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John Pierce 4/29/26 John Pierce 4/29/26

May News from Empty Bowl Press

April 29, 2026

Dear friends of Empty Bowl,

Along with a profusion of fragrant pink blossoms on our cherry trees, May brings opportunities to celebrate our authors’ latest releases, an online interview and reading with Finn Wilcox, and a date for our fiftieth-anniversary celebration in Port Townsend in the fall. Please read on . . .

Join us in Seattle May 6 at 5:30 p.m. at Peter Miller’s Architecture & Design Books in Pioneer Square to celebrate Anna Linzer’s moving memoir, Writing Home. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. Anna’s sons, artists Oscar Tuazon and Eli Hansen, will have work on display in the gallery throughout May.

Charles Goodrich’s Knot House launched last week in Corvallis to an appreciative crowd of more than 100! Thanks again to the Spring Creek Project for hosting this reading. Charles will be reading in Port Townsend on May 8 at 6 p.m. at the Meeting House, teaming up with long-time Empty Bowl poet Finn Wilcox, who will be reading from The Silence of a Shooting Star and Too Late to Turn Back Now. Details below and on our website.

On May 21, we’re celebrating the launch of Peter Quinn’s a thread I didn’t know I was hanging by, a poetry collection that celebrates the healing power of love and what it means to be a son, father, husband, and friend. Peter will be reading with Copper Canyon poet Kelli Russell Agodon as part of the Readings at the Meeting House series, which starts at 7 p.m.

Finally, as part of our year-long 5oth anniversary celebration, we’ve been posting links to interviews with the founders and early contributors to Empty Bowl. This month, we’ve added an interview with Finn Wilcox. You can also listen to interviews with Michael Daley and Tim McNulty and find links to all three reading their poems. A deep bow of gratitude to Richard Meadows for conducting these interviews and filming the videos.

SAVE THE DATE!

We’ll be celebrating Empty Bowl’s 50th anniversary on
October 10 at the Cotton Building in Port Townsend.
More details to come.

We hope to see you at a May reading—and in October at the 50th celebration! In the meantime, enjoy spring!

With thanks,

Holly and John

John Pierce 3/27/26 John Pierce 3/27/26

Spring newsletter—Empty Bowl Press

March 27, 2026

Dear friends of Empty Bowl,

Spring has been a long time coming, but what has helped sustain us through the rainy season is the support our community provides, whether that support comes from attending our readings, buying our books, or sending a note of thanks. In that spirit, here’s our latest news—upcoming events, a few new books, and more interviews and videos in celebration of Empty Bowl’s fiftieth year of operations.

For those of you in or near Port Townsend, please join us April 2, at 5:30 p.m., to launch Anna Odessa Linzer’s memoir Writing Home. We’ll gather at Imprint Bookshop, 820 Water Street. Our thanks to store owner John Blomgren for organizing and hosting this event.

As we write, Charles Goodrich’s Knot House: New and Selected Poems, is rolling off the presses! We’ll be celebrating the release of Knot House at PRAx on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, Oregon, where Charles lives, on April 23. Thanks to the Spring Creek Project for hosting. Charles will also be reading in Port Townsend at the Meeting House on Friday, May 8, along with Ed Harkness, author of Creek Water. See our events page for details.

In May, we’re publishing Peter Quinn’s a thread I didn’t know I was hanging by, a collection that celebrates the healing power of love and what it means to be a son, father, husband, and friend. Peter is reading with Kelli Russell Agodon on May 21 as part of the Readings at the Meeting House series. More details to come. In April, a thread I didn’t know I was hanging by will be available for ordering.

In other notes, we’re happy to pass along the good news that Cune Press in Seattle will be publishing The Sisters of Saida Manoubia, a novel by Sibyl James, author of Plum Blossom Wine, in late June. On Terrain.org, you can find an excerpt from Kurt Hoelting’s popular and moving collection of essays Apprentice to the Wild. You can find a review by Mary Ellen Talley of My Heart Is Good: Treaty Rights and the Rise of a S’Klallam Fishing Community in Raven Chronicles.

Ann Spiers, author of Wild Cucumber, is reading at Pelican Bay Books in Anacortes on Saturday, March 28, and at Poets at the Postmark at the Postmark Center for the Arts in Auburn, WA, on Wednesday, April 1, at 6:30 p.m.

And be sure to listen to the latest in our series of fiftieth-anniversary interviews with the founders and early contributors to Empty Bowl. We’ve added an interview with Tim McNulty and links to videos featuring Tim and Michael Daley reading their poems. We’ll be posting more interviews in the coming weeks.

