Two New Reviews for Field Guide, Elgin Award news for The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and September Falling into Melancholy

Welcome to Fall! Said goodbye to my parents this morning as they flew back to Ohio and as I am nearly all the way recovered now from the pneumonia – just a little tiredness and cough remains – I’m ready to face the new fall weather, start reading and writing more, work a little harder on the book’s promotion. (Several friends mentioned to me this week – did you have a book come out?)

So, in that vein, two new reviews of Field Guide to the End of the World:
*This beautiful review by Kathleen Kirk at Escape into Life: http://www.escapeintolife.com/blog/field-guide-to-the-end-of-the-world/
*Kristin Berkey-Abbott’s thoughtful write-up on her blog here: http://kristinberkey-abbott.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-field-guide-to-end-times-and-our-times.html

I also got the news that The Robot Scientist’s Daughter won second place for the Elgin Award, the SFPA’s award for full-length poetry collections of a speculative nature. (More info about all the Elgin Award winners here.) Thank you to the SFPA members that voted for it! Sadly, it was not a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards, which curiously chose three out of five poetry finalists from states other than Washington State for this past year’s candidates. Susan Rich wrote a very interesting essay about this here: http://www.seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2016/09/19/why-does-carl-phillips-need-the-washington-state-book-award/

As I’m getting better from the acute (pneumonia and pleurisy) I’m able to think again about the cancer problem – getting second opinions, contemplating tests and treatment options. Thinking about mortality – how much time is left? What am I doing with my time? It’s funny how struggling to breathe for a week or two can tear your focus from near distance (this year or next year) to the immediate – how am I going to get through this night, how am I going to be able to breathe/talk/laugh/walk today. Also, note to self: do not get pneumonia the month of your book launch, and definitely not within two weeks of it.

Was talking to my friend Kelli how the beginning of fall always signals that it’s time to focus, to write and send out work, to spend time curled up with books instead of chasing that elusive and short-lived summer sunshine. I’ve been eating lots of apples as the grocery stores run out of in-season peaches, blueberries (apple and sheep cheese omelets? baked apples with honey? apples in chicken salad with grapes?) and listening to Lord Huron’s “Ends of the Earth”. This year the urgency to write and send out is more pronounced; if not now, then when, I ask myself?

You try to grab at time – the time I spent laughing and playing cards with my folks, the time I spend walking holding hands with my husband through Woodinville’s many gardens, the time I spent with the dear friends that showed up to the winery to the book reading and party – but nothing lasts long enough, and it’s hard to press those things indelibly into memory. Like a fire, like the end of September you have to keep feeding your own life to keep it lit – every bit of brightness over in an instant.

It’s time for the migration of snow geese and trumpeter swans. We usually don’t get them in Woodinville, they travel farther north through La Connor, but here is a snow goose who decided to move in with a pack of Canadian Geese and eat some grapes at Chateau Saint Michelle! Check out the black tipped wings and tail, which become much more striking in flight. This is as close as I’ve ever gotten to one, though I’ve seen masses of them move through the sky before: