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Mary Mackey

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Jaguars go to Harvard and Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Harvard has invited me to come to Cambridge, Mass., to read poems from The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams as part of the Harvard Authors Speakers’ Series.

This invitation, which I think is due in large part to Jaguars winning the 2019 Eric Hoffer Small Press Award, came as a surprise, but–better yet–it comes as a sign of how much Harvard has changed in its attitude toward women since I was an undergraduate.

In those dark days of Harvard misogyny, women were prohibited from entering Lamont, the undergraduate library, which meant I never got to hear Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frost, or any of the other famous poets who came to Harvard read from their work.

On Monday, October 21st, at 7:00 PM, I’ll be reading from Jaguars at The Harvard Coop (which is what Harvard calls its bookstore). I’ll also be talking about the fires raging in the Amazon, since so many of my poems are set there. I plan to  dedicate this reading to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who like me, was turned away when she tried to enter Lamont because she was a woman.

I’ll also give a shout out to Margaret Atwood who was pursuing her graduate studies at Harvard the same year I was a freshman. Atwood used Cambridge and Harvard Yard as settings for both A Handmaid’s Tale and Testaments. 

Drop by and join me if you’re in the neighborhood.
Time: 7:00 PM. Place:The Harvard Coop, 1400 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 01238.

Mary Mackey WINS 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book Published by a Small Press

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The Eric Hoffer Awards Committee has  announced that Mary Mackey’s collection of poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018 (Marsh Hawk Press)  has won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for the Best Book Published by a Small Press.

The Hoffer Award highlights salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers. Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the most important international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses and a platform for and the champion of the independent voice. This award also honors Marsh Hawk Press, which has published Mary’s last four collections of poetry.

You can get more information about Jaguars and buy copies by clicking HERE

The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams is also available from SPDbooks.org and Amazon.com Amazon.com

MARSH HAWK PRESS CONGRATULATES MARY MACKEY ON BEING CHOSEN AS A FINALIST FOR THE ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD GRAND PRIZE

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MARSH HAWK PRESS CONGRATULATES MARY MACKEY ON BEING CHOSEN AS A FINALIST FOR THE ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD GRAND PRIZE

The Eric Hoffer Awards Committee has just announced that Mary Mackey’s collection of poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018 (Marsh Hawk Press)  is a Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize. This small list or “short list” of finalists is an honored distinction of its own and is announced publicly during the spring of each award year prior to the grand prize announcement.

The Eric Hoffer Award highlights salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers. Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses and a platform for and the champion of the independent voice.

Jaguars in the Library: Poetry, Passion, and Archives

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It’s spring, and I have a lot of good news. It’s been a wild ride since September when Marsh Hawk Press published my new collection of poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018.
        First, Jaguars sold out the day it was published. Then it made the Small Press Distribution bestseller list. A few weeks later it won a California Institute of Integral Studies Women’s Spirituality Book Award.
      Since then, I’ve been on public radio three times, done 36 events, and given talks on everything from creativity and craft to Mirabai, army ants, and Goddess worship in Prehistoric Europe.
     Jaguars is now into its 4th printing. On May 9th, I’ll be in New York where Harpers Magazine is sponsoring a reading and interview with me at Book Culture on Columbus ( Time: 7:00 pm  Place: Book Culture on Columbus, 450 Columbus Ave, New York, NY.) But my favorite event title is the one the librarians at  California State University Sacramento came up with for an event I’m doing for them on April 10th: “Jaguars in the Library: Poetry, Passion, and Archives.” Librarians you rock! It just doesn’t get better than that.

In “Fever and Jungles: On Becoming a Poet“: I describe the strange things I see when my fever rises above 106 degrees and how these visions, combined with the jungles of Costa Rica and Brazil, turned me into a poet. This very short poetic memoir is part of the Marsh Hawk Press Chapter One series, which includes or will include memoirs by Jane Hirshfield, D. Nurkse, Phillip Lopate, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Indigo Moor, and others.

Listen to me read 27 poems from The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams at voetica.com, and check out Chaucer and Emily Dickinson while you’re there.