As you can see, the empty bowl is quite full these days as our new books go out and are welcomed by our community.

With thanks,

Holly and John

John Pierce 2/27/26 John Pierce 2/27/26

News from Empty Bowl Press

February 27, 2026

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

We hope spring will soon be arriving wherever this finds you. For us, spring brings a procession of Empty Bowl readings, new books, and—in celebration of Empty Bowl’s fiftieth anniversary—the launching of a series of interviews with Empty Bowl’s founder and several early contributors. The first of these interviews features Empty Bowl founder Michael Daley—you can find a link and more details later in this newsletter.

In early March we’re delighted to be hosting Jerry Martien, up from his home in Eureka, California, for readings in Seattle and Port Townsend. Jerry is the author of Waveshock: Ed Ricketts, the Voyage of the Grampus, and Our Biopoetic Future and the editor of A Watershed Runs Through You, a collection of essays and reflections by Freeman House. At Jerry’s reading, “From Waveshocks to Watersheds,” you’ll learn about Ed Ricketts’s wave shock theory and the collaborative approach to watershed restoration developed and practiced by Freeman House. Jerry will also share poems from his new collection.

Jerry’s books were the focus of a recent interview we had on KPTZ’s Attention Please! with host Phil Andrus.

Here are the details for the readings:

Tuesday, March 10, 6-7 p.m. at the Stuart T. Rolfe Community Room at Seattle University. Check our events page for more details and a map. A deep bow of gratitude to Dr. Jason Wirth and Seattle University’s Department of Philosophy for hosting this event.

Thursday, March 12, 5-7 p.m. at the Port Townsend Friends Meeting House, 1841 Sheridan Avenue, Port Townsend. You can find more details on our events page.

Later in March, we’re launching Writing Home: A Memoir by Anna Odessa Linzer, author of the poetry collection Season Unleashed (published by Empty Bowl in 2024), Ghost Dancing (winner of an American Book Award), and the Home Waters trilogy from Marquand Books. Writing Home is a moving, lyrical portrait of both family betrayal and family love and the healing power of place and nature.

We hope you’ll join us April 2 at 5:30 p.m. at Imprint Bookshop in Port Townsend for Linzer’s debut reading. We will also be celebrating with Anna in Seattle with a reading and an art exhibit May 6 and 7 at Peter Miller’s bookstore in Pioneer Square—more details will be posted on the Empty Bowl website soon. In the meantime, Writing Home is now available on our website for preorders.

Not far behind Writing Home will be Oregon poet, essayist, and novelist Charles Goodrich’s collection of new and selected poems, Knot House. There’s much to learn in this collection about carpentry, insects, gardening, and home. Mark your calendars for his reading Friday, May 8, 5–7 p.m. at the Meeting House in Port Townsend.

Finally, in celebration of Empty Bowl’s fiftieth anniversary, we’ve started posting interviews about Empty Bowl’s early years with founder Michael Daley and early Empty Bowl authors Tim McNulty, Red Pine, William Ransom, Andrew Schelling, and Finn Wilcox. Our lasting thanks to Richard Meadows for conducting the interviews. You can read Richard’s introduction here and listen to the first interviews, with Michael Daley.

We hope you’ll enjoy the interviews—and we look forward to seeing you at one or more readings this spring. Please pass along the news to your friends, too.

As always, we’re grateful for your support and for being part of this community that helps keep Empty Bowl vital and thriving fifty years after its founding! We look forward to celebrating this milestone with you throughout the year.

Holly and John

John Pierce 1/22/26 John Pierce 1/22/26

New book and upcoming readings from Empty Bowl

January 22, 2026

Ahoy!

Just about a year ago, we released Waveshock: Ed Ricketts, the Voyage of the Grampus, and Our Biopoetic Future by Jerry Martien. Waveshock tells the story of pioneering intertidal ecologist Ed Ricketts, scholar Joseph Campbell, and early environmentalists Jack Calvin and his Russian-Tlingit partner Sasha Kashevaroff on their voyage north to Sitka, Alaska. Those of you who read the book know that Waveshock was in part inspired by Ed Ricketts: From Cannery Row to Sitka, Alaska, a collection of essays edited by whale biologist Janice M. Straley. A revised edition of Straley’s book was published in 2020 by Old Sitka Rocks Press. Thanks to a recent agreement with Jan, Empty Bowl is delighted to announce that this collection is now available on our website and through our distributor, Asterism Books.

