Sonoma County Literary Update

If you are a Sonoma County writer with a book or chapbook newly published, let’s help you celebrate! Just send your announcement to editor@socolitupdate.com. Book announcements are posted in the order received.

Include a book front cover image (jpg), brief book description, and information on how your readers can find out more about you and your work or order a copy. Please send this announcement as plain text, preferably in an email (no flyers, pdfs or docs with special formatting).  The most recent announcements are posted at the top of the page.

Your announcement will appear in its entirety in the emailed version of the Update for the month it is posted. Subsequently, authors’ names will be listed in the emailed Update with links to this page.

Archived pages of books in print may be viewed here for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Sonoma County writers published in local, national, and international literary journals or anthologies will be recognized here as well. If you have a publication in a literary journal or anthology (within the last 30 days) you’d like to announce, send the following information to editor@socolitupdate.com: Your name, title of the piece, name of the journal and date of publication (issue/volume), link to journal’s or publisher’s website (if available). This list of journal publications will be posted monthly and archived.

Sonoma County Writers Published in Periodicals

During February 2026, no authors reported their work has recently been published in journals, magazines or anthologies, both print and electronic. For an archive of previous publications in periodicals, click HERE.

New and Noted Books by Sonoma County Writers in 2026

Centa Therese—the myth of me

“Centa Therese’s disarmingly vulnerable dreamscapes invite us to enter, naked, into a series of rich and often uncomfortable confrontations with our deeper consciousness. An heir of Woolf, Therese casts a patient, deep, unflinching net into the endless flow of moments streaming under the dryness of so many of our daily lives. To enter Therese’s world is to dip into an awareness as fresh and exacting as a hall of subterranean mirrors.”
—Annie Finch, author, Spells: New and Selected Poems

Kelsay Books, ISBN 978-1639807284, 88 pp, $20
Also available on Amazon.

Fran Claggett-Holland—At Dusk

New verse collection from Sonoma County poet Fran Claggett-Holland. This book is number 28 in The Page Poets Series. Cover art by Tamsin Spencer Smith.

Fran is a teacher and poet. She has published several books of poetry and her writing has been included in publications from Heinemann, Houghton Mifflin, Scholastic, NCTE, and UC Berkeley.

Risk Press, ISBN 979-8992159479, 118 pages
Available on Amazon, $12

Lisa Shulman—Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart

“Lisa Shulman’s collection of poems, Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart, is an exquisite work of poetry. If there were two words to describe it, they would be fearless beauty. The poems serve as a testament to the reality that despite the challenging times marked by political upheaval, climate crises, and violence both at home and abroad, if we take a moment to step back and truly look, we can always discover that glimmer of hope hidden behind the curtain of despair that many of us are experiencing. This is the invaluable gift that Lisa Shulman imparts through her work, reminding us of the beauty and hope that reinforce our resilience and resistance.”
–Margo Perin, author of Plexiglass and The Opposite of Hollywood

Chapbook available from Finishing Line Press.
lisashulman.com

Shawna L. Swetech, R.N.—Standing in Their Fire: Poems from a Hospital Nurse

Standing in Their Fire, Shawna Swetech’s first poetry collection, has just been released by Kelsay Books. The 51 poems are all inspired by experiences during her 35-year nursing career: from being a frightened student at a near-code, decades of giving bedside care, through negotiating retirement.

“Shawna Swetech’s powerful collection burns with the passion of a nurse dedicated to her calling. “To be a nurse is to be in their fire: the diseased, the incised, the dying.” These poems are drawn from decades in nursing and chart her progress from a student attending a near-disaster ER case to a senior nurse overwhelmed by increasing documentation. Throughout, her compassion shines as she writes about patients desperately ill and grieves for them in moments, crying in the supply room with prayers “may these words/be caring hands, a lifeline of lines.” In the third section, she writes of retirement and turns to nature for solace and healing in graceful poems that evolve into free-flowing forms. Anyone who has worked in medicine will resonate with these poems. Anyone who has experienced illness will take comfort in this portrait of nurse who has been willing to stand in fire for them.”
—Catharine Clark-Sayles, MD, author of The Telling, the Listening and Brats

“Shawna Swetech’s poems are both brutal and tender, testifying to the body’s vulnerability, and the beauty of our humanity even in—perhaps especially in—moments of extremis. Drawing on her decades-long nursing career for vibrant details that nail the scene, Swetech brings us inside the hospital rooms where she encounters sufering and courage, agony and transcendence.”
–Alison Luterman, author of Desire Zoo and In the Time of Great Fires

Published by Kelsay Books, 2026
ISBN: 978-1-63980-988-2, $20
Available on Amazon and Kelsay Books
Visit ShawnaSwetech.com for more details and information on upcoming readings.

Redwood Writers Club—Moonshadow: Tales of Hidden Light

Where darkness deepens, hidden light awakens.

In this luminous collection of forty-one stories from the Redwood Writers Branch of the California Writers Club, shadows become gateways to discovery. Ordinary moments shimmer with mystery and meaning-grief transforms into grace, love rekindles in unexpected places, and courage rises quietly in the most unlikely hearts.