Less Stress More Joy

(Photo of Rico Tirebiter by Chuck Karish)
Rico says life is too serious to read the news first thing in the morning. Grab a bowl of kibble, and start your day with the comics. http://comics.azcentral.com/

Good News From Friends
Congratulations to:

Beth Spencer for The Cloud Museum; Maurya Simon for The Wilderness: New & Selected Poems, 1980 –2016, Sharon Olinka for “Tainting Her” Sensitive Skin Magazine; Renate Stendhal for Kiss Me Again Paris Award Finalist for the 2018 LGBTQ Non Fiction Best Book Awards; Eileen Malone for her poetry collection It Could Be Me, Although Unsure; Floyd Salas for the reprint of his collection of poems Highrunning Heart; Cristina Biaggi for her personal history of feminist art Activism Into Art Into Activism Into Art; Joshua McKinney for his poetry collection Small Sillion; Joan Gelfand for You Can Be A Winning Writer: Craft, Commitment, Community, and Confidence making #1 on Fupping Media’s Top Books for Writers; Judy Wells for Dear Phebe, The Dickinson Sisters Go West.

Other Upcoming Events

To see my complete schedule of readings and other events please CLICK HERECLICK HERE

Maxine Hong Kingston Praises Mary Mackey’s Poetry

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Marsh Hawk Press has just published Mary Mackey’s new collection of poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018.

This collection, which spans over 40 years of Mackey’s poetry, has received high praise from a number of well-known American poets and writers including Maxine Hong Kingston. Already into a second edition (the first edition sold out the day the book was released), Jaguars contains the best poems from Mackey’s previous 7 collections plus 47 new poems, including more poems about the beauty and terror of the jungles of Brazil, plus a series of very short poems about life on the farm in Western Kentucky where Mackey spent summers when she was a child–a place where hogs are homicidal and 80-year-old women are tough enough to fight them off with brooms.

The poems are both accessible and very wide-ranging. You’ll find passionate love poems; lyrical descriptions of the rain forests of the upper Amazon; a section called A Threatening Letter to Shakespeare in which Juliet talks about how her marriage to Romeo didn’t work out; poems from the early years of the Women’s Movement that sound as if they could have been written yesterday; poems about Goddesses, Carmen Miranda, fevers, samba, and the Kama Sutra of Kindness. There is even a poem that takes you to the place where the Ghost Jaguars live.

Praise for Mary Mackey’s The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams

“Mary Mackey’s poems are powerful, beautiful, and have extraordinary range. This is the poetry of a woman who has lived richly and felt deeply. May her concern for the planet help save it.” – Maxine Hong Kingston

“Mackey’s poems crackle with powerful, lush energy.” – Marge Piercy

“Mackey’s crisp-edged perceptions are set down with a sensuous, compassionate, and utterly unflinching eye.” – Jane Hirshfield

“It is difficult to resist the temptation to compare Mary Mackey to Elizabeth Bishop. Both poets are stunningly imagistic, musical, and awake to topography, sociology and the world beyond.” 
                                    –The Huffington Post

“Always Mackey’s eye is drawn to the marginalized, the poor, the outcast, the trivialized, the ones who stand at the center of the human adventure. [In] The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, Mary Mackey has created an oeuvre, wider, more open to change with each passing year. Hers is a monumental achievement.”
                                                  –D. Nurske

“Her fine work deserves ever widening exposure.” –Al Young, California Poet Laureate

The poems in Jaguars are, as noted above, accessible and for the most part easily understood, yet Mackey never compromises when it comes to beauty, lyricism, depth, and a complex range of emotions. She is visionary and mystical, yet at the same time supremely rational. Take for example, her poem “Ghost Jaguars” in which we see myth, botany, and the unmapped forests of the upper Amazon welded to a a meditation on risk-taking, religion, and a hunt for meaning in both life and in its ultimate destination, which may be death or may be (Mackey hints) something more ghostly and powerful.

Ghost Jaguars

by day you told us the dead crouch in the jungle
arms wrapped around their knees
heads down blind
living in a great blueness
that expands to the horizon
like an infinite ocean

at night they rise
and hunt ghost jaguars
drink the black drink
count the trees

we threw your yopo seeds on the ground
and trampled them
begged you to come back to us
but you had already eaten your gods
gone hunting with the dead
seen the sun rise and gone blind

“Ghost Jaguars” shows not only the influence of the years Mackey spent living in the jungles of Central and South America, but also the months she spent as an undergraduate working in the Harvard Ethnobotany Museum under the guidance of Richard Evans Schultes. It is not surprising then to discover that she did her doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan on William Henry Hudson who was both a novelist and an ornithologist. Mackey has been exploring the point where science and mysticism meet for many years. The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams represents a major step in her quest.

