This is me (for once) not burying the lede.

I’m reading poems and signing books on Saturday evening, February 8th, at the excellent Cloud & Leaf Bookstore in Manzanita, Oregon, and I would love for you to be there.

Manzanita is on the north coast of Oregon, two hours west from the city of Portland, and it is not a random choice.

For those keeping track of my ever-shifting location—if you’re not confused, you’re doing better than I am. I left my long residence in Portland for good in November of 2023, and I’ve been bouncing around Oregon and California ever since. The moving isn’t random, either; I’ve been drawing circles around my various home landscapes, figuring out exactly where they are and how I might co-create a life there.

I have hope that my peregrinations are spiraling in toward a settled belonging—the geographical site of which is a small town cozily close to Manzanita and the Cloud & Leaf. (C&L has had my love and loyalty at least since the day they first featured Tell the Turning in their curated corner of “Beautiful Delicate Favorites.” Am I settling where I am because of a long-term minor love-affair with a bookstore? In a roundabout sort of way…yeah, maybe.)

While we’re doing updates, here’s one that surprises me: both Tell the Turning and Serpentine are nearly sold out—and entirely out of print.

There are unclaimed copies in the world (probably), in various art stores and book stores, and there are some few left in my personal supply. Cloud & Leaf has several of each, and you can buy one and ask me to sign it on the 8th of February, if you like.

Otherwise, these beautiful books, which I had the enormous joy and privilege of making—alongside talented friends, working with quality materials and the carefully-honed crafts of illustrating, editing, design, typesetting, and printing—these small, important pieces of my heart are no longer to be easily found, even by me.

In some sense, this is “a good problem to have.” I’m the author of two books that have sold out their print runs. (Twice, in Tell the Turning’s case.) Neither of them dragged their heels doing it. I’m pleased by that, and mildly amazed. I’m grateful to everyone who’s bought or borrowed a copy, and loved even one poem. I tear up happily every time someone writes me a note to say how one or the other book companioned their lives, or a loved one’s.

And now they are largely unavailable, for I-don’t-know-how-long. Maybe always.

I’m working on other books. Of course I am; I love writing, and I couldn’t stop if I tried. They will be other books, though, not these books. It’s a new experience for me, watching something I have made and that I love, that continues to bring joy to the lives of others, recede from the world. That’s not a good problem to have. It’s a sadness.

In and around which, there is happiness. I love reading poems out loud, and I love sharing mine in person. I love the community I’m finding here on the north Oregon coast, and I love the conviviality of this good bookstore that is part of that. I can’t wait to welcome readers in from the cold, to sip together and gather by the pellet stove, to touch books and talk about poems.

These are very small actions, very small joys. They are also part of the deep sweetness our lives can offer and accept, even—especially?—now, when so much else is critically endangered.

I hope you’ll come, if you can.* In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a poem, and the suggestion that you read it out loud to someone you enjoy. Giving people poems is fun. It sparks things. It’s just a little off “the way things are,” and as such it offers a tiny window into the better ways things might be.

*If you don’t live on the north coast, February is a surprisingly good time to visit. Accommodation’s easier to find, winter storms make glorious waves to watch, and you’d be surprised how often the sun comes out.