Please join the California chapter of Writers for Democratic Action and Raven & Wren Press for an hour in celebration of free speech. Sign up to read a favorite passage, or come to listen and discuss. Time will be limited, so sign up early. A Zoom link and more information will be provided to those who RSVP closer to the date.
Season Lightly With Salt, Poems and Recipes from the Test Kitchens of the San Francisco Wild Writing Women (Raven & Wren Press, 2024) is a joyful and sometimes bittersweet collection of poems and recipes that pays tribute to family, friends and community. Written by the San Francisco Wild Writing Women, poets Angie Minkin, Elise Kazanjian, Heather Saunders Estes, Kathryn Santana Goldman, and editor Robin Michel, this delectable book serves up poems centered around food and family and includes recipes from each poet’s test kitchen. Preparing and sharing meals with one another nurtures and sustains, comforts and consoles, and heightens our pleasures. Every palette will find something to satisfy their tastes in these poems and recipes from the various cultures blending in America’s stewpot. You will even learn how to read fortunes in a cup of Armenian Coffee. Visit the Raven & Wren Bookstore to order your copy now.
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Posted: January 25, 2025 in Uncategorized
Raven & Wren Press is proud to announce the release of Beneath a Strawberry Night Sky, by San Francisco Bay Area poet Robin Michel.
“It has taken nearly three decades to get this book ready for primetime,” said Michel. “Earlier versions of these poems, with the exception of two, were written during the second half of my first marriage, the separation, and the divorce. Compiling these poems into a collection is my way of honoring what we once had, grieving its loss, and finding forgiveness. Although we considered ourselves adults, my first husband and I were children when we met, married, and became parents.”
Michel’s collection has received advance praise from several poets and authors, including playwright and novelist Lynne Kaufman. “I opened Robin Michel’s Beneath a Strawberry Night Sky planning to read a handful of the poems but I couldn’t stop until I read them all. Her subjects are illuminated moments of the joys, sorrows, and mysteries of family life and of the natural world. These words, spare and beautiful, call forth the memories of the reader in a breathtaking way. Her poems are wise and powerful.”
Robin Michel (Pedersen) was born in Utah and moved to Fremont, California at the age of seventeen. After her first marriage ended, Michel returned to school to complete her undergraduate work at Saint Mary’s College, and later, a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from Mills College. She has over twenty-five years’ experience as a professional writer, publisher, editor, creative writing instructor, and communications consultant. Michel’s poetry and prose is published in many literary journals and anthologies, and she is the founder of Raven & Wren Press. Michel and her husband Dan Humphrey live in the Inner Sunset District of San Francisco where they enjoy sharing their love of literature, art, music, and history with their brilliant grandchildren and other young people.
Order in the bookstore.
[Fremont / San Francisco, CA August 2023] Raven & Wren Press is proud to announce the release of Eulogy, by San Francisco Bay Area poet Kevin Dublin.
Eulogy, a poem composed while feeding my Father during Gunsmoke is a moving and intimate poem that began while the poet Kevin Dublin was caring for his dying father. With brilliant imagery and lyricism, Dublin recounts his father’s life and poses questions about what it means to live in a body; to live in a body that moves through the joy and terror of the world we live in? And what does it mean to be a person of color in this world of beauty and horror? A powerful recounting of the racism that continues to destroy our country, and a love letter to the love and resilience found in sharing our stories to “ease the aching.”
Eulogy contains a teaching guide and writing prompts for use in the classroom and writing workshops. Music is a recurring motif in the poem, and Dublin includes a downloadable playlist of music dedicated to his deceased father Sylvester W. Dublin. The playlist is comprised of selections by Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, The Soul Stirrers, Hank Williams, Jackie Wilson, Reverend Timothy Wright, the theme from Gunsmoke, and more. It also includes important recordings of Medgar Evers and the first Inaugural speech by President John F. Kennedy.
“Kevin Dublin is that rare poet who has perfectly captured the rhythm of a life lived in work, in joy, and in the horror of racism. Dublin’s Eulogy is a poem of quiet beauty and truth that benefits us all,” said poet and activist Beau Beausoleil. Dublin is the founder of The Living Room Poetry Project in San Francisco, and director of Litquake’s Elder Writing Project. He holds a BA and BFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, an MA from East Carolina University, and is also the author of How to Fall in Love in San Diego (Finishing Line Press, 2017).
