I’m delighted to have work in the new anthology curated by the outgoing Washington Poet Laureate Rena Priest. A postcard poem from 2022 was selected and I got this note from the publisher, Empty Bowl Press:

…We will have some early copies of the book for sale at full price at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Seattle, March 9–11. We’ll be at booth 1634 (along with Floating Bridge Press), so please stop by if you’re attending AWP. Empty Bowl authors—including Rena Priest—will be giving a reading Saturday, March 11, from 5–6:30 pm at the Casey Commons at Seattle University. You’ll find more information on the Empty Bowl website. Please consider joining us. 

      We’re now working with Rena to set up readings for the spring, beginning with April, National Poetry Month. We hope to schedule readings throughout Washington and will be inviting readers based on geography. Our hope is that everyone who wants to will have an opportunity to read. If you know of a venue in your area and are willing to help organize a reading, please get in touch with us at editor@emptybowl.org. We expect to hold readings through the summer and fall, when the salmon return, and will keep you posted as we firm up the schedule.  

      In the meantime, Rena has lined up two book launch celebrations in April and contacted local contributors to read:

      Saturday, April 8, at 2 p.m. at the downtown Seattle Public Library

      Monday, April 10, at 4 p.m. in the State Reception Room at the Capitol
      Building in Olympia 

Everyone is invited to attend either event—we hope you’ll join us to help celebrate! More information on both readings is listed on the Empty Bowl website.

      Finally, Empty Bowl Press is happy to let you know we’ll be contributing to the good efforts of the nonprofit organization Save Our wild Salmon to preserve wild salmon runs. We’re donating 100 copies of the collection, which will be sent to policymakers, and hope to work with Save Our wild Salmon to cosponsor a few  readings. More coming soon.

Thank you again for being part of this powerful collection, 

Holly Hughes and John Pierce

This is the second anthology curated by a Washington State poet laureate and the second time they have selected one of my poems, which is a good feeling. I hope to see you at one of the launch events given that there is no guarantee that salmon will be around in 20 years given our climate breakage and its effect on our Cascadia environment.