Shout Out for Whiteout from Michigan

 I'm delighted to find Whiteout recommended in 'The Ultimate Outdoorsy Book Guide' at Michigander Natalie's blog Travel Over MI Way. If you've read Whiteout, check out Natalie's list for other good reads. If you haven't yet read Whiteout, what are you waiting for? Check out what Natalie has to say about if you are on the fence.

UNcalCulabLE Recalibrated

Columbia College Literary Review has selected my poem 'UNcalCulaBle' from its Spring 2016 as its representative poem for that issue on its website. This poem is included in my book Whiteout (University of Alaska Press, 2017). It's rewarding to see this poem have a new online life as well. Check it out if you are inclined.

Reading at Authors Live Tonight

Hey, friends, yes this is late notice, but I'm reading from Whiteout tonight at the literary event Author's Live (hosted by Jared Angel) at Bar Iznt in Sannomiya, Kobe, from 6 pm.  Other readers will be Peter Mallett, Warren Decker, and Jerry Gordon. Please consider joining us if you are free. Good food, good company, and hopefully interesting readings!

Poetry Singles Poem a Day

I just discovered a new daily poem podcast, Poetry Singles Poem a Day, hosted by Eric Olsen. Someone showed it to me because one of my poems "Test" (from Whiteout) was read there last week. After I listened to the pleasant voice of the host, I subscribed in iTunes. You can subscribe at a number of places, if interested.

Vary the Line Poetry Collective Reviews Whiteout

I'm grateful to Vary the Line Poetry Collective for this thoughtful insightful review of Whiteout.

Here are a few excerpts:

"Goodfellow’s poems are full of text where every word carries weight, where the words used are so strong they make articles and pronouns pale next to them—until you realize there are barely any of that type of word in the poem."

"... shows off Goodfellow’s amazing ear for consonance and assonance whose presence uplifts the meaning of the lines rather than skewing them like the grammar of a sentence rearranged to provide an end word with the proper rhyme."

Thank you, Vary the Line Poetry Collective.

New Review of Whiteout at Glass

Shalida A. Dobbins has reviewed Whiteout for Glass: A Journal of Poetry. She concludes with the concise words: "Whiteout is an emotional journey and a tribute to a loved one who was tragically taken, from both life and from oral narratives in the author’s family’s mechanisms of working through grief — not just a collection of poetry, but a mausoleum filled with forgotten memories, honesty, understanding, and grief for someone who made an impact without even being present."

Please check out her review for more in-depth discussion.

Exciting News

Friends, I'm stunned to say that my poem 'Test' which first appeared in The Southern Review (thanks to editor Jessica Faust) has been selected by Dana Gioia for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2018. Grateful and amazed.

This poem is also in my book Whiteout. 

Anchorage Shout-out to Whiteout

Journalist David James has put Whiteout on his list of best books he read in 2017 for the Anchorage Daily News. Lots of love from David James this year in various Alaska newspapers--thanks so much for the support!

Fairbanks Shout-out to Whiteout

Journalist David James of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner includes Whiteout in his list of books to be read from 2017. Other books on the list include Mary Kudenov's Threadbare: Class and Crime in Urban Alaska and Paul Watson's Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition. Check it out here!

Whiteout on 'A Way with Words'

Whiteout got a shout-out from host Martha Barnette on NPR's radio show 'A Way with Words' Listen to that segment here, or to the entire show here. Martha and co-host Grant Barrett have the most soothing voices--I listen to them to relax. And the content of the show--everything you've ever wanted to know about etymology, lexicography, dialects, regional speech, and more. If you love words, you'll love this show.

Thanks Martha!

Whiteout Reviewed by Grace Cavalieri

"This is more a reverence to risk than to destruction. Goodfellow writes with singularity about a one-only-story. If death goes to heaven, these poems encapsulate hymns of accompaniment." These are the kind words of Grace Cavalieri about Whiteout at the Washington Independent Review of Books. Very grateful to have such support for my work. Yoko Danno's new book Further Center is also reviewed.