The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams is available from SPDBooks.org and Amazon.com.Mary Mackey’s website can be found at https://marymackey.com, You can connect with her on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/marymackeywriter, join her mailing list at http://eepurl.com/CrLHT and follow her on Twitter at @MMackeyAuthor

 

Just Published The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams

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Marsh Hawk Press has just published a new collection of my poetry The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems 1974 to 2018.  Jaguars is now available from SPDbooks.org (Small Press Distribution) and Amazon.com. Marsh Hawk sent it out into the world September 1st, and it’s already gone into a second edition.

Jaguars contains the best poems from my previous 7 collections plus 47 new poems, including more poems about the beauty and terror of the jungles of Brazil plus a series of very short poems about life on the farm in Western Kentucky where I spent summers when I was a child–a place where hogs are homicidal and 80-year-old women are tough enough to fight them off with brooms.

 The poems are both accessible and very wide-ranging. You’ll find passionate love poems; lyrical descriptions of the rain forests of the upper Amazon; a section called A Threatening Letter to Shakespeare in which Juliet talks about how her marriage to Romeo didn’t work out; poems from the early years of the Women’s Movement that sound as if they could have been written yesterday; poems about Goddesses, Carmen Miranda, fevers, samba, and the Kama Sutra of Kindness. There is even a poem that takes you to the place where the Ghost Jaguars live.

 So far the response to these poems has been encouraging. The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams is being considered for several important prizes (my lips have to be sealed here), and poets I greatly admire like Marge Piercy, Jane Hirshfield, Al Young, D. Nurkse, and Maxine Hong Kingston are saying good things about it.

If you read the poems in Jaguars and like them and honestly feel you can do so, please go to Amazon.com and give the book as many stars as you feel it deserves. This will help other people know about Jaguars and encourage them to read and enjoy the poems.

Praise for Mary Mackey’s The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams

“Mary Mackey’s poems are powerful, beautiful, and have extraordinary range. This is the poetry of a woman who has lived richly and felt deeply. May her concern for the planet help save it.”   —Maxine Hong Kingston

“Always Mackey’s eye is drawn to the marginalized, the poor, the outcast, the trivialized, the ones who stand at the center of the human adventure. [In] The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, Mary Mackey has created a oeuvre, wilder, more open to change with each passing year.” —D. Nurkse

“Mackey’s poems crackle with powerful, lush energy.”   –Marge Piercy

“Mackey’s crisp-edged perceptions are set down with a sensuous, compassionate, and utterly unflinching eye.” –Jane Hirshfield

“Her fine work deserves ever widening exposure.”  –Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus

“It is difficult to resist the temptation to compare Mary Mackey to Elizabeth Bishop. Both poets are stunningly imagistic, musical, and awake to topography, sociology, and the world beyond.”  –The Huffington Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good News From Mary Mackey, March 2018

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Dear Friends,
     It’s time for some good news, so please sit back, relax, and join me as we enjoy all the good things that have happened since last fall.
    My big news is that this coming fall, Marsh Hawk Press will be publishing The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems of Mary Mackey, 1974 to 2018. Among other things, this collection will feature a series of narrative poems entitled “The Culling” that form a miniature poetic novella about life in Western Kentucky from 1742 to 1975.
         Meanwhile the new Audible version of The Village of Bones is doing well, as are the Audible, paper, and e-book editions of the other three novels in the Earthsong Series. So I’d like to thank all of you who spent time in Prehistoric Europe with me this winter.
     On March 17th, I’ll be teaching a one day course with novelist Dorothy Hearst on “Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy” at Left Margin LIT Literary Arts Center in Berkeley. Space is limited, so if you want to enroll, now is the best time. I’ll also be doing a series of readings with other contributors to Katherine Hasting’s amazing anthology of women’s poetry Know Me Here; plus an April 6th benefit for the CIIS Women’s Spirituality Program during which I’ll talk about “Making the Goddess-worshiping Cultures of Prehistoric Europe Come Alive.” (Click here to see times and places.)

Less Stress More Joy

When the going gets tough, the tough do something fun to remain sane. My favorite escape this winter has been this video of a group of Newfoundlanders organizing a spontaneous singalong and dance party at the Toronto airport when their plane was delayed. Put on your dancing shoes and give it a click.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhy9u1s0K9o

Send me your favorite ways to relax and have fun,and I will post one of them in my next newsletter.

