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Cover Reveal: Where Rivers Change Direction by L. Bundrock

We’d like to introduce you to the official cover of L. Bundrock’s forthcoming novel, Where Rivers Change Direction. This stellar cover was designed by creative partner and graphic designer Knic Pfost.

Here’s what the author has to say about the book design process:

“The recipe followed to cook-up the cover design for Where Rivers Change Direction was equal parts, inspiration, collaboration and determination, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

Because design by committee can be tricky, though, I had trepidations about collaborating on the cover art. Here is how it went:

I used to have to take my delicate, elderly cat Pablo to the vet each week for fluids. One afternoon while we were waiting our turn in the lobby I witnessed an unprecedented kerfuffle among the otherwise poised staff. Every veterinarian, tech and staff member was on hand speaking to a couple of adults who had arrived sans pet. After hearing tidbits of what sounded like an elaborate strategy to get a wild animal from the parking lot to the examination room, I was convinced that they were about to wrestle a rabid tiger through the doors. I tucked Pablo’s carrier behind me and braced myself for the onslaught.

Two minutes later the door burst open and the pet owners appeared carrying two laundry baskets, each filled with wildly flopping bundles of fluff. A dozen golden retriever puppies tumbled with joy and almost spilled out of the baskets.

While I had braced for a tiger, the cover design process for this book, thanks to Knic and Christina, was a basket full of golden retrievers.”


Supporters of L. Bundrock and the press can preorder Where Rivers Change Direction here. And, we’d love to see each and every one of you at the book launches and events! Here’s what we’ve got lined up.

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Cover Reveal: Red Earth by Esther Vincent Xueming

We’d like to introduce you to the lovely and whimsical cover of Esther Vincent Xueming’s debut poetry collection, Red Earth. The artwork utilized in the cover was created by Singapore artist Shu Yin. To give readers a sense of how the cover art came to be, and a peek into the artistic viewpoints of Esther and Shuyin, we interviewed them both earlier this month. Scroll down to immerse yourself in Red Earth‘s dreamy book cover and author and artist interviews!

An Interview with Esther Vincent Xueming

Christina Butcher (Publisher): Esther, will you talk about how the artwork for Red Earth intersects with your poetry? 

Esther Vincent Xueming (EVX): The cover art for Red Earth masterfully captures the duality of my poems, and the search for harmony and balance—of wakefulness and dreams, of memory and imagination, of darkness and light, of the conscious and subconscious. The circle motif in the centre of the cover represents night and day, moon and earth, air and water. I wonder if this was intentional on the part of the artist, Shu Yin, but I notice that most of the elements on the cover are predominantly feminine! The moon and earth are commonly associated with the female body, the water with emotions and the sacral chakra, and night with yin energies. The whale for me is a keeper of time, and the moth a signifier of transcendence.

Coincidentally (Shu Yin did not know this), I am a sun in Cancer, ruled by the moon, and a moon in Taurus, grounded by the earth, and so the cover image (half moon, half earth) is particularly resonant for me. I also love how Shu Yin draws our attention to the moon and earth, which are recurring symbols in my poems of light, desire and grounded-ness. My poems deal with themes of the earth, woman, body and memory, among others, and I think Shu Yin manages to encapsulate the feminine energy of my poems on her cover art in a subtle, evocative way.

CB: What drew you to Shu Yin as an artist?

EVX: I first found out about Shu Yin through The Tiger Moth Review, the eco journal that I edit. She sent in some work, Tribute to Inuka and Singapore Mermaids which are featured in Issue 2, and since then, I have fallen in love with the way she works with watercolors. When Blue Cactus Press picked up my work for publication, I knew immediately I wanted Shu Yin to design my cover art.

Her style is gentle and thoughtful, and there is a softness and optimism that appeals to me. I’m someone who tends to see the positive, hopeful side of things and who remains open and curious to nature, and so maybe that’s why I’m drawn to her work, which I think does all of that. As a woman artist and art therapist who works with nature and the community, I appreciate her sensitivity and careful attention to the work that she does.