With a foreword by Ed Rickett’s daughter Nancy and a moving preface and introduction by Jan Straley that describes Ricketts’s influence on her life and career, this unique collection includes works by researchers and scientists, with Ed Ricketts’s breakthrough “Wave Shock” essay serving as the book’s centerpiece. This edition is beautifully designed by Carolyn Servid and includes historic photographs plus illustrations by Sitka artist Norman Campbell that provide intimate visual renderings of Ricketts’s passion: the diverse and bountiful inhabitants of the waters along the Pacific Coast.

In all, Ed Ricketts: From Cannery Row to Sitka, Alaska is a compelling collection celebrating the life of this iconic scientist, and we’re happy to make it available to our readers, especially those who enjoyed Jerry Martien’s Waveshock and want to take a deeper dive into those rich, intertidal waters.

In other news, a heads up that several readings are on the horizon, with special thanks to our friend and colleague Dr. Jason Wirth at Seattle University:

Tuesday, February 17, at 6 p.m. in the Rolfe Community Room at Seattle University (located in the Admissions and Alumni building on 12th Avenue)

Red Pine and Andrew Schelling will be reading from recently published translations of classical Chinese and Sanskrit texts, respectively:

If a Mountain Lion Could Sing and Old Time Love Song Magic. Free. Light refreshments will be served.

Tuesday, March 10, at 6 p.m. in the Rolfe Community Room at Seattle University

Jerry Martien will be reading from Waveshock: Ed Ricketts, the Voyage of the Grampus and Our Biopoetic Future and A Watershed Runs Through You: Essays, Talks & Reflections on Salmon, Restoration and Community, essays by Freeman House. Jerry will also be reading from his new collection of poetry. The reading is free. Light refreshments will be served.

Jerry Martien will also be reading from his Empty Bowl books and his poetry collection in Port Townsend on Thursday, March 12, from 4-5:30 p.m. at the Friends Meeting House, 1841 Sheridan Avenue.

For more details, see our events page.

Stay tuned for news on our upcoming releases by Anna Linzer, Charles Goodrich, Peter Quinn, Mistee St. Clair, and Sally Green in the next newsletter.

Yours in the tidepools,

Holly & John

John Pierce 12/1/25 John Pierce 12/1/25

December Greetings from Empty Bowl Press

December 1, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

As we enter the last month of the year, we want to offer gratitude to our authors, readers, and booksellers for their support of the books we published in 2025, fill you in on recent events, and let you know about our special offer for the holidays ahead!

In mid-November, we published My Heart Is Good: Treaty Rights and the Rise of a S’Klallam Fishing Community, by Ron Charles and Josh Wisniewski, our last book for 2025. We celebrated the book’s release with four readings, beginning with a memorable evening at the Little Boston Longhouse with a beautiful honoring of Ron, a Port Gamble S’Klallam elder and former tribal chair, who worked with the Point No Point Treaty Council following the landmark Boldt Decision to ensure healthy salmon runs for all. Thanks to Josh for bringing this project to us and working steadily with Ron over the last decade to record, transcribe, and offer historical context for Ron’s story. We’re honored to have played a role in bringing this largely untold story to the page and are delighted by the coverage in the local press. Links to three recent articles are available on our Home page.

Also in November, we enjoyed participating in the second annual Fall Book Fair at Finnriver Farm & Cidery—a great chance to hang out with other small presses and visit with the steady flow of folks who love books and who showed up to check out our offerings. Thanks to Conner Bouchard-Roberts of Winter Texts for rounding us all up again.

And here’s an unexpected reason for gratitude: We were surprised and deeply grateful to have received one of fifty awards given by Humanities WA this year in celebration of their fiftieth anniversary, acknowledging Empty Bowl’s five-decade-long contribution to the humanities. We were especially moved by the words of our nominators: “The people of Washington State are fortunate to have a publisher like this, which originated as a quixotic idea from a bunch of muddy tree planters, but which has become a literary press of unique and diverse voices connecting the Pacific Northwest to the world, and vice versa.”

We’re honored to be in good company with forty-nine others, including two of our Empty Bowl authors, Shin Yu Pai and Kate Reavey! A virtual award ceremony is planned for December 10—we hope you’ll join us to support all who are being honored for keeping humanities alive when we need them more than ever. For more details, visit the Humanities WA website.

In the meantime, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the prospect of holiday shopping crowds, a gentle reminder that books make great gifts—and are an easy way to help our books find their readers. To get a start on our upcoming fiftieth anniversary in 2026, we’ll be offering free shipping (domestic only) until December 18 on orders over $50. Enter the discount code DECEMBERSALE at checkout.

