December 2024 Newsletter
WANDERLUST News
What’s more fascinating than reading about other lifestyles and landscapes?
DID YOU KNOW? Learning about other cultures, peoples, and places through travel opens our minds and empathy. Travel demonstrates how we as humans are so similar in so many ways. So whether you’re lucky enough to get out there yourself, or you’re looking for inspiration and connection, then think of us, share this website…and WRITE FOR US.
We’re scheduling monthly publications for the upcoming year and we want to hear from YOU! Ideally your work should be 750-1500 words with 3-5 good resolution photos or sketches.
Although there are no reading or submission fees, donations are greatly appreciated.
WILD DOG PRESS News
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The holidays are here! In the market for some adventurous travel literature for the bibliophiles in your life? Check out these current and upcoming releases from Wild Dog Press!
Experience works from Mosaic: Poems from Travels in Italy, from Middlebury, VT’s own Cindy Ellen Hill. Described by Kirkus Reviews as “a sumptuous poetical romp through Italy,” Mosaic expresses wonder and close observation of the Italy’s many layers of Italy. The poetry collection, much of it in Italian forms (sonetto, terza rima), assembles a portrait of a nation through a myriad of small moments and observations that are gritty and whimsical in turn, and always lyrical.
Here’s a selection from Hill’s latest collection:
Off the tourist track
How frustrating to struggle for a word,
to feel awash in idiocy, not for lack
of things to say, but for abysmal accent
and inability to crack what you heard–
to flounder in the sea of idioms,
idiosyncrasies, synchronicities,
how the bus lines run in other cities,
why everything is closed all afternoon.
It’s humbling, this long-term foreign travel
when nothing is accessible by car,
using the phone is just about impossible,
and ordering take-out’s a bridge too far;
when nobody can tell how smart you are
and all your sense of self starts to unravel.
Folks in New England have two opportunities this January to hear Hill read from Mosaic:
- Hill will give a reading and book signing from 3-4:30 pm Saturday, January 18 at Lawrence Memorial Library in Bristol, VT (40 North St).
- Then on Sunday, January 26, the New England Poetry Club presents a reading with Hill from 2-4 pm at Westwood Public Library in Westwood, MA (660 High Street).
Purchase your copy of Mosaic here.
After the dissolution of a ten-year relationship, Sam Brakeley found himself alone and trying to figure out who he was and what came next. So he did what he always does in such situations: He headed into the great outdoors. He details his experience in Tramping Te Araroa: A Journey Through New Zealand with Captain Cook.
Hiking along mountain ridges, river valleys, rural roads, and ocean beaches, Brakeley brought along Captain James Cook’s journals in order to explore the 18th century European discovery of New Zealand alongside his own 21st century one. In doing so, Brakeley rediscovered some universal truths that helped him move forward with the next step in his life’s journey.
Listen to an excerpt from Tramping Te Araroa, read by Wild Dog Press founder Sarah Leamy, for an episode of the press podcast. There are over 25 episodes from various traveller and writers, short stories, advice, and suggestions on Wanderlust: Stories from the Road.
On our podcast, you’ll hear personal travel anecdotes as well as get book suggestions, gear and tech ideas, events and more. These bi-weekly episodes will often give you tips on how to improve your travel writing with simple ways to really catch your readers’ attention. Hosted by Sarah Leamy, an award-winning writer and wanderer with a background in publishing.
Buy your copy here.
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In Still Life Waiting: Notes on a Ghost Town, Meg Freer tells the story of Garnet, Montana (a former mining site turned ghost town), through poems and images. The landscape of this remote mountain site provides a backdrop for the story of the town’s journey through boom and bust periods. Each poem, told in different voices, honors the residents who braved the harsh climate and work conditions in pursuit of wealth.
Explore more of Freer’s recent photos and publications at her Substack blog, or pick up a copy of Still Life Waiting here.
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Coming soon from Wild Dog Press
Majella: Poems from a Mountain Home by Sean Prentiss
From the book: “In September 2019, the European Wilderness Society hosted WildArts, a retreat for seven artists from Europe and America [including writer Sean Prentiss] for one week in the small town of Caramanico Terme, Italy. … Guides from The European Wilderness Society and Majella Nation Park take the artists through central Italy’s Apennine Mountains, teaching them the region’s geology, geography, politics, religion, history, flora, and fauna.”
Enjoy this sneak peek of Prentiss’ poetry collection:
The Littlest
Walking beneath grotto rocks
an earthen orange, beside
singing river, the American
painter points into the smallest
bloom of thistle, nearly invisible
against a menagerie of Majella
greens. For the painter, it is not
always gazing upon grandeur
but at the littlest the earth offers.
The painter whispers a quiet wind:
That blue.
Thanks once again for all your support. We’ve been publishing your work for seven years now and I’m proud of who and what you have shared with us. So thanks, keep it up, send in more work. We know you’ll have a great new year and be ready for more stories to read and tales to write.
Both Sarah and Brianna also offer editorial work. You can contact us through here or online at https://sarahleamy.com/services/
Thanks again.
Wanderlust 