

I wish I could have been at the launch reading in Galway on June 26, but I'm still delighted to have my poem, "Candle Ritual," appear in Ireland's amazing Crannóg Magazine. It's on p.25 of Issue #39–the one with the beautiful owl on the cover.

The No Face

Hawaii's long-running journal Bamboo Ridge Issue #106, launched this week, includes my short story "The No Face" based on the Japanese folk tale of noppera-bou set in the 21st century.

Don't Count Any Star Twice

Vignettes are making a comeback! A vignette is prose that evokes a scene, character, or event but does not require a plot or epiphany to make it a story. Two of my vignettes, "Don't Count Any Star Twice" and "Hand Tools," were published today in Hermeneutic Chaos Journal Issue #8. Both concern fathers.

Made a Fool

"Made a Fool" is a poem inspired by the Fool card of the tarot deck, which is number zero. Watch closely for the pun of the word that contains both letters and numbers. I identify with the fool, wanting to enjoy life and be a little silly while those around me can be so dang ambitious and serious. You have to scroll down quite a ways for it: Allegro Poetry Issue 3 March 2015.

Accident

And here is my first publication for 2015, a poem titled "Accident" published by Hermes Poetry Journal. The story of this poem is true--for better or worse!

A Wheel in the Sky

Here's my final 2014 publication: a speculative story about battling technology with mythology in Devilfish Review.

Moving

"Moving" is an appropriate poem to end the year that I wrote while contemplating the Death card in tarot and am so happy to have published in The Pedestal Magazine, one of my top favorite literary journals. I am still waiting to have an auspicious dream on New Year's Eve in the Japanese way (to dream of Mt. Fuji, eagles, or eggplant, in that order). But there are also useful dreams and nightmares that help us find our true paths in life. So, may your dreams either be useful (like my poem "Moving") or auspicious. Happy 2015!