Books!

Somehow, against all odds, the letters aligned themselves into words, the words into paragraphs, paragraphs into pages, and in early August, A Portrait of the Artist as a Crone Tree joined Contained on the Shelf of Things Abby Made!

I'm not sure how to tell you just what you'll find between the covers, but it's a little about trees, a little about me, a little about the endless ways we're all connected. It was a joy to make, it's a little terrifying to have out in the world, and if you'd like a copy of your own, I'm happy to get you one!

How to get one? If you're in Portland Metro or SW Washington, let's meet up! If you're far away, or too busy for coffee, I'll pop one in the mail. Meet me locally, and it’s $15; with US shipping, cost is $20. For $25 I’ll throw in a copy of my first chapbook, Contained for anyone who missed it. If you’re international, message me. You can pay via Venmo @Abigail-Braithwaite, or PayPal @morgwaitemama (PLEASE be sure to leave your address in the payment app comments!) I'm sure there's a fancier way to embed payments and suchlike, but baby steps.... Will also accept cash, check and trade!

So how did this new little book come to be? This past spring, I had the great good fortune to join Shift, a virtual class put on by the amazing Freeflow Institute, a Montana-based collaborative offering workshops and adventures for creative people in Earth’s wildest classrooms. While most of Freeflow's courses take place on water or mountain, for Shift we gathered over Zoom every Tuesday evening for five weeks to think and write and listen and talk about words and the natural world. Participants were asked to create an object or a story that illustrates how our art—and our artist self—fits into the world. This little chapbook—created in Ariel Gore's Literary Kitchen, with many pieces composed in the amazing rooms created by Becky Karush and Read to Me Literary Arts—is my final project, handed in just a few months late. So glad I wasn't taking the class for credit!

What a thing it was, to put this creature together. Chainsaws and typewriters and wooden spoons and giant dictionaries and and crusty paintbrushes and ink made from ground up oak galls and a trusty laptop all came into play. (Yes, there are pictures! Not my strong suit, illustration, but I can't seem to keep my doodles away from my words. And trees? Well, I've always drawn trees. Buy the book, and I'll teach you how.) It was a long labor, and a lovely one, and I hope you will consider giving it a place on your shelves.

And since I am still working on my own description of just what this book is, here are a few things others are saying:

Abby Braithwaite writes like a dream, gathering images and truths from daily life and transmuting them into magic. In Portrait of the Artist as a Crone Tree, she traces the cycles of nature and life in search of the true meaning of rootedness. Reading this book feels like taking an intimate walk with an old friend—getting lost and found in the woods together. — Ariel Gore, Author We Were Witches

Braithwaite's poetry and prose go on a walk and invite us along. The journey begins with the seed and meanders from forest floor to canopy, clearcut to nurse log, tree rings to stars. Science seeps into the roots of these stories, statistics do and do not matter. This is artful wondering and contemplative wandering in the rain of the Pacific Northwest. — Jenny Forrester, Author Narrow River, Wide Sky