"Up and Over the Mountains"

"Newspaper Rock" in Colorado - subject of one of my poems

In addition to the essays I'm writing about the National Park trips we have made, I have also written some poems.  Originally they were in the same project, but late last year I decided to break out the poetry into a separate book, tentatively titled, "Up and Over the Mountains."

There will be 25 poems in the collection - to represent the 25 years we have spent travelling to the parks.

I'm going to publish this small chapbook myself in a limited edition - and may even do it by hand - sewing the pages together with some kind of special cord and picking out paper that I think would suit it.

This is the creative part of writing that I'm free to do when I don't have to worry about "getting published" by an outside publisher. It lets me celebrate not only my love of writing, but the textural feel of paper and thread and the patient hand-work of sewing each page together. I also plan to hand-insert photographs taken by my talented husband, with tissue paper to protect each image.

This should be another fun project that the two of us can tackle this summer.