Review of Whiteout at The Rumpus

"Goodfellow’s skill . . . amplifies the book’s emotional power and creates a haunting look at a personal tragedy that resonates with larger philosophical questions about death, grief and the dangers of the earth’s extremes," say reviewer Kim Jacobs-Beck in her new review of Whiteout at The Rumpus today. 

This is a very careful, thorough, and thoughtful review both of the poetic techniques used in my book as well as the content, in addition to her consideration of the meshing of the two. I'm grateful to Jacobs-Beck for her insight and care, and to editor Molly Spencer for her assistance. 

If you have a moment and are interested, please check it out. 

American Dusk on Verse Daily

Somehow I missed the fact that the final poem of Whiteout, "American Dusk," was on Verse Daily last month. If you have a moment, please check it out.

Review of Whiteout at A Mountain Journey

One of my desires for Whiteout is that it be available not only to poetry readers, but also to people who climb, and those who love them. To this end, I'm delighted that Derek Lennon at A Mountain Journey, a website for climber, hikers, and skiers, has reviewed Whiteout for his audience, saying "Whiteout is a deeply moving book that will strike home with anyone who has ever lost someone in the mountains."

This was a hard book to write; what I hope is it can be of some solace to anyone else with a loss like my family's. If you know of anyone who might fit this description, please consider sharing this review with them. Thank you.

Interview with poet Sarah Blake

Poet Sarah Blake interviewed me about Whiteout for the Chicago Review of Books last week. Sarah asked such interesting questions that got to the heart of writing about family and grief. Please have a look if you struggle with those issues yourself.

First Write-Up on Whiteout

David A. James has written up a heartfelt review of and response to Whiteout at Alaska Dispatch News.

He says 'her [Goodfellow's] work is a study of inter-generational trauma, of how the pain that afflicts parents and grandparents can be handed down to children who did not experience it directly. It's deeply moving.'

and  'On this 50th anniversary of those horrible events, perhaps this is the most fitting memorial we could have. A memorial that honors those left behind who have had to carry on in the victims' absence.'

It's an insightful and honest piece, the kind of response I hope readers might have to Whiteout.

Whiteout is Out

Although the official publication date for Whiteout is July 15th, it's actually available at the University of Chicago Press website NOW (they are distributing it for the University of Alaska, the actual publisher).

For those who don't know about it, here's a description:

Whiteout

64 pages | 6 x 9

The Alaska Literary Series

When she was a toddler, Jessica Goodfellow’s twenty-two-year-old uncle, along with six other climbers from the 1967 Wilcox Expedition to Denali, was lost in an unprecedented ten-day storm blasting winds of up to three-hundred miles per hour. Just as North America’s highest peak is so massive that it has its own distinct weather system—changeable and perilous, subject to sudden whiteout conditions—a family whose loved one is irretrievably lost has a grief so blinding and vast that it also creates its own capricious internal weather, one that lasts for generations. Whiteout is Goodfellow’s account of growing up in this unnavigable and often unspoken-of climate of bereavement.

Although her poems begin with a missing body, they are not an elegy. Instead, Goodfellow struggles with the absence of cultural ritual for the uncontainable loss of a beloved one whose body is never recovered and whose final story is unknowable. There is no solace here, no possible reconciliation. Instead, Whiteout is a defiant gaze into a storm that engulfs both the wildness of Alaska and of familial mourning.

Thanks so much for your interest and support.

New Book News

I am thankful and excited to announce that Whiteout, the manuscript about my uncle who died climbing Denali, the manuscript I've been working on for the past few years, will be published by the University of Alaska Press in July 2017.

This is the perfect fit of press and manuscript--the people a the University of Alaska understand so well the background incidents and accidents that this book is based on, and have firsthand knowledge of the climate and weather that made the storm that devastated the expedition--I couldn't be more grateful to Peggy Shumaker, Amy Simpson, Laura Walker, Krista West, and everyone else over at the press who have helped me along this process.

Stay tuned for developments.

The Altitude of Nashville

Somehow I missed the launch date of the most recent issue of The Nashville Review, which includes my poem 'Altitude.' This poem is from my manuscript WHITEOUT, now seeking a publisher.

Thanks to editor Mary Somerville and her staff for selecting my poem.