Pileated Woodpecker

2025-11-15

Dear False Potato Mother,

It's been a bit! I've been trudging through the hellscape that is American reality in 2025 just like a lot of you are too. It's hard to know how to just go to work in the midst of ICE concentration camps and Palestinean genocide and trans life feeling like it's being legislated out of existence. I'm looking at a lot of birds. That's been what I've been doing to stay sane-ish. I'm getting better at identifying birds, especially sparrows and wrens and all the "little brown birds." I saw a bird land by the Huckleberry bush in our backyard and picked up my binoculars and said "That's a Fox Sparrow." I use this birding quiz to teach myself to identify birds. I've always been good at learning via flashcard. I think that's one of the most reliable ways for me to learn anything, so I'm trying to learn all the birds in Washington. I'm weak at hawks, waterfowl and seagulls, which is unfortunate, because we have a lot of all three in this region. I saw a Pileated Woodpecker recently and I want to share some photos (not mine, they're google image search stuff. If you're the woman holding the woodpecker and want me to take this down: a) I love your woodpecker shirt and b) no problem I can take it down.) of one because birds like this will really remind you that they are dinosaurs.



If you haven't picked up a copy of Sara, or 'I lived my life as a cloud that followed overhead,' you can get yours from bookshop.org, and I recommend you choose your local indie or queer bookstore to buy from when you do that, there's an option at the top of the page on their site, and that way your money goes to them. I love bookstores and I want your town to continue to have one! Or if you want to pick one I like, try Charlie's Queer Books in Seattle or Orca Books in Olympia.



I have two big announcements to make about upcoming releases, first off: I have a full-length collection of short works of poetry and prose titled Black Hole Science is Filled with Apologies. It will be out in January or February from tRaum books, a european trans-run press that I really adore. (Check out Love/Aggression by June Martin or Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page or A + E 4ever by I Merey.) The book is a collection of shorter works, most of them of chapbook-length or so. If you read Woe that I published recently or Beautiful Mole Men Adventures that I published in stone age times, or you heard me read Nailed to the Sky and wanted to buy a book with that in it but it wasn't in a book, you'll finally get to have all of those pieces in one place. I'm very excited to be putting this out and very excited to be working with tRaum!



Second off, I have a new chapbook coming out in December from Dancing Girl Press! It's titled When I Am in the Midst of an Overwhelming Sundress, a title I got from misreading a line in a Renee Gladman book (turns out it was ~sadness~). I'll let you know when it's out and you can pick up a copy and read some of the stuff I've been writing lately, you might even recognize something from this very email list if you are a subscriber (sorry blog readers!). It's wild for me to be publishing two full-length books so close together, not to mention a chapbook, but I hope you receive this bounty as something enjoyable and not overwhelming! It'll probably be a few years before I have anything else ready to publish, so I hope this tides you over ♡

Also! If you are someone who sets up readings in Phoenix, Sedona, or Flagstaff, AZ let me know, I'll be in the area in late Jan/early Feb and it would be nice to do a reading. I might even have a copy of something new to sell :)

Here's something I haven't done in awhile! What have I been reading and watching and listening (to)??


Listening:


Watching:


Reading: