Book Reviews

Swimming Grand Canyon and Other Poems

Susan Bono’s review of “Swimming Grand Canyon and Other Poems” by Rebecca Lawton. I am not a person who knows rivers, although some part of me yearns to be. That’s why I’ve been a fan of Rebecca Lawton’s writing ever since I read her essay collection, “Reading Water: Lessons from the River.” She takes me to those places in myself. In “Swimming Grand Canyon” she shows me her love for rivers with lines like, “The water has no bones/but carries things we love.” I expected this and was grateful for it. But I soon became aware that these poems are channeled through the hard gates of life, and that is what sticks with me. She warned me early on in “It’s Like Life” when she wrote, “You think you’ll jump on/and just ride.” Of course, it’s always more complicated than that, and I realized as I read on how much…

Book Reviews

The Oasis This Time

Review: The Oasis This Time, Living and Dying With Water in the West written by Rebecca Lawton. Review by Marlene Cullen. Rebecca Lawton writes in such a personal and friendly manner, it feels as though we’re old friends sitting across from one another on a comfortable sofa and chatting. Her humble and unassuming manner is refreshing. It’s clear she is knowledgeable about waterways as well as bird identification. There are so many gems in this exquisite book. Lawton’s vocabulary and extensive knowledge on a variety of subjects is astounding. Her descriptions are visceral and breathtaking. “Fortynine Palms strings before me, a green necklace. The oasis has a narrow hydric zone in a long, arid arroyo. Fresh water tickles among horsetails, maidenhair fern, willow, and cottonwood where a small bit of flow is enough to fill tiny, clear pools. Glassy surfaces are topped by gaggles of water striders. A buzz fills…

Book Reviews

Junction Utah by Rebecca Lawton

Junction, Utah written by Rebecca Lawton and reviewed by Kathy Myers: Madeline is a woman of few words. She chokes and stumbles awkwardly when asked to express her emotions. But put her on a river and it’s another story. Her actions speak louder than any words could express—she is in her element. Rebecca Lawton has translated Madeline’s words and world in her first novel Junction, Utah and one can tell that she knows whereof she speaks. The river is a metaphor for danger, thrills, anger, and fear — four dominant emotions in Madeline’s “Seven Dwarves” of feeling words. In the midst of white water chaos and confusion she can avoid the reflective eddies of painful emotions: longing, sadness and grief. When she finally steps on shore and meets her unlikely match in Chris: a land locked farmer and self described ‘Jack Mormon’ who has been held underwater by his own…

Guest Bloggers

Guest Blogger Rebecca Lawton: conflict = bringing opposing forces to light

Rebecca Lawton writes about conflict . . . the kind writers want to have in their writing. Recently I read an article by a bestselling novelist who claimed she didn’t follow the well-worn advice to include conflict in story. “I hate conflict,” she wrote. “I don’t like to read it, and I don’t like to write it.” Wondering what techniques she did use to captivate her devoted followers, I turned to my bookshelf and opened one of her latest works to the first page. The initial paragraph set a sunny, peaceful scene in which couples and families strolled and played outdoors; the second paragraph described a situation only blocks away where a crowd was experiencing danger that had “turned their perfect Saturday into a nightmare.” Bingo. Conflict. The word is via the Latin conflictus, meaning contest. My good old Oxford English Dictionary describes conflict as “an incompatibility between two or…