At the same time, Shu Yin is a versatile artist as her portfolio will show. What I like about her art is her feminine style and how she as a person is very much in tune with female, lunar and earth energies, as her cover art of Red Earth will reveal.

CB: What do you hope readers take away from this book?

EVX: I hope that readers will take away exactly what they need to and what the book is able to offer them, and that might mean different things for different readers, or the same reader reading it at different points in their life.

I know that doesn’t seem to answer the question, but just as Red Earth was a searching and journeying for me, a tunnelling deep into my memories, subconscious, dreams and imaginings, entering into different states of consciousness, traversing geographies and moving in time and place in order to make sense of home and the self on earth, I hope Red Earth does something of the sort for the reader—makes them contemplate and re-evaluate their place on earth.

Red Earth is also a dedication to the earth, my first mother, and so I’m hoping readers will learn to see the earth anew through my poems, and be inspired to find their own unique ways of singing to the earth in gratitude, humility and love.

CB: What has been the most surprising aspect of this design and editorial process for you?

EVX: I think I’ve just been so pleasantly surprised at the congeniality with which we have all been able to work together. The publisher Christina of Blue Cactus Press has been every writer’s dream to work with, and I love her consultative and collaborative approach to the design and editorial process. I am so thankful for the way she has created an environment of openness, respect and appreciation.

Early on, I also specified to Christina that as far as possible, I wanted to work with women on the team, to grow and support women in the traditionally male-dominated sphere of publishing. I’m grateful to be able to be a part of such a publishing model, and I believe that this environment—one of support, solidarity and kinship—is what will make Red Earth, my debut, even more special upon its release.


An Interview with Shu Yin

CB: How did you come up with the concept for the cover art of Red Earth? Can you talk a bit about the creative  process?

SY: The process was pretty organic. When the publisher and writer first engaged me, they provided examples of my artwork which they liked as reference for the preferred style of the cover art. I read the poems in the book, and drew sketches of images that came to mind. Some strong imagery related to individual poems surfaced, and I tried piecing some of the elements together into a single composition. I came up with a few concepts, then sought feedback from both the publisher Christina as well as the writer Esther. In the end, the sensual visuals of the red earth from Esther’s poem were prominent for me. Contrasting with the fiery red earth, was the subdued moon which represented the ‘yin’ and subconscious, themes that consistently recurred throughout the book.

CB: As an artist whose medium is primarily drawing/painting, do you think there are parallels between creating art on the easel and poems on the page?

SY: Yes, definitely. Both the artist and poet are channeling the drive to create, using their specific media – the paint and words respectively. We are all expressing and bringing to life our personal inspiration and ideas, which are a part of us but also more than us, the collective subconscious. The creative process is a state of flow through which the subconscious is brought to the surface and externalized. The media we are using are tools that come with their own characteristics and limitations. I feel there is an element of surrendering to the creative process and what it needs to be brought to life. We are also presenting a part of ourselves, which can be very personal, to the viewer to ‘consume’, and once it’s out there, how it is perceived by the viewer is beyond our control.

CB: Can you talk a little bit about making artwork for a book cover, specifically? Did  it change how you approached the artmaking journey?

SY: I had admired Esther’s work with the The Tiger Moth Review, a pioneer in Singapore curating literary and visual art works on nature. When she approached me, I was honored and eager to create the cover for her debut book of poetry. It is my first time creating artwork to be published on a book cover and also my first time formally collaborating with Christina and Esther (apart from The Tiger Moth Reivew). It certainly helped that the poems were enjoyable to read and I could resonate with them. For the artwork, it was important for me that all partners were satisfied with it. I valued their feedback and it was also affirming that my collaborators were open minded to my suggestions and trusted my artistic vision. Art creation can be heavily influenced by one’s collaborators. It was heartening that we have similar values and ideals, and they were supportive of the kind of art I create.

CB: What drives you to create? What pushes you to try new techniques or start working on a new piece of art?