Finally, we’re grateful for you, our loyal readers, who order our books and write lovely notes in response; to Asterism, our local distributor; and to the whole ecosystem of small independent bookstores that we work with to get our books out into the world. In the independent publishing world, it’s true that it takes a village—and we’re so grateful you’re part of ours. Wishing you peace and many hours with good books in the winter months ahead; may their words illuminate the darkness until the light returns.

John Pierce 9/10/25 John Pierce 9/10/25

Two New Books from Empty Bowl Authors

September 10th, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

We are happy to announce the publication of two new books from Empty Bowl authors Michael Daley and Andrew Schelling.

Ground Work is a new book by longtime Empty Bowl publisher Michael Daley. The collection of poems spans the past five years and will be released by Ravenna Press in October. His work focuses on his own lived experiences in manual labor, working on the land and the sea, and environmentalist concerns.

Andrew Schelling, author of Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers, has a new book of translations coming out this November from Circumference Books. Old Time Love Song Magic is a bilingual edition of poems by Vidyā, who may have been the earliest woman to write poetry in Sanskrit. Vidya’s poetry comes from around eighth century India and spans the full width of feelings within love poetry. The book will feature the original poetry, Schelling’s translations, and Schelling’s own insights and experiences in translating Vidya’s work over the years.

Please join us in celebrating the release of both of these works later this year!

John Pierce 7/14/25 John Pierce 7/14/25

News from Empty Bowl Press

July 14, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

We hope you’re enjoying long summer days wherever this finds you. We have exciting news to share about upcoming book releases, plus updates on what some of our authors are up to, so please read on:

We look forward to releasing Seattle poet Ed Harkness’s Creek Water, a collection of new and selected poems, with a launch on Saturday, September 13, at 6:30 p.m., at the Haller Lake Community Club in Shoreline (12579 Densmore Avenue N.) If you’re in the Seattle area, we hope you’ll join us to celebrate.

In his foreword to Creek Water, poet David Long writes: “Reading these poems, you’re reminded how crucial it is to be specific, to understand that, truly, something happens only once—look away and you miss it. You never find Ed hiding out in generalities. He makes us hear the names; he makes us see what he sees. What a gift.”

Together with Ann Spiers, author of Wild Cucumber, Ed will also read on Tuesday, October 14, at 6:00 p.m., at Oberto Commons in the Sinegal Center for Science and Innovation at Seattle University.

———————————————

Later this year, we’ll be launching My Heart Is Good: Treaty Rights and the Rise of a S’Klallam Fishing Community. We’re enjoying our work with Port Gamble S’Klallam elder Ron Charles and Alaska-based anthropologist Josh Wisniewski on an oral history of Ron’s life as a lens through which to view the history and effect of the landmark 1974 Boldt Decision on tribal fisheries in Washington State. Stay tuned for more about this book in the coming months.

As we mentioned in our last newsletter, we’ll be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Empty Bowl next year with the publication of Working the Land, Working the Sea, a new edition of our now-classic collection, Working the Woods, Working the Sea. We’re thrilled to have Jessica Gigot, Skagit Valley farmer and writer, and Tele Aadsen, Alaska troller, fisherpoet, and the author of What Water Holds, as coeditors. You can read an interview with the editors in a recent issue of the Salish Currents.

Submissions are open on Submittable—see the details of the call here. And please note: we’ve extended the submission deadline to October 15 to give those working the land and sea this summer more time.

Other upcoming events for Empty Bowl authors

Jerry Martien gave a lively reading from Waveshock: Ed Ricketts, the Voyage of the Grampus & Our Biopoetic Future on June 10 in Corvallis. Jerry will be joining Holly and book designer Carolyn Servid in Sitka, Alaska, for a reading on July 26 at 7 p.m. at the Yaw Chapel at the historic Sheldon Jackson College.
Kurt Hoelting will be in conversation with Stephen Posner about Kurt’s memoir Apprentice to the Wild on the Garrison Institute’s Pathways to Planetary Health Forum on July 16. You can register for the free event here; donations are encouraged. Kurt will also be giving a talk at the Port Townsend Library at 5:00 p.m. on August 7 and a reading at Finnriver Farm & Cidery in Chimacum on September 25 at 6:30 p.m. Prior to the reading, Kurt will be offering a workshop with Holly, from 2–5 p.m. You can find more details here.
Ann Spiers will read from Wild Cucumber on August 14, at 6:00 p.m., at the Ballard Library in Seattle as part of the It’s About Time reading series. Ann has several other readings coming up later this year. For details on those readings and other Empty Bowl Press author events, check the Events page on our website.