THE FUN OF WRITING A SERIES
Ever wonder where ideas come from and how to avoid writers’ block? Read Charlotte Seabury’s interview with me and discover how one of my novels (The Year the Horses Came), unexpectedly turned into the entire Earthsong Series.
https://marymackey.com/writing-a-series-of-novels-an-interview-with-mary-mackey/

Good News From Friends
Congratulations to: Andrena Zawinski for her new collection of poetry Landings; Trina Drotar for receiving 2nd place in the 10th annual Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest; Phyllis Meshulam for her new collection of poetry Land of My Father’s War; Joan Gelfand for her video The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics, a Meraki Film Festival Semi-Finalist; Angus Wright for his essay “Environment degradation as a cause of migration: cautionary tales from Brazil” recently published in Environmental History of Modern Migrations; Jen Cross for Writing Ourselves Whole: Using the Power of Your Own Creativity to Recover from Sexual Trauma; Christopher Sindt for his new collection of poetry System and Population; All 40+ contributors to Re-visioning Medusa: From Monster to Divine Wisdom, edited by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren, and Pat Daly;  Stephen Paul Miller for the publication of his poem “Poem” in POSIT; Gary Kaplan, JFYNet Director, for 30 years of working to provide increased opportunities for disadvantaged urban youth and adults; Kirston Koths for his poetry collection One Good Turn; Renee de Palma and Katy Maina for winning 2 First Place and 2 Second Place honors in the Rookie/Vet American Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, and Viennese Waltz competitions; Robert McLaughlin from the National Cancer Institute for sending us the good news that cancer mortality rates are continuing to decline among men, women, and children; Lauren Coodley for her new collection of poetry The Same River Twice; JoAnn Smith Ainsworth for her novel Expect Trouble which was a runner-up in the Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition and semi-finalist in the East Texas Writer’s Guild First Chapter Award; Charles Entrekin for editing the Sustainability Issue of Sisypus Magazine and for founding Sisypus;  and Judy Grahn for the founding of My Good Judy, a new residency for LGBTQ artists in New Orleans which honors Judy’s pioneering works as a poet, activist, and foremother. 

Please send me your good news so I can put it in my next newsletter. You don’t have to be a poet, novelist, film maker, artist, or musician. Good news is good news.

If you are tired of bad news and would like to get my Good News Newsletter four times a year CLICK HERE to add your name to the mailing list.

Upcoming Events

Saturday, March 17, 2018, Berkeley, CA: Mary Mackey and novelist Dorothy Hearst teach a one day course on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy at Left Margin Lit Creative Writing Center. TIME: 10:00 pm to 3:00 pm  (with one hour lunch break). PLACE: Left Margin Lit Creative Writing Center, 1600 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley CA 94709. Fee: $150.

Learn the secrets to writing fantasy and science fiction in a way that sweeps readers into an imagined landscape and makes them want to go on reading! By the end of this one-day class, we will learn how to create new worlds that readers want to live in (or maybe escape from). Other craft elements we’ll discuss include developing intriguing characters and shaping a page-turning plot that will make your readers long for a sequel. We will provide plenty of helpful writing prompts and exercises, and there will be time throughout the day to answer your questions about writing and publishing in this expanding genre of fiction

Sunday, March 24, 2018, Novato, CA: Mary reads with contributors to Know Me Here – An Anthology of Poetry by Women, edited by Katherine Hastings. Time:  7:00 pm. PLACE: Copperfield’s Books, 999 Grant Ave, Novato, CA. Free and open to the public.

April 4, 2018, Oakland CA: Mary reads poems from her forthcoming collection The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams:New and Selected Poems (coming from Marsh Hawk Press, Fall 2018) as part of the Pandemonium Press series, which has recently relocated from the Spice Monkey to the Octopus Literary Salon.  Time: 7 to 9 pm. Place: Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland, CA 94612. Come to hear the poets  and sign up for the Open Mic.

April 6, 2018, San Francisco, CA:  “Raising up the Bones of the Past and Bidding Them Dance:  Novelist Mary Mackey Brings the Goddess-Worshiping Cultures of Prehistoric Europe to Life.”  Mary in conversation with Dr. Mara Keller, founder of the California Institute for Integral Studies Women’s Spirituality Program. TIME: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. PLACE: Namaste Hall, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA. (between 10th and 11th Streets). This event is a benefit for the CIIS Women’s Spirituality Program.

