Sonoma County Literary Update

Dear Literary Folk,

These words of Rainer Maria Rilke have been on my mind:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer” (from Letters to a Young Poet.)

Some of us may be feeling stunned and dismayed by the world we awoke to last November 6, trying to find our footing on unfamiliar ground. Rilke’s quote addresses the necessity of living with uncertainty, “try[ing] to love the questions.” I’ve been thinking about what it means to live and love the questions. When I go out walking along the creekside trail near my house, I meet familiar faces, fellow walkers, many with their dogs. We greet each other, both dogs and walkers, perhaps a little cautious of political conversation, till we recognize that we are all walking this path, metaphoric and literal, together. That sense of connection is a language we can understand, a door that isn’t locked to us, and gives us the grounding we need to accept this time of uncertainty. “We’ve been here before,” we say, but in truth, we haven’t.

I first encountered Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet when I was in college and taking my first poetry writing workshops. In a recent romp through very old journals, dating back to 1975, I came upon another quote that was an important touchstone for me back when I was 19 and finding my way by fear or feel towards some kind of life with purpose and meaning. These words may be very familiar to many of you, too. They are from Carlos Castañeda’s The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Castañeda relates a question Don Juan posed: “Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question… Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.” Among the questions we’re learning to love and live, let’s add this one about the path we are walking, alone or together, into this unfamiliar world.

I encourage you all to write into the uncertainty, whether the language you find for this is in “a very foreign tongue” or brushes up against familiar forms that help us carry forward with hope. And if you are so inclined, please consider sending your work, prose or poetry, to me for possible inclusion an upcoming Literary Update. I’m especially looking for poems or prose that may help us start the new year. You’ll find submission guidelines at the end of this post.

Literary Events for December

Of course, there are many upcoming events you’ll want to get onto your calendars. Here are two I want to give a shout-out to.

On Monday, December 2, 6:15 p.m. Rivertown Poets goes live at Aqus Café, featuring Rivertown Poets founder and host Sandra Anfang, visiting from her new home in Las Vegas, and co-hosts Monica Volker and Shawna Swetech. Open mic follows the features. Open mic slots are three minutes each, including any introduction or backstory. If you’d like to be added to the list or, have any questions send an email to rivertownpoet@gmail.com. The list fills very quickly; it’s better to sign up and then cancel later, if necessary.

And on Saturday, December 14, 2:00 p.m. Book Passage presents Left Coast Writers®. Featured book: Wandering in American Deserts: Discovery, Visions, Redemption. Speakers TBA. Work by: Madeleine Adkins, J. R. Barnett, Daphne Beyers, Hugh Biggar, Michael J. Fitzgerald, Peg Wendling Gerdes, Cyndi Goddard, Thomas Harrell, Naomi Lopez, Mary Jean Pramik, Anne Sigmon, Tatum Tomlinson, Maw Shein Win, Judy Zimola and more …. Details: bookpassage.com/event/left-coast-writers%C2%AE-wandering-american-deserts-discovery-visions-redemption-corte-madera-store

Call for Submissions for SCW’s Women Artists Datebook

One of my favorite publishers is the Syracuse Cultural Workers in New York state. I’ve promoted their work here before because it is rare to find a group so committed to the creative folk who move our collective vision forward, and so inclusive in their promotion of artists.

This year’s 2025 Women Artists Datebook is available on their website at https://syracuseculturalworkers.com/products/2025-women-artists-datebook-1. You could order a copy for yourself, or to give as gifts. Or browse the website for other items that might suit your taste and needs.

If you like what you see, consider submitting your art or poetry for the 2026 datebook. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2025, but early submissions are welcome. Submission guidelines can be found here: https://syracuseculturalworkers.com/pages/call-for-art.

You can submit these at datebook@SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com. They are also accepting submissions of artwork for their 2026 Peace Calendar, posters, holiday cards, etc.

Annual Call for Submissions for Book-Length Poetry Manuscripts 

Sixteen Rivers Press, a shared-work poetry collective with a three-year commitment, invites Northern California authors to submit full-length poetry manuscripts between November 1, 2024 and February 1, 2025. All manuscripts will be read blind, and typically one or two manuscripts are selected for publication. The winner(s) will be announced on the press’s website during summer 2024. Selected manuscripts will be scheduled for publication in spring 2027.