Bay area poet and short fiction writer James M. LeCuyer releases Stories for Clever Children & All Curious and Thoughtful Adults
Raven & Wren Press is proud to announce the release of bay area poet and short fiction writer James M. LeCuyer’s newest book, Stories for Clever Children & All Curious and Thoughtful Adults, which began as tales he spun for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
To celebrate the launch of LeCuyer’s fourth book, a series of readings will take place in-person and online after the new year, but you can enjoy these stories now as the book is available for purchase now in the Raven & Wren Bookstore.
“Jim’s book features ancient and wise talking tortoises, a lonely dinosaur who finds love, and lessons in life for readers of all ages,” said author and publisher Andrew C. MacRae. “It is a delightful combination of humor, deep truths, and the wisdom of age. These stories will entertain the child in all of us.”
LeCuyer, 88, is a master storyteller, educator and activist deeply concerned about climate change, and the degradation of oceanic and coastal resources, and some of the stories address environmental issues. LeCuyer holds three Masters degrees. He has served in the United States Navy, worked as a commercial halibut and herring fisherman, a taxi driver, a report writer for the Berkeley Police Department, a technical writer and editor for the University of California, Berkeley, and as a high school English teacher at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. LeCuyer’s other books are Duck Lessons (Darkhouse Books, 2018) and Threnody for Sturgeon (Outskirts Press, 2016) and a poetry collection, A Brick for Offissa Pup (Floating Island Publications, 1989, under Jim LeCuyer).
The Raven & Wren Zoom Room was booming with a community of poets gathering to celebrate the launch of the book HOW TO BEGIN, Poems, prompts, tips and writing exercises from the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective to improve your poetry practice—or start a group of your own, edited by Robin Michel. It was exciting to see so many poets filling the screen with windows into their worlds—all connected to one another through technology and our shared love of language. Everyone in attendance was able to complete three prompts from the book: Free Write (using “I remember…”), Making Lists (with Kimberly Satterfield reading her list poem “Leaving My Parents House” as an example, and an ekphrastic poem based on Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks.”
Bravo to the brave guest-poets who shared their responses with us, and an extra special thank you to the accomplished poets who reviewed the manuscript, Chun Yu, author of Little Green, a Memoir of Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Shara McCallum, author of five collections, including Madwoman and the forthcoming No Ruined Stone.
We ended the evening by asking everyone to do a choral reading of Berkeley poet and former Fresh Ink member Adam David Miller’s poem “Keep Sending Love Out”—our way of saying goodbye to this marvelous poet and mentor who died earlier this month, and always a reminder of the work as poets we must do. Thank you again for coming.
…and let’s continue our word play. by sharing your response to the take home prompt: Penny Serenade. Take a penny and write a 10-penny poem (or 10-line poem) that has some relation to the date. If you can’t think of anything, make it up. Please feel free to leave your 10-penny poem in the “Leave a Reply” field if you would like to share with others.
Join Raven & Wren Press and Fresh Ink Poets Miriam D. Aroner, Rita Flores Bogaert, Chantal Guillemin, Madeline Lacques-Aranda, Ellen Levin, Wulf Losee, Jeanne Lupton, Robin Michel, Barbara Minton , Kimberly Satterfield, David White and Carolyn Yale to celebrate the launch of HOW TO BEGIN: Poems, Prompts, Tips and Writing Exercises by the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective to improve your poetry practice—or start a group of your own.
A book on craft, HOW TO BEGIN includes more than sixty writing exercises or prompts, illustrative poems, online poetry resources, recommended reading, and practical guidance on how to form and sustain a poetry group of one’s own. Hear Fresh Ink poets read their work, and sample a few of the book’s writing exercises and prompts and do some generative writing of your own in this mini-workshop book launch.
Still Life with Pen and Demitasse, oil on canvas panel, Madeline Lacques-Aranda
Praise for HOW TO BEGIN:
“HOW TO BEGIN is an incisive guide to poetry, blending instruction with inspiration. Drawing upon the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective’s decades of knowledge and experience, the book is a feast of prompts, explication of a wide array of traditional forms, glossary of poetic terms, practical tips on how to start a writing group, and poems as examples—including the anthology of terrific poems written by members of the collective across the years. HOW TO BEGIN is a testament to the belief in poetry as practice, nurtured by dailiness and sustained by being in a community of others engaged in the art.” —Shara McCallum, author of No Ruined Stone and Madwoman
Whether you write alone or in a group, whether you are young or old, whether you are new or seasoned as a poet, HOW TO BEGIN will help to bring out the poetry in you and to the world.” —Chun Yu, author of the poetry memoir, Little Green, a Memoir of Growing Up During the Chinese; and co-founder, “Two Languages/One Community”
Register here to receive a Zoom link to the event closer to the date.
