2025-03 Update

Posted by: wordrunner | March 1, 2025

2025-03 Update

March 1, 2025

Dear Literary Folk,

Uneasy times, to say the least. At moments like this, writing the monthly post feels like fiddling while Rome is burning. How can the literary goings-on in Sonoma County compare to the monumental civil crisis we are in, when our freedoms, self-definitions, civil respect and decency, not to mention the fate of democracy and our planet are all under threat?

And yet, many I have spoken with in our literary community the past few months have found a way to resist, and in that resistance is some sense of creative empowerment, or at least the potential for reclaiming of voice. We can share with each other what helps us face the world we wake up to each day with, if not hope, at least some clarity of vision. Here are some actions, all small in scale, that I’ve engaged in over the last few weeks.

My husband and I read out loud to each other Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny, published in 2017, during the first Trump administration, but even more chillingly applicable to what we are witnessing today. Snyder is a professor of 20^th century history, with a focus on totalitarian, authoritative, fascist regimes. Each short lesson presents a characteristic of tyrannical systems and their leaders, and what ordinary folk can do to resist.
I’ve donated small amounts to support those whose writing on social media helps clarify my understanding and vision (e.g. Heather Cox Richardson and Robert Reich).
I’ve stopped ordering or doing business with companies that financially supported Trump’s campaign or Project 2025, and refrained from any shopping on February 28, 2024 to join the national boycott.
I went onto GoogleMaps and reported an error: the Gulf of Mexico was misnamed Gulf of America.
I streamed Congressman Jared Huffman’s town hall meeting and felt encouraged by his willingness to call a coup a coup, and a constitutional crisis a crisis. It was good to hear so many other members of the community voicing their calls for opposition by our representatives.
I took Iris Dunkle’s workshop “Empowering Your Voice Through Multimedia Erasure” and set to work on recent Executive Orders that seemed to me in need to erasing. Sonoma County poet Margie Stein recently tried her hand at this, too, and you can read her erasure of Executive Order 14168 at the end of this post.

As I wrote last December, I encourage you all to write into the uncertainty, and if you are so inclined, please consider sending your work, prose or poetry, to me for possible inclusion an upcoming Literary Update. You’ll find submission guidelines at the end of this post.

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Toss Repeat Wins 2024 James Tate Prize

Congratulations to John Johnson on publication of his chapbook Toss Repeat. The publisher is SurVision Books in Ireland. Toss Repeat is one of the winners of the 2024 James Tate Prize. Use this link for more information about SurVision Books and/or to order John’s chapbook:
https://www.survisionmagazine.com/jamestateprizewinners.htm

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Spring Workshops with Dave Seter

Our Sonoma County Poet Laureate, Dave Seter, will be leading two workshops in March hosted by the Sebastopol Center for the Arts this Spring.

Sunday March 2: Abstraction through Form
Sunday March 30: Documentary Poetry

These workshops form a series of Poetry Challenges because they are meant to help poets expand the boundaries of what they might normally choose as subjects or poetic styles. That said, these workshops are meant for all levels from the beginning poet to the more experienced poet.

Seter is donating his time, so any fees go directly to support programs at SebArts. Follow this link for more details and to sign up: sebarts.org/literary-arts

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New Books from Sixteen Rivers

Sixteen Rivers Press is launching four new publications in April: The Department of Peace, by Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong, If we are the forest the animals dream, by Patrick Cahill, In the Eye of the Elephant, by Moira Magneson, and Plagios/Plagiarisms, Volume Three, by Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon, translated by Terry Ehret and Nancy J. Morales.

These books will all be available on the Sixteen Rivers website very soon, but you can order Plagios 3 right now from our distributor Itasca. Here’s the link. https://itascabooks.com/products/plagios-plagiarisms-volume-3

There are some upcoming book launches and events, to which you are all cordially invited. To start things off, Sixteen Rivers will be at the AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles. If you’re planning to attend, stop by and say hi. Our authors will be signing books all three days. And join us for our off-site reading on Friday at Catcher in the Rye Pub.

March 26-29 AWP Author Signings
Los Angeles Convention Center

Sixteen Rivers Book Fair Table T717
Thursday, March 27 , 1-2 PM —Terry Ehret and Nancy J. Morales
Friday, March 28, 2-3 PM—Moira Magneson and Patrick Cahill
Saturday, March 29, 10-11 AM—Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong

Friday, March 28, 5–7 p.m.
AWP Off-Site Reading
Location: Catcher in the Rye (a literary-themed pub),
10550 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, CA.

Saturday April 5 at 1 pm
North Bay Book Launch
Location: Book Passage Corte Madera
51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA 94925

Sunday April 6 at 3 pm
Poetry Flash East Bay Book Launch
Location: Art House Gallery
2905 Shattuck Ave Berkeley, CA 94705-1808

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Poem for March

Since Trump took office in January, he has issued more than 70 Executive Orders designed to implement the proposals in Project 2025. One of these is Executive Order 14168: Defending Women from Gender Idealogy Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

Santa Rosa poet Margie Stein recently took on the task of correcting the language of this order to clarify its real intent.

Here is the result of her editorial work. (Click on image for full pdf.)

And here’s a link to a website where you can read the complete language of the Executive Order: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02090/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal

Marjorie is proud to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community and lives with her beloved wife in Santa Rosa. Her first book, An Atlas of Lost Causes, was published by Kelsey Street Press. Marjorie’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in American Poetry Journal, Blood Orange Review, The Denver Quarterly, Interim, Mary, New American Writing, VOLT and other publications.

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Send Us Your Poetry/Short Prose Selections for 2025

Starting in January of 2024, 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

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Sonoma County Literary Update