To see Mary’s complete schedule of readings and other events please CLICK HERE

Beauty, poetry, Audible books, and turkeys on the run

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Dear Friends,
     Welcome to the Fall Issue of my Good News Newsletter, an alternative to all the bad news that’s being covered by the rest of the media. Believe it or not, this Fall there is a lot of good news, and a lot of it is coming from you.

My good news is that The Village of Bones, is finally available as an Audible Book from Amazon, iTunes, and Audible. So if you love historical fiction and want to visit a more peaceful time when the Earth was sacred, and organized warfare didn’t exist, you can listen to it being read to you by Merritt Hicks, one of the best professional narrators in the business.
     My other good news is that my comic short story “Fowl Play” has been reprinted in The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos, an anthology of humorous Thanksgiving mystery stories.  So if you want to witness an attempted coup d’etat by a flock of turkeys on the run from Thanksgiving read a FREE SAMPLE of “Fowl Play” and then check out the anthology.
     Some more good news from my side is that a German language edition of The Last Warrior Queen will be published by Fischer some time next year both as an eBook and a paperback, and I have two poems in a wonderful new anthology of women’s poetry entitled Know me Here. edited by Katherine Hastings. Also, as many of you already know, Amazon choose The Village of Bones to be one of their Kindle Monthly Deals for September.
     If you think that’s a lot of good news from me, read on. You have sent me so much good news that it fills up half this newsletter (and makes me very happy).
Less Stress More Joy
 
When the going gets tough, the tough do something silly to remain sane. This Fall, I’ve been spending some time relaxing at WeRateDogs, a hilarious Twitter site that rates dogs from 1 to 10 and never gives a dog anything under a 12. (“They’re all good dogs.”). Here’s the link to my all-time favorite WeRateDogs page:
https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-not-a-dog-tweets/
Send me your favorite ways to relax and I will post them in my next newsletter.
 
Want more beauty, passion, love, and lyrical poetry in your life? Read my recent People Who Make Books Happen Interview with poet D. Nurkse whose new collection Love in The Last Days (Knopf) re-images the Medieval love story of Tristan and Iseult. 
 
 
Good News From Friends
Congratulations to: Literary Agent Barbara Lowenstein for her work in Greece with refugees from Syria and Afghanistan; Rafael Jesus Gonzalez who has been appointed Berkeley’s 1st Poet Laureate; poet Katherine Hastings for editing Know Me Here, a new anthology of poetry by women; poet Dan Bellm for his translation of Speaking in Song by the Mexican poet Pura López Colomé ; Paul Pines for his new collection of poetry Gathering Sparks; poet Terry Lucas for Dharma Rain; Sri Lankan American author Nayomi Munaweera for her new novel What Lies Between Us; poet Bruce Bagnell for The Self-Evolution Spa; poet MK Chaves for Dear Animal; author-photographer Elaine Miller Bond for her children’s board book of wild animals and habitats Living Wild; Joan Gelfand who has signed a contract with Mango Press for Mastering the 4 C’s of Successful Authors: Craft, Commitment, Community, and Confidence and also had her essay “Dreaming in Thai” accepted for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable; Alice Anderson for her memoir Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away; Michelle Zaffino on the publication of Parts 2 and 3 of her novel Skylar Saffron Librarian Detective; Iranian-American author Donia Bijan for her novel The Last Days of the Cafe Leila; Sylvia Brownrigg for her novel Pages for Her;  novelist Martha Conway for The Underground River; Achy Obejas for her short fiction collection The Tower of the Antilles; J. Alan Hartman of Untreed Reads for editing The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos and giving us all a lot of laughs (the man has a wicked sense of humor); writer-educator Louise Nayer for Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen;  Mandy Aftel for her cookbook The Art of Flavor; psychologist-poet George J Kaliaden for Healing With Words: A Psychologist’s Experiments in Poetry Therapy; poet Basil King for having 12 of his BIRD paintings chosen for exhibition at the Appalachian State University Turchin Center for the Visual Arts; Thaddeus Rutkowski for his short story collection Guess and Check; author Kathleen Archambeau for Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons, and Everyday Heroes; poet and suicide prevention specialist Fredric Matteson for developing Contextural-Conceptual Therapy (CCT) for suicide prevention and for his on-going work to prevent youth suicide; and to artist-sculptor Cristina Biaggi for the installation of her nine-foot tall Triptych Portal, which you can see below.
Triptych Portal by Cristina Biaggi
Saunders Farm Sculpture Park, Garrison NJ
Please send me your good news so I can put it in my next newsletter. You don’t have to be a poet, novelist, film maker, artist, or musician. Good news is good news. And don’t miss the San Francisco Writers Conference 2018, February 15-18 in the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
 
