It's self-promotion Friday. My newest short story collection, Residents of the Deep, is a mix of horror + speculative fiction, with a few more traditional stories, most set in the Philippines. www.mariannevillanuevaauthor.com

Blooming purple passion flower surrounded by dark green leaves and purple-tipped green buds

Purple

Deer crosses street at night. Red lights indicate that deer is crossing properly with a green light. Parked cars and trucks line the street which is empty at night except for lone deer.

Deer crossing

Purple flowers blooming on tree branch. Shadowy tree branches in background. Evening sky above is dark blue.

Summer evening.

Colorful quilt of a nighttime scene with Harriet Tubman in an orange jacket and purple dress carrying a rifle. She is leading other figures who walk behind her.

Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting

A group of books arranged around raffle tickets

A group of books arranged next to a roll of raffle tickets atop a clipboard and with a bookmark

A clipboard and bookmarks labeled "San Francisco Writers Workshop"

Flyer announcing a fundraiser for Noisebridge, hosted by San Francisco Writers Workshop on June 6, at 7 pm, at 272 Capp Street

A strong literary community is an amazing thing. On June 6, help us celebrate San Francisco Writers Workshop and our venue @noisebridge. Here are some items we'll be raffling off, thanks to donations fr Counterpoint Press, @mumblers.bsky.social, @cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social and others!
#readings #SF

Celebrating ‘#KIN’ Poetry & Harp Music with Allison Hulmes, Nessie Wood-Davies & myself at the #ChurchInTheWoods on Bramdean Common, Alresford, Hampshire (also known as the Gypsy Church) August 2nd @ 3pm - all welcome. @lillianhowan.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social @poet-pratibha1.bsky.social

Asian woman with chin-length brown hair signing a book with a pen while seated at a desk. She wears a dress with alternating navy blue, white, and black-patterned stripes. A blond woman with chin-length hair is writing at the desk. She wears a jeans jacket, white pants, and a black backpack.

Book cover with the title The Boat Not Taken: A Memoir. The cover is a black and white photo of a mother and daughter, about five years old, seated together. The mother is wearing traditional Korean garments. The daughter wears a dark coat and a hat.

@joannackalbus.bsky.social’s fabulous reading of her memoir, The Boat Not Taken, at the Redwood City Public Library. A powerful memoir of secrets and revelations.

Are you in the San Francisco Bay area? Join us today in Redwood City at 6:30 PM.
@wtawpress.bsky.social @bettybooks.bsky.social #newrelease #authorevent #memoir #supportsmallpresses

Thrilled to be In Conversation with @joannackalbus.bsky.social, TODAY May 20 at 6:30 pm, discussing her powerful memoir of secrets and revelations. Redwood City Public Library, 1044 Middlefield, Redwood City.
#AANHPIHeritageMonth

Have you heard the news? @joannackalbus.bsky.social's The Boat Not Taken is officially out in the world—and she can’t wait to share it with you! Come celebrate at one of her upcoming events, starting with tonight’s exciting virtual launch featuring special guest Jimin Han.

Register: bit.ly/3GXjfIU

A large pink rose with a hand next to it for scale (bigger than the hand)

Closeup of a large pink rose

The people who lived here before us planted a bunch of rose bushes that mostly look terrible because the climate isn’t right for them. But once a year this spindly one puts out a couple big ass flowers, and I want to give it its due:

Join me for the virtual launch of my memoir THE BOAT NOT TAKEN at 5:30 PM (Pacific) on May 15, when I will be in conversation with Jimin Han. You can register for this free virtual event here: [link from Betty Books]
#WTAWPress #BettyBooks #virtualbooklaunch
@jiminhan @BettyBooks

Two woman walking and embracing each other in front of an ICE detention center. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress and heels. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. Members of the press are in the background.

Two women standing, smiling, and embracing each other with grass, water, and the sky in the background. The woman on the left is wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. The woman on the right is wearing a black dress.

Two woman stand next to each other and hold onto one another. The woman on the left is wearing a black dress. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a white hijab, glasses, and a pink garment. In the background is the fence of an ICE detention center.

Today, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies.

📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro

Olga Zilberbourg discovers the flora of the United States Botanic Garden—the oldest living forced migrants to the US—and a Russian writer, Vsevold Garshin, who wrote a story about a captive palm. Enjoy this new essay and translation! @olgaz.bsky.social

worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/h...