Raven & Wren Press is proud to announce the release of HOW TO BEGIN: Poems, Prompts, Tips and Writing Exercises by the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective to improve your poetry practice—or start a group of your own, edited by Robin Michel.
HOW TO BEGIN contains poetry prompts and exercises that will stimulate and energize poets at all levels in the mastery of their craft. Prompts developed, adapted, and tested in the “poetry kitchens” of the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective, a writing group based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Established more than twenty-five years ago, the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective formed when the original group members met when taking classes from Jannie Dresser, the San Francisco Bay Area poet, editor and publisher. Only a few of the original members remain; many moved away and quickly established Fresh Ink groups in their new communities.
The Fresh Ink poets gather together in one another’s homes, online, or in coffee shops to share their love of poetry, find inspiration in sharing writing exercises provided by each other, and to give and receive valuable feedback and encouragement on their own work.
Michel, founder of Raven & Wren Press, joined Fresh Ink in 2010. She says that the idea for this book began two years ago, when members discussed the draft poems generated through their exercises. “Someone suggested we compile our prompts in a book. As someone with publishing experience, I offered to be the lead.”
Compiling the prompts and matching the prompts to the Fresh Ink poets work was labor intensive, but well worth it. “Fresh Ink welcomed me into its group at a difficult time in my life. The poets nurture and sustain, inspire and console one another. Each of us understands how vitally important poetry is by expressing that which cannot be said in any other way. We have found that poetry helps us engage in and pay witness to the world in which we live, the whole big sticky mess.”
Raven & Wren and the Fresh Ink Poetry Collective is planning a date for the book’s virtual launch, mid-November.
Florence Miller, James M. LeCuyer, and Robin Michel will be featured readers at Poetry at the Bette, at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru Street, in Alameda, on Saturday, January 11, 2020, 7-9 PM. Readings by the featured poets will be followed by an open mic.
Florence Miller’s second poetry collection, After Rain a Little Girl Straightening Worms (Raven & Wren Press) was released in 2019 when Florence was 96. Upriver (Shakespeare’s Sisters Press), her first book, was published in 2012. Her work appears in many publications, including Modern Haiku, the Paterson Literary Review, Blue Unicorn, LYNX, Brussels Sprout, Passager, Crazy Ladies and Milvia Street. Florence taught Creating Writing and English at McClymonds High School in Oakland, and the 1972 Emmy-winning film by Allen Willis, Can You Hear Me? Young Black Poets from the Ghetto, is based on her students and their work.
Florence Miller, who lives in Fremont, was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1922. Her family moved to West Orange soon after. Many of Florence’s poems capture the pain and confusion she experienced when her father lost his drugstore and the family their home during the Great Depression. Poet Sara Mithra wrote of Florence’s that “Autobiographical images gleaned from the Great Depression accrue a mythic thickness under Miller’s spare line…”
Poet and writer James M. LeCuyer’s most recently published book is a collection of short fiction, Duck Lessons (Darkhouse Books, 2018). He has also published two collections of poetry, Threnody for Sturgeon, and A Brick for Offissa Pup (Floating Island Press, 1979). One of his poems from the latter expresses his commitment to the poet as activist: “To be a poet / you must…/ place words in the world / through / what burns in you so often / like the flaming heart of Dresden…”
Raven & Wren Press publisher Robin Michel is also a writer and poet whose work can be seen in San Pedro River Review, Rappahannock Review, South 85 Journal, and elsewhere. She belongs to the poetry collectives, Fresh Ink (East Bay) and Wild Women Writing (SF). In 2019, she founded the Raven & Wren Press in order to help “feather a nest” for Florence’s exceptionally fine and moving poetry. “Working with Florence on After Rain a Little Girl Straightening Worms has been an incredible gift and learning experience, and I am profoundly grateful to her.”
Poetry at the Bette is hosted by Wulf Losee on the second Saturday of each month at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts. The event showcases local talent, mostly poets and writers but also singer-songwriters, dancers, storytellers, stand-up comedians, and other creatives. After the featured artists open each session, there is a short break, followed by an open mic. For more information, please visit the website: www.frankbettecenter.org
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