Upcoming Events

Monday, December 11, 2017, Berkeley, CA:  Mary will be the featured reader at Poetry Express Berkeley.TIME: 7 pm. PLACE: Himalayan Flavors, 1585 University Ave., Berkeley CA. Come listen to her read new poems from her forthcoming collection The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams and signup  for the open mic to read some poems of your own. Free and open to the public.

On Friday, February 16, 2018, San Francisco, CA:  Mary will be at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference taking part in three panels. More details to come as the time approaches.

To see Mary Mackey’s complete schedule of readings and other events please CLICK HERE

Invite your friends to join us for good news four times a year. CLICK HERE to join Mary’s mailing list and become part of a community of people who are sharing good news.

MARY MACKEY’S GOOD NEWS NEWSLETTER
“All the news that’s fit to make you smile.”
 

“All the news that’s fit to make you smile.”

Now available for purchase as an Audible book, e-book, or trade paperback
The Village of Bones

A Prequel to Mary’s The Year The Horses Came.

 
Click for Resources for Educators
 
 
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VILLAGE OF BONES A Kindle Monthly Deal Through September 2017

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News Flash: Amazon.com has chosen The Village of Bones to be one of its Kindle Monthly Deals for September 2017. CLICK HERE before October 1 to buy a Kindle copy of The Village of Bones for only $1.99.

The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale

Written as a Prequel to Mary’s best-selling Earthsong Series, The Village of Bones is now the first novel in the series. (The Earthsong novels in chronological order are: The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale, The Year the Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring.  )

hi res b of v front cover March 21 2016

“Mary Mackey’s The Village of Bones, gives us the vivid adventures of The Clan of the Cave Bear, the magic of The Mists of Avalon and Lord of the Rings, and the beauty of Avatar. Filled with the belief that love drives out fear, it contains stunning twists that will leave you wanting more.”
            Dorothy Hearst, author of the Wolf Chronicles

A perilous journey, a stunning prophecy, a dangerous love that could destroy humankind: In 4386 B.C., a young priestess named Sabalah conceives a magical child with a mysterious stranger named Arash. Sabalah names the child Marrah. This child will save the Goddess-worshiping people of Europe from marauding nomad invaders called Beastmen, but only if her mother can keep her alive long enough to grow up. Warned by the Goddess in a vision of the coming invasion, Sabalah flees west with Arash to save her baby daughter, only to discover that she is running into the arms of her worst enemies. In the dark forests of northern Europe, other human-like species left over from the Ice Age still exist. 

 

All The News That’s Fit To Make You Smile Summer 2017

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An audio book, new poems, getting happy, and other good news from Mary Mackey. Free Copy of Mary’s Summer 2017 Newletter

 
 
Dear Friends,
It’s summer, which means it’s time to get out in the sunshine and enjoy life. Other media outlets have all the bad news covered, so starting today, my quarterly newsletter is only going to bring you good news. I think we all need a refuge from stress, so I’m making this a place to kick back and be happy. I want you to look forward to seeing my newsletter in your inbox four times a year; and I want it to contain not just my good news, but yours too. So please send me your news and scroll down for some cheer.
Less Stress More Happiness
One of my favorite ways to get happy is to sit on the bank of the American River and watch the Mergansers, who look like brown ducks with 1950’s flat tops. Mergansers are natural clowns, and they almost always make me laugh.

Send me your favorite ways to get happy and I will post them in my next newsletter.
Start your day off right by reading some great poetry in the most recent issue of the Marsh Hawk Review where you will find work by Maxine Hong Kingston, Jane Hirshfield, Marge Piercy, Dennis Nurkse, Rusty Morrison, and many more wonderful poets.
My News: The Village of Bones will be coming out as an audible book in late summer or early fall. Meanwhile, I’m busily writing and revising poems for my New and Selected collection to be published by Marsh Hawk Press in Fall 2018. Right now I’m calling it The Citizens of Pompeii Shelter in Place, but that may change. By the next time you read my newsletter, I probably will have decided on the final title.