Online Submissions: Send an e-mail to submissions@sixteenrivers.org with your name, address, phone number, and the name of your manuscript. Attach a PDF of your manuscript to the e-mail address (name the PDF with the title of your manuscript). In the body of the e-mail, please include a personal statement (350 to 500 words) about why you want to work in a publishing collective, including any special experience or skills you might contribute, and tell us where you heard about the press and our call for submissions. The manuscript must be e-mailed no later than February 1, 2025. Note: We do not accept hard-copy manuscripts sent by US mail. Please do not include your name anywhere in your manuscript, as it is important that your manuscript be a blind submission. The manuscript must be single-spaced and between 60 and 90 pages. Manuscripts must be previously unpublished, although individual poems may have been published online or in print. The manuscript should include a title page without the author’s name and address, a table of contents, and an acknowledgments page listing previous publications of the poems.

Sixteen Rivers values diversity. We encourage poets of color, young poets, and LGBTQ poets to submit.

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Two Poems for December

Last December, as 2023 was coming to an end, Dan Coshnear sent this poem, which I saved for the right occasion. It speaks to me this December, and so I share it with you.

Which Password?

A poem like this could bore you.
It’s about fish farm management,
the history of concrete,
the mating rituals of lepidoptera,
and the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit.
It’s about lipids and saturation.
It’s about somewhere in some city
something called an Archdiocese.
It’s about toting your heavy heart
and two cases of cat food in cans
up six flights of stairs.
Your thumbs aren’t fast enough
to get past this poem. It’s about
your thoughts while you’re waiting
to renew your password. Send it. 
Send it already! It’s about the time
you looked up to see
the face of the stripper.
So naked everything seemed.
It’s about the groan of your engine
and searching the dark, dusty shed
one more time
for the jumper cables. 

Daniel Coshnear is the author of a previous collection of stories, Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine Editions), which was awarded the Willa Cather Prize in Fiction. He teaches in a variety of university extension programs, including University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Coshnear works at a group home for homeless men and women with mental illness. He lives in Guerneville, California with his wife Susan and their children Circe and Daedalus.

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And here’s a poem for the year’s end by Jodi Hottel.

Threshold

I distill the year just passed
‘til amber liquid gleams—
but it’s a bitter draught,
not the honey it would seem.

I weave a fabric from alone,
a garment stitched from days,
wrap myself in lonely
‘til its seams begin to fray.

Under mulch and ash I burrow,
cloak myself with leaves,
wait for warmth to follow—
yearning for relief.

I cross into the new year,
So full of hope
                         full of fear.

Jodi Hottel’s recent chapbook is Out of the Ashes from Pandemonium Press. Previous chapbooks are Voyeur from WordTech Press (2017) and Heart Mountain, winner of the 2012 Blue Light Press Poetry Prize. Jodi’s been published in Nimrod International, Spillway, Ekphrasis, and anthologies including the University of Iowa Press and the Marin Poetry Center. Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Sonoma County. jodihottel.com

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Send Us Your Poetry/Short Prose Selections for 2025

Starting last January, I began featuring a different Sonoma County writer each month at the end of the Literary Update Post. Here’s how to participate.

The theme can be anything you feel is appropriate to the season. I’ve adjusted the subject line so you won’t feel limited to sending lineated verse. In fact, prose poems, flash fiction, creative nonfiction are all welcome, as long as the piece you send is no more than a page in length.

Send your submission to me at tehret99@comcast.net, with “SCLU Poem/Prose of the Month” in the subject heading.

Send me just one submission, no more than a page (or less).

These can be previously published, provided you identify the publishing source. If the piece is not your own, provide the author’s name and source. The author should be a Sonoma County voice, and if contemporary, please ask the author’s permission to submit.

Deadline: You can send the submission any time during the month, but I’ll need to receive your submission a few days before the month’s end to give me time to read, make my choice, and contact the author of the piece selected.

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Terry Ehret
Sonoma County Literary Update Co-Editor