If I Could Choose a Best Day is Here!

Happy Poetry Friday! Today we're hosted by Margaret Simon- head on over and check out her amazingly creative weather forecast poetry!

Book cover for If I Could Choose a Best Day, showing children flying kites on a field surrounded by trees and mountains.

I'm so excited that this week is the release of IF I COULD CHOOSE A BEST DAY: POEMS OF POSSIBILITY, with poems selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters and illustrations by Olivia Sua. Hooray! I was debating waiting to make this post until I receive my contributor copy, but... I just can't resist a celebration! And, would it really be horrible to celebrate twice? From what I've seen of the illustrations and contributor list, I am sure that the book will merit many joys!

I'm delighted that my poem "The Rock" was included. And, I thought it might be fun to tell you a bit about the story behind it! When I saw the call for poems for this anthology, I was at a point where I wasn't writing much at all. But, something about the theme of the anthology made me need to pick up a pen and puzzle out some thoughts. And, when I thought about the word "if" and how that related to me as a child, I remembered little me on the playground-- breaking open rocks to find the ones that sparkled. (If you're wondering, the ones with the black-and-white flecks sparkled best out of all the gravels below the bleachers. I thought of them as dalmation rocks.)

Rocks have been a life-long fascination of mine. The adults who cared for me as a kid will vouch-- I always had rocks in my pocket! We sometimes used to go on day trips to a local mine that was open to families, and I would chip away to find the best mica specimens. To this day, I still bring back pebbles from special trips, or buy stones that remind me of magical things. So, scattered about my writing space are everything from a chunk of mica I collected at age seven, to palm stones I found at the beach, to a tiny piece of opal whose colors remind me of the Great Barrier Reef. Surrounded by that inspiration, I simply had to write a poem inspired by the magical feeling of cracking open a rock to discover the secrets inside.

If you already have a copy of IF I COULD CHOOSE A BEST DAY, then yay! And if not... what are you waiting for?! This book will be wondrous.

And, on another note... The Trans Rights Readathon runs this year from March 21-31st! Are you ready to hype trans stories? Let's do this!