Looking for a ‘beach read’? How about several? Right now all of my books are on discount as e-books! You can take them to the water’s edge, sink your toes into the sand, and read until that next sunscreen application. Get all 7 of them for around $25 bucks. They’re on Amazon and other retailers. As always, I’m happy to sign paper copies. Just send me a message on Facebook or Instagram. Thanks for reading!
-Brian
The middle grade basketball story I’ve been working on is underway, and I wanted to share this first image. It’s a story written in verse and will feature illustrations throughout. I’m using a new illustrator this time around, and I’d love your thoughts on this ‘first look.’ We’re still a long way from the finish line, but it’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for quite some time. Hope you like it. Feel free to comment below!
When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine.
Poem copyright ©2011 by Tracy K. Smith from her most recent book of poems, Life on Mars, Graywolf Press, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Tracy K. Smith and the publisher.
The striving to make this space familiar is paramount
until one day we recognize that the toxins around us
are temporary
The home we have created was purchased
through hours and hours of work
and online shopping
The house is rocked by wind we didn’t
create
Our family and friends move away
The chance to look beyond our mailbox is
a gift
Let us call it what it is –
a divine encounter
to traipse beyond the lawn
and see down the street
and across the other lawns
and in-ground pools
to the sky
and beyond
