An Owl Poem and a Launch Team Invite

for WHAT THE RIVER KEEPS! Join us?

Friends,

First, the owls.

Come with me next year, will you? If you show up at my door with your camera in late winter/early spring, I’ll drive us to the Skagit Flats where shorties (short-eared owls) hunt open country, flying quietly and low. Before dusk, we’ll snap two hundred frames—or more, if the light’s right.

Afterwards, I’ll show you a wing from a road-killed owl I keep in my freezer. When I run a finger along the anterior edge of her first flight feather, you’ll see a delicate, comb-like serration, which, when she lived, broke up air turbulence—and noise—caused by her heavy wing-beat. Muffled air would then have streamed over the velvety bird before flowing past wispy, sound-dampening feathers at her wings’ posterior margins.

Feathers that rendered her flight silent . . . and have been known to extract poems from photographers before they sleep.

Short-eared Owl

By Cheryl Grey Bostrom

If only because of her wing’s leading edge,
Because of a baleen feather, made for her,
And how that eyelashed pinion
Smooths the ruckus
Of wing flap,

Combing currents until they
Fall like whispers on
Torn muslin feathers
Of her wing’s trailing fringe,
Noiseless . . .

If only because of an owl wing,
I would trust you, Designer.

Hear everything, you airborne beauty.
Surprise your meal.
Take and eat.

Next, 📙📙📙 Bookish Stuff:

YOU’RE INVITED to join the launch team for my novel What the River Keeps, which releases three short months from now!

Launch Manager Jaime can only accept a set number of team members, so please complete this Launch Team Application RIGHT AWAY:

On the form, you can pick and choose which activities work for you, with early access to the book through NetGalley included for your review.

Many of you kept me company as I wrote this novel, but if you’re new here, What the River Keeps is the story of reclusive biologist Hildy Nybo, who returns to her childhood home on Washington’s Elwha River, where she untangles her mysterious past.

(I just learned that in addition to its starred review of the book, Kirkus Reviews has also chosen What the River Keeps as a Book of the Month for June!)

***

AND IN GIVEAWAY NEWS . . .

CAROLYN FRAZIER, you’re the WINNER of last month’s drawing for a Sugar Birds Audiobook! Please reply to confirm your email address, and I’ll send the link right off to you.

And here’s a HUGE NEW GIVEAWAY from WOW—WomenOnWriting—that runs through May 22! Prizes include a $150 gift card, MANY books (with Leaning on Air among them), and more! You can enter it HERE.

Have you started any spring projects?

I mentioned to a couple of you that we’re doing some long-overdue painting around our place. A neighbor girl who’s helping us casually told me she grilled a chicken for two hours the other day.

It still wouldn’t tell her why it crossed the road.

Love,

Cheryl

P.S. Happy 1st BOOK BIRTHDAY to Leaning on Air ! (Have you read it yet?)