Red Pine reads from If a Mountain Lion Could Sing

In other author news, last month we helped celebrate Red Pine’s new book, If a Mountain Lion Could Sing: The Lyric Poems of Xin Qiji, from Copper Canyon Press with a gathering in Port Townsend. Rena Priest’s essay collection Positively Uncivilized won the Raven Chronicles’ Keepers of the Fire Prize for Nonfiction and was recently featured in a lively conversation with award-winning Seattle Times journalist Lynda Mapes. Andrew Schelling’s poetry collection Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers was reviewed in Raven Chronicles by Richard Meadows—you can read the review here. Andrew Schelling and Anna Linzer, author of Season Unleashed, have poems in the timely Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to the Election. Check here for upcoming readings from this anthology.

Anna Odessa Linzer reading from Winter In America (Again at Finnriver on July 10.)

As we begin to plan for Empty Bowl’s fiftieth anniversary in the fall of 2026, let us know if you’d like to be involved. We’d welcome your help, support, and good cheer.

Holly and John

John Pierce 5/1/25 John Pierce 5/1/25

Working the Land, Working the Sea and Upcoming Readings

May 1, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

As we announced in our recent newsletter, in 2026, as part of the celebration of Empty Bowl’s fiftieth year of operation, we’ll be publishing Working the Land, Working the Sea. This anthology will explore and celebrate traditional foodways and livelihoods in farming, forestry, ranching, and marine trades in the Cascadia bioregion. We’re happy to announce that the anthology’s editors will be Tele Aadsen and Jessica Gigot. We’re looking for submissions from those who tend, gather, farm, fish, ranch, research, or work in managed landscapes, restoration, or in a variety of occupations at sea. We’ll be accepting submissions through Submittable. You can also find details on our website. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2025.

Upcoming readings

We also want to alert you of several upcoming readings featuring Empty Bowl Press authors.

We’ll be at the Raymond Carver Writing Festival in Clatskanie, Washington, on Saturday May 3, to participate in the Publishers and Writers Fair. Doors open at 10:00 a.m. Holly will be reading as part of the festival at 3:30 p.m. More details about the festival here.

Andrew Schelling will be reading from his poetry collection Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers at the Marin County Free Library in Bolinas, California, on Tuesday evening, May 13. The reading begins at 6 p.m. You can find more details on the library’s website.

On Sunday, June 1 at 4 p.m., Ann Spiers, author Wild Cucumber, which we just released, will be joined by Lost Mountain poet Kate Reavey, author of Curve, for a reading at the Meetinghouse in Port Townsend. Curve was recently featured on Bethany Reid’s excellent blog “A Habit of Writing.” For more details, check the Empty Bowl events page, where you can keep up with other readings as they’re scheduled.

Jerry Martien, author of Waveshock and editor of A Watershed Runs Through You, will be reading in Corvallis, Oregon, on Tuesday, June 10, at 5:30 p.m. at the Toomey Lobby at PRAx at Oregon State University. Thanks to the Spring Creek Project and Grass Roots Books and Music for sponsoring this event.

With warm wishes for the start of May.

Holly and John

John Pierce 4/18/25 John Pierce 4/18/25

The Latest from Empty Bowl Press

April 18, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

We’re back from the Bookfair at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles at the end of March, where we were happy to connect with old friends and make new friends, too, amid the crowd of writers, writing students, publishers, and booksellers. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth to browse, chat, and admire and purchase our books. Heartening to be in the midst of so many people who love to read!

In honor of National Poetry Month and Earth Day, we’re excited to celebrate the launch of our latest book, Ann Spiers’s collection of new and selected poems, Wild Cucumber. Join us on Vashon Island, Sunday, April 27 at 4 p.m. at the Land Trust Building, 10014 SW Bank Road. See the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber for a great article on Ann’s work and her book.

On Sunday, June 1 at 4 p.m., Ann will be joined by Lost Mountain poet Kate Reavey, author of Curve, for a reading at the Meetinghouse in Port Townsend. Curve was recently featured on Bethany Reid’s excellent blog “A Habit of Writing.” For more details on both readings, check the Empty Bowl events page, where you can keep up with other readings as they’re scheduled.