In addition, I’m putting the finishing touches on a new YA novel written from a dog’s point of view. I’ve never tried this before, but living inside a dog is more fun than I can describe. This is why you are seeing a lot of dog-related tweets if you follow me on Twitter.

I’m also starting to outline another novel in the Earthsong Series, continuing the story of Marrah and Sabalah and the Goddess-worshiping cultures of Prehistoric Europe. I have never ceased to be fascinated and inspired by a people who lived peacefully in harmony with the earth and one another for thousands of years.
Read my inspiring People Who Make Books Happen interview with Susan Kelly-Dewitt  “On Becoming A Poet.”
 
News From Friends
Congratulations to: Dawn McGuire for her collection of poetry American Dream With Exit Wound; Joe Cottonwood, who has had three poems published by NatureWriting; Jane Hirshfield who has a new poem in the June 22 issue of The New York Review of Books; Joan Gelfand whose poetic film The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics has won a Certificate of Merit at the iASD Juried Art show; Renate Stendhal for her memoir Kiss Me Again, Paris;  the Sacramento Poetry Center whose archives have been acquired by California State University, Sacramento; novelist, poet, and essayist Janice Eidus whose essay “How Poetry Saved My Life” was published in Purple Clover; Robert Gibb, winner of the 2016 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize for his collection After; poet Basil King for his collection History Now;  poet Patricia Carlin for her collection Second Nature; poet Burt Kimmelman for his collection Abandoned Angel; poet Edward Foster for his collection Sowing the Wind: A Requiem in the Modern World; Sandy McIntosh for his poetic memoir A Hole in the Ocean: A Hampton’s Apprenticeship; poet Andrena Zawinski for her collection Landings;  great weather for MEDIA poets Michelle Whittaker for the forthcoming publication of her collection Surge and John Paul Davis for his collection Crown Prince of Rabbits; poet Lucille Lang Day for her children’s book The Rainbow Zoo (Illustrated by Gina Aoay Orosco);  the women of We’Moon for their Solstice Blessing and their 2017 Anthology/Datebook StarDust ; JD Moyer for winning the Omnidawn 2016 Fabulist Fiction Chapbook Prize for his manuscript The Icelandic Cure,and poet/activist/scholar Judy Grahn for winning the 2017 Northern California Book Reviewers Fred Cody Award For Lifetime Achievement and Service.

Please send me your news so I can put it in my next newsletter. You don’t have to be a poet, novelist, film maker, artist, or musician. Good news is good news. And don’t miss the Northern California Book Awards on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 when I will be presenting the Cody Award to Judy Grahn.
TIME: 5:00 – 7:00 pm. PLACE:  KORET AUDITORIUM, SAN FRANCISCO MAIN LIBRARY, 100 LARKIN STREET , CIVIC CENTER • ENTER ON GROVE.
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
 
Upcoming Events

Wednesday September 6, 2017, Oakland CA: Mary Mackey reads new poems from her forthcoming collection The Citizens of Pompeii Shelter in Place (Marsh Hawk Press, Fall 2018) as part of the Pandemonium Press series, which has recently relocated from the Spice Monkey to the wonderful Octopus  Literary Salon.  Time: 7 to 9 pm. Place: Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland, CA 94612. Come to hear the poets  and sign up for the Open Mic.

Saturday September 23, 2017, Sebastopol, CA: Join Mary Mackey for the kick-off reading for Know Me Here – An Anthology of Poetry by Women, edited by Katherine Hastings. Poets in this incredible anthology include: Janine Canan, Maxine Chernoff, Gillian Conoley, Lucille Lang Day, Sharon Doubiago, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Molly Fisk, Jane Hirshfield, Kathleen Lynch, Mary Mackey, Rusty Morrison, Gwynn O’Gara, Connie Post, Hannah Stein, and many more. How can you possible miss this event! TIME: 7 PM. PLACE: Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High Street, Sebastopol, CA.

(More Events Coming Soon:  New York, San Francisco, and maybe Rio. Please stay tuned.)

To Mary Mackey’s complete schedule of readings and other events please CLICK HERE
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“All the news that’s fit to make you smile.”

Now available for purchase as an e-book or trade paperback
The Village of Bones

A Prequel to Mary’s The Year The Horses Came.

 
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