Thank you for helping us celebrate Moonshadow, our 2025 prose anthology, which beautifully represents the talent of our Redwood Writers branch.

Judy M. Baker (Editor/Illustrator), Crissi Langwell (Editor), Mara Lynn Johnstone (Editor)

Redwood Writers Press
ISBN: 979-8985350364
Available on Amazon

Thomas Nguyen—War and Other Problems

War and Other Problems tells the story of someone who grew up amid the hardships of the Vietnam War—with a father killed in the line of duty, a mother struggling to raise four children in a poor farming community, and the constant fear of invasion. He left school for the military to do his part in protecting his home, only to encounter new horrors and a losing battle. He spent years as a prisoner of war. Life wasn’t any easier when he got out.

Escaping to America was a long, dangerous journey that involved swimming across a river at night, sneaking past checkpoints, running desperately through jungles, surviving the bombing of a refugee camp, and navigating new hazards around every corner.

When he finally arrived, it was to face a whole new set of troubles. But despite family drama, medical ailments, and acquaintances both kind and cruel, he has persevered through it all.

Originally he just wanted to write down his story so his children could understand what he went through. Now that it’s finished, it’s the kind of wild ride that many people ought to appreciate. 

Available on Amazon and everywhere else books are sold. 

Renée Owen & John Thompson—Moonblind

Newly released, this hand-sewn artist’s book created by Renée serves as a textural interpretation of both the poets’ lives and what’s happening in our world today. Handmade indigo-dipped Cave paper covers, letterpress printed title, silver flyleaves, beaded spine and waxed linen thread. Section headers of Renée’s original art with abstract calligraphic mark-making. The award-winning collaborative rengay poems, written in alternating stanzas by Renée Owen and John Thompson, reflect the poets’ deep immersion in and love of nature.

Dimensions: 7″H x 5″W x 1.5″D.

Published by Pig Blossom Press in 2025.
Copies available for purchase at reneeowenartandpoetry.com/poetry

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Redwood Writers Club 2025 Author Launch Books

The following books, featured at the Redwood Writers Club 2025 Author Launch on Saturday, May 17, 2025, were published between January 1, 2024 and May 9, 2025. Videos of the event may be found on YouTube. The 2026 Author Launch will take place on March 28. A listing of those books will be posted here soon. They may also be previewed on the RWC website.

Jean Wong’s book Bear is Not a Bear, also featured at the Author Launch, was submitted separately and announced on this page in May 2025. 

Detailed descriptions of the 2025 Author Launch books are archived here.

• Jesse Bilyeu—Apocalyptic Lullaby
• Abby Lynn Bogolmony—The Lighted Pull of Dreams
• Susan Church-Downer—All You Care to Eat: A Novice Buys a Restaurant
• Diana Morgan Dean, Psy.D.—Compost Happens: Growing a Flourishing Life After Childhood Abuse
• Laura McHale Holland—Shinbone Lane
• Carol Jacobsen—Doing the Right Thing
• John M. McCarty—Golf at Northwood
• Taylor Metzler—If the Gods Be Willing
• Lori Pappas—The Magic of Yes: Embrace the Wise Woman Within
• Sarah Paris—for the birds
• Elaine Rock—Dusty Roads
• Rebecca Rosenberg—Silver Echoes
• Jenna Scott—White Sheep, Black Wool: Finding Your Flock
• Tommie W. Whitener—The Bar Pilot

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Books by Sonoma County Authors Published in 2025

For details, see: socolitupdate.com/sonoma-county-in-print/2025-soco-writers-in-print

• Tommie W. Whitener—The Showrunner: Hollywood Culture Clash
• Debra Palmer, PhD—Between Wounded and Well
• Robin Gabbert—Somehow, I Haven’t Drowned
• Dan Coshnear—Professional Poems
• Frances Rivetti—Floating in the Middle
• Sherrie Lovler—Distant Voices
• Brian R. Martens—Merlin’s Wing
• Robert Waxler and David Beckman—You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship
• Pat Nolan—Ode to Sunset: A Year In The Life of American Genius
• Anna Citrino—Stories We Didn’t Tell
• Susan E. Gunter and Linda L. Reid (editors)—Switching to ON! The 2025 SebArts Writers Anthology
• Nancy J. Martin—The Long Red Hair and Other Short Stories
• West County Writer’s Circle—A View From My Window
• Karen Peterson, Editor—Work as We Have Known It
• Karen Pierce Gonzalez—Down River with Li Po
• Eric Johnson—Journeyman’s Dues
• Jean Wong—Bear is Not a Bear
• Karen Pierce Gonzalez—Moon kissed, Earth wrought, Vision Drunk
• Donna Emerson—Daphne Lifts Up
• Lisa Shulman—Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart
• Phyllis H. Meshulam— (Re)Creations
• John Monroe Johnson—Toss Repeat
• Dave Seter—Somewhere West of the Mississippi
• Hiram Larew—This Much Very: Poems
• Janet Constantino—Becoming Mariella
• Christine Walker—Tap Dancing at the Bluebird
• Roslyn Smith Ball—Nullipara: Selected Memoirs of Love, Loss, and Healing
• Barbara L. Baer—Masha & Alejandro Crossing Borders