SY: Creating is an integral part of my life whether it’s for commissions or personal expression. It’s an embodied thing, not just cerebral, and I don’t have an external material ‘why’ as a reason for creating or trying new techniques apart from it being an intrinsic need. It keeps me happy and I feel it’s a natural part of being alive. As long as I’m able, I would be curious and want to create or try new ways of creating. Creating puts one in a flow state where we’re right here and now in the present moment, instead of worrying about the past or future. It also produces happy chemicals in the brain like dopamine, and lowers the stress hormone cortisol. Creating helps me process thoughts and emotions about things that happened, and imagine new possibilities. What we can imagine, we can materialize. Furthermore, as my life can be socially isolated, sharing art on social media helps me stay connected with people who view and comment on my art. I feel touched, understood and connected when I hear that others resonate with what I have made. As for what pushes me to try new techniques or start a new piece, I think it depends on what I need at that moment. Sometimes, I need to do the same thing to ground myself, and sometimes, I need to do something different. It’s about staying curious, aware and sensitive to what is needed at that point in time.


Readers based in the U.S. can pre-order Red Earth here. Readers based in Singapore can pre-order Red Earth from Pagesetters in August 2021. Red Earth is a joint publication between Blue Cactus Press and Pagesetters. It is a cross-cultural collaboration in a time of heightened border controls.


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Sad Horror & Blood, Blood Blood

An author interview with Moss Covered Claws author Jonah Barrett

It’s true, we love chatting with Jonah Barrett. There’s something about their cheeky humor and blatant honestly that keeps us leaning in to learn more about their writing, filmmaking, and multiverses of monsters and ghouls. I sat down with Jonah just after Moss Covered Claws, their debut short story collection, hit shelves around the Pacific Northwest last month (don’t worry, they’re in my COVID bubble!). Here’s what Jonah had to say about writing books and making art:

Q: What was one of the most unexpected things you learned about yourself while writing this book? 

Jonah Barrett (JB): The biggest thing I had to learn was that I was good enough to write a collection on my own. I still have imposter syndrome about this. Like holy fuck, Jonah. You have a collection of short stories? And not a small collection either. Jesus on a cracker what have you done? Logically it wasn’t unexpected but emotionally it was still pretty shocking.

Another thing I learned was: I write about blood a lot more than I thought I did. I’m diabetic, and I’ve been pricking my fingers and drawing blood my entire life, so the plasma’s always just sorta been in the background. When I was going through and making content warnings for each story, blood came up the most. I never thought I was so fixated on blood, but apparently it’s my subconscious’ favorite topic.

Q: What advice would you give young writers who are thinking about publishing their first book? 

JB: Independent is the way to go. As cool as it’d be to get picked up by the big five or whatever, small presses are gaining popularity and accessibility everywhere. Just like filmmaking, the tools to create amazing art are now in everyone’s hands. You get more creative freedom and flexibility when it’s just you and a small team of dedicated publishers. Indie publishers are kinda the lifeblood of the literary world right now (there I go with blood again). They’re more interested in works that deviate from the norm and try new and exciting things.

Also, and this is just a personal preference, but don’t work with Amazon. They’re ruining the book world (and the real world to boot), and they can go die in a goddamn fire. Fuck Amazon.

Q: You create so many things – creative writing, movies, newspaper articles – how did you decide what to include in this book and what to nix? 

JB: I think this is why having a great editor on your side can be a big help. Christina Butcher really helped me with slimming these stories down—originally there were going to be thirteen. We got rid of the poetry and experimental pieces pretty fast. She also helped me notice themes that held the whole collection together, stuff that I never really gave any thought to. One of those themes was depression. All my characters seem to have some kind of depression, because spoiler alert: that’s what I have!

Q: Is your creation process for writing a story similar/different to filmmaking? How so? 

JB: The first part of both processes is pretty similar for me to be honest. Both writing a first draft for a story and writing a first draft for a screenplay have the same highs and lows of, well… writing. For screenplays though I maybe only go through one or two revisions before I start heading into the rest of the pre-production stage. With filmmaking it’s like you go through all the trouble of writing and you’re maybe like, 1/5 of the way finished with the project as a whole. For writing, the writing is the finished medium, so that involves much heavier editing and revising. You can focus more heavily on THE CRAFT.

The way I usually start a story is coming up with the creature that I want to feature in it. What does that creature represent? How do people come across it? What’s going through their minds as they encounter it? And then I go from there.