Facebook Twitter Email Share Essay How to Care for Our Longest-Living Forced Migrants May 8, 2025 by Olga Zilberbourg Looking up a palm tree's heart

hortly after Donald Trump’s reelection and before his inauguration, writer Lillian Howan told me that she was putting aside her other projects to travel to Washington, DC, to visit the United States Botanic Garden where the plants collected by the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–42) were kept. Howan, whose roots are in Tahiti, was finishing her second novel set in the Hakka Chinese community in Tahiti and California, and, researching a new story, she wanted to see the cycad plants that had been uprooted from the Pacific islands and installed in Washington, DC, the oldest living forced migrants to this country. A week after that conversation, writer Monya Baker shared with me a short story written in 1879 by Vsevold Garshin, “Attalea Princeps” or, in my translation, “A Captive Palm.”

Reading List Marília Arnaud, The Book of Affects, trans. Ilze Duarte (Sundial House, 2024) Lillian Howan, The Spellbound (WTAW Press, 2025) and The Charm Buyers (Latitude 20, 2017) D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature (Knopf, 1927) Simon Parkin, The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice (Scribner, 2024)

A Captive Palm (1879) by Vsevold Garshin translated by Olga Zilberbourg In a botanical garden of a large city, there was a stately conservatory made from iron and glass. The building was a thing of beauty: slender, twisted columns held up the structure; upon them rested sleek ornamented arches, webbed together by iron frames enclosing panes of glass. The greenhouse looked particularly fine in the evenings, when the setting sun flooded it with red light and set it ablaze, bright reflections playing and shimmering as though within an enormous, finely polished gem. Inside the thick glass stood the captive plants. As large as the building was, the plants were crowded. Their roots tangled in the struggle for moisture and nutrients. Tree branches collided with long palm fronds and bent and broke them, and themselves pushed against the metal frames and broke. The gardeners constantly trimmed the tree branches and tied the fronds with wire to tame their growth, but this only helped a little. The plants needed wide open spaces, their natural habitats, freedom.

I'm so grateful to @worldlittoday.bsky.social for publishing my translation of Vsevold Garshin's 1879 short story (written 100 years before I was born!), and my accompanying essay on how I came to (re)translate this story.

Read: worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/h...

#fiction #essay #booksky

My poem ‘SHELTER’ commissioned by the TT, a tribute to the Church in the Woods, also known as the Gypsy Church on Bramdean Common. @fft.bsky.social @travellerpride.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social @romanistanpodcast.bsky.social

You know that if the New York Times is reporting this, then the situation is extremely dire. Palestinians have been saying for months that famine is happening due to Israel’s siege. That is a war crime, Israel is the agent, the US is the sponsor, and American taxpayers are rendered complicit.

Unusual and beautiful Nacreous clouds over UK, 2024, photo via Kate Guilding #WomensArt

Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful" The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.

NEW: Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful."

The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.

New micro up @pitheadchapel.bsky.social!! Thank you @kimmagowan.bsky.social!

pitheadchapel.com/mission-boys...

Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from ICE detention.

Video Credit: Riley Livermore

Read:
zeteo.com/p/breaking-m...

MY BROTHER LECTURES ME ABOUT GAUGUIN - He says, “Art is in the eye of the beholder.”I say, “So you want to behold a naked fourteen-year-old Javanese girl whom he bought as asex slave?”And he says,

Friends, i have a ragy cnf micro featuring Gauguin in @epistemiclit.bsky.social. Hope you’ll read. Thanks @kristinwrites.bsky.social @melruthwrites.bsky.social @gcbwrites.bsky.social for being the most awesome, supportive editorial team 🧡🧡🧡

epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

oh no! Sorry you fell during the blackout and hoping you’ll feel better very soon!

Nikki, the Library Program Coordinator at the Feldheym Central Library, wrote: "I wanted to share this picture with you. I read your book and added page tags. Look at how much stood out to me when reading!"
I’ll be reading from my memoir at the Feldheym Central Library in San Bernardino on June 7.

Trees - leaves and branches - reflected in pool of water. Pink water lily blooming with green water lily pads floating on the water.

Trees and reflections.
Arbor Day.

Trees - leaves and branches - reflected in pool of water. Pink water lily blooming with green water lily pads floating on the water.

Trees and reflections.
Arbor Day.

Our cover this week.

I’m definitely Team Cardinal Tagle!

a WTAW PRESS virtual event The Art of Translation 2025 Spring Reading Salon Thursday April 17 5:30 PDT Ilze Duarte Jenny Bhatt Boris Dralyuk Katherine E. Young Yilin Wang Olga Zilberbourg

Translated literature has never been more needed. I'm MCing a reading by translators I admire, voices from across the continent and the globe. Zoom-based! Register: bit.ly/4hvfXZK

@ilzeduarte.bsky.social, Jenny Bhatt, @bdralyuk.bsky.social, @katherineeyoung.bsky.social, @yilinwriter.bsky.social