Kurt Hoelting has been reading from his powerful essay collection, Apprentice to the Wild, to packed houses. In February, Kurt read in Port Townsend with Tele Aadsen, author of What Water Holds. (See our FB page for photos.) The Port Townsend Leader had a wonderful article on Kurt, Tele, and their books. Kurt will be reading in Port Angeles on Thursday, April 24, at 12:35 p.m. at The Little Theater at Peninsula College as part of the Studium Generale series. He’s also reading on Sunday, April 27, 2:00 p.m. at Griffin Bay Books in Friday Harbor. You can find an in-depth interview with Kurt in the Samaritan Center of Puget Sound’s Spring 2025 newsletter.

Friends and fans of Clem Starck, much-beloved author of Cathedrals and Parking Lots and Enjoying the Evening, will want to listen to a recent episode of the podcast “Walking Inside Poems” that features Joseph Bednarik—a great friend of Clem’s and Empty Bowl Press—talking about Clem and his work. We were also delighted that a recent article in the Seattle Times recommending books to read for National Poetry Month included the award-winning I Sing the Salmon Home, edited by Rena Priest. The article also mentions the work of Shin Yu Pai, author of No Neutral and Virga. Congratulations to both!

There’s more to come this year, but we’re also looking ahead to next year when Empty Bowl celebrates its fiftieth year of operation. In honor of our anniversary, we’ll be publishing an anthology, Working the Land, Working the Sea, a companion to Working the Woods, Working the Sea, which Empty Bowl published in 1986, with a second edition in 2008. We’re happy to announce that the anthology’s editors will be Tele Aadsen and Jessica Gigot. We’ll post more information and the call for submissions on our website on May 1. Stay tuned for details on the other books we’ll be publishing next year.

If you’re wondering how you can support Empty Bowl, an easy way is to share your favorite Empty Bowl titles with a few friends—or post short reviews on Amazon or GoodReads. You only need to write a few sentences, but these do make a difference!

With warm wishes,

Holly and John

John Pierce 1/6/25 John Pierce 1/6/25

New Books

January 6, 2025

Dear Empty Bowl friends,

We hope this finds you well in the new year as the days begin to grow longer, the earth making her journey back toward the sun.

We’re happy to announce that we have two new books releasing this month:

Through the spring and summer of 1932, a cohort of four questing souls made its way north to Alaska aboard the thirty-three-foot cabin cruiser Grampus. Pioneering intertidal ecologist Ed Ricketts needed fifteen thousand tiny jellyfish Gonionemus for his biological supply lab; unemployed scholar Joseph Campbell sought philosophical direction and a clue to his future; early environmentalists Jack Calvin and his Russian-Tlingit partner Sasha Kashevaroff wanted to live free on a homestead in wild Alaska. From his home on the shores of Humboldt Bay, poet and writer Jerry Martien revisits this epic voyage, drawing its collaborative lessons into a field he calls biopoetics, seeing the roots of his own generation’s journey and a chart for future voyagers. $16

Jerry Martien will be celebrating with a book launch/reading at Northtown Books in Arcata, CA, on January 10 at 6 p.m. We’re lining up other readings in California and will keep you informed—we’re working on a reading in the Northwest this spring.

In Apprentice to the Wild, long-time wilderness guide and meditation teacher Kurt Hoelting charts the evolution of his path from his early encounters with wildness and risk on commercial fishing vessels in Alaska to his embrace of Zen practice as a gateway to the wild within. Inspired by the words and friendship of Gary Snyder, Hoelting founded Inside Passages, guiding mindfulness-based kayaking expeditions in Alaska focused on how the “practice of the wild” informs both our inner and outer landscapes. In the book’s later essays, he shares his path toward healing following the deaths of his two sons and explores what it means to become an elder in these uncertain times. $20

We hope you can join us at one of the upcoming readings:

Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, 3 - 5 p.m. Book Launch/Reading/Celebration

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island, 20103 State Route 525, Freeland, WA.

Sunday, Feb. 15 4 - 5:30 p.m. Reading & Conversation with Tele Aadsen

The Friends Meeting House, 1841 Sheridan St., Port Townsend, WA

Be sure to check the EB events page for other readings being planned.

What’s ahead

We’re excited to announce forthcoming poetry collections by two poets whose work we’ve long admired:

Ann Spiers, Wild Cucumber

Ed Harkness, Creek Water: New & Selected Poems

You’ll hear more about both books in the months ahead.

At the end of March, Empty Bowl will be heading down to Los Angeles for the AWP Conference and Bookfair. If you happen to be attending, we hope you’ll look for us at booth 1039.

Best wishes,

Holly and John