Q: Has being a bookseller changed how you look at/interact with books? 

JB: Books are just objects. Unless they are hand-made or super rare or old, they are always replaceable. When I was just a reader I used to think of books as these sacred things that must be cared for and coddled. But it’s not the books that are sacred; it’s the writing within them. I like books now that have been around the block and have worn covers and smooth edges. Books are wonderful things that can easily be created or destroyed.

From a technical standpoint, it was awesome learning how to make a book as we went along. I could bring things I learned from bookselling to the table, and vice versa. I always hated blurbs and endorsements on books, I just wanted to read the freakin’ synopsis on the back. But you know who the endorsements are really for? Booksellers. We’re trying to find recognizable names that we know our customers love. That blew my mind when I learned that.

Q: There’s a lot of, er…… gore in these stories. They’re kind of serious and dark. Was it hard working on this book during dark and scary pandemic times (when, as some believe, we need all the light we can get)?

JB: I don’t like pretending I’m “light” when I’m so obviously in a dark place. I remember during the first few weeks of quarantine I tried so hard to write a comedic screenplay with that mindset of “we need light,” and it just wasn’t coming out. The meat and potatoes were really in the darker things I started to scribble down, and I think it’s a kind of catharsis really. For a long time our society has taught us to suppress our darkness, to not let ourselves cry when we need to and put a smile on instead. It’s healing for me to read dark stories; it’s like flexing a muscle we haven’t been allowed to use most of our lives. I really think you need both light and dark to find balance.

This might sound weird, but I don’t consider Moss Covered Claws to be a “grim” collection. Sure, I turned the dark elements up pretty high in some cases, but the stories don’t revel in the muck, so to speak. You know what I mean, right? Sometimes I read horror stories and it’s so obvious the author is writing these horrific scenes in delight. I didn’t necessarily enjoy writing the fucked up things in my stories. (Two exceptions I can think of are the nazi-punching scene, and anything the demon in “Stripes”—her name is Jerusha btw—says or does.) I don’t actually like sick, twisted things. Well I mean I do but I also don’t. I think the true horror for these types of scenes is how sad or tragic they are. There we go, that’s the genre I write in. “Sad horror.”

Q: How did it feel to have your first book drop into the hands of almost everyone you know (and folx you don’t know, too!)?

JB: I was pretty nervous, actually. I felt like there are parts of myself that I’ve kept hidden from people that rear their ugly heads in this collection. I was scared to death at what my mom would think. I was scared at all the assumptions people might make about me. I was scared the violent elements would overshadow the emotional aspects of love and melancholy, the parts I really cared about most when writing these stories.

Q: Do you have a favorite story from the collection, or a least favorite story? What are they???

JB: Right now I am really, really proud of “Warmonger,” which is kind of a shame because it has the least amount of monsters. I think it captures my generation’s frustration and is about something bigger than my usual themes of “Jonah is sad.” I’m trying to dip my toes further into “high fantasy” as well, and I’m exploring this one alternate world in “Warmonger” and “Snow Thing” where I can talk about issues in my own world without getting bogged down in the hyper-details that I’m too dumb to know.

My favorite though is “Boggy.” It’s the most autobiographical of my stories, since I grew up in that very bog. I didn’t have an imaginary friend when I was little, I had an imaginary monster, and Boggy was that monster. If you want to get really dorky, he is a prehistoric throwback-cryptid called the Tanystropheous, and he lives in my bog on a diet of frogs and peat. I literally convinced myself this creature existed when I was little, so it was a joy to bring him back into my life for this story. I also really love Anita, and plan to come back to her at some point in the future.

Least favorite? Probably the first piece, “Acts of Violence.” It’s based off an Alan Watts talk about how we are all the universe since we make up the universe, but I don’t know if I conveyed that in the way I wanted in the story. It also was just awful reliving my Catholic school days on the playground. Not that we beat anyone up for being gay, but there was a lot of homophobia (and bullying) in hopes of covering up our own questioning identities. I just hate revisiting that dark part of my life… so naturally I had to write about it.

As a whole, my favorite thing about the collection is how the stories all take place in the same multiverse. I didn’t plan it like that, but some characters popped up in multiple stories, and I just followed along. So if you step back it’s like this web where everything is connected. That was my favorite part of making this collection, going back in and adding little fun Easter eggs everywhere. Even the stories that take place in my high fantasy world are a part of this web. It’s never outright stated, but in “The Way Things Were” the concept of string theory and multiple timelines and worlds is introduced. Maybe the Dallas you meet in one story isn’t the same version of Dal you meet in the next. It’s wild and messy, and I like it that way.


About the Author

Jonah Barrett is a queer filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist. Their debut book, Moss Covered Claws, was released in March 2021. They have also been published in the Forest Avenue Press collections Dispatches From Anarres and City of Weird. Jonah has directed and written three feature films, a dozen-ish short films, and four web series—with their film work being presented at the Olympia Film Society, Northwest Film Forum, and Trans Stellar Film Festival. They usually find themself in old haunted buildings or overgrown swamps.

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Allyship in This Time of Civil Unrest

A note from the publisher, Christina Butcher

Now is the time to stand up and support Black community members across the country in the fight against police brutality, systemic injustice and racism.

Yes, this is a fight. And yes, we need to stand in solidarity as a community of supporters, allies and activists to ensure personal safety and freedoms of Black people, especially, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), generally, as they are continually targeted by police and racists across our country. Refusing to take a stand in some way, even in the smallest, most personal show of support you can muster, counters the efforts of activists and reinforces the corrupted systems in place. Complacency is complicity. I’ll say that again. Complacency is complicity.

As a company, Blue Cactus Press stands with Black Lives Matter and supports the wider, continuous efforts toward racial equality and justice in the U.S. We are working to increase the ways we support Black community members and take action to counter racial injustice. We can do more, and this is the start of that.

As a Woman of Color, I also stand with Black Lives Matter and support the work it, and other organizations, put into changing our socio-political landscape for the better. I see this work and I’m eager to participate. As a pregnant woman though, my physical limitations keep me from participating in many of the ways I’d like to. And I admit, I have been slow to accept the reality that my body is not my own, and to temper my mental and emotional desires to “do more” in this fight. I know there are many of you out there, as well, looking for ways to take meaningful action despite your own physical, mental and emotional barriers. So, in an attempt to lay out an actionable plan for myself and others, I’ve written a list of things we can do to be better, stronger allies with Black and BIPOC community members in this time of civil unrest.

Continue reading Allyship in This Time of Civil Unrest
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Cayote Speaks to Me by Gina Hietpas

Coyote Speaks to Me

by Gina Hietpas

So you want to know this place? Be up at dawn,
when first light brushes the sky beyond the grove
of madrones you call the seven sisters.

Don’t whine. Learn by exposing yourself
to the dark and cold.
I sleep in the blackberry tangle edging the hayfield,
my thorn fortress warmed by southern light.

Every fall, glossy fruit hangs outside my door. Breakfast.
There’s the pioneer orchard, trees gnarled,
apples like knobs, but I tell you – nothing like a feast
of field mice and fallen apples.

It’s a quick lope along the fence to the ravine.
Good mousing by the cedar posts
bunched with grass and ragged leaves.
Listen. The water, eighty feet below,
roars with yesterday’s rain.

Stick with me!
I’ll show you persistence and the art of pounce.
Watch me shrug off disappointment.

In solitude you learn your story.
Only then can you riff on the moon.


I Take My Chances with a Seasonal Man

by Gina Hietpas

There was a time, your green shirt ripe
with herring roe was pungent comfort.

You, gone again for the salmon run.

Me, city bred, newly wed
plunged into cold water living:
prime the pump, lime the privy, sliver kindling.

I polish the cook stove’s blue porcelain door,
such a fine Wedgewood,
tidy the drawers of the kitchen hutch,

first date receipts, errant buttons, string too short to save,
a clutch of mismatched dice.
Shake for luck and roll.

Stuck, I scour the sour whiff of mushrooms,
grey decay crouched in corners.
I must not cower.

Alone. Trim the wicks, light the lamps.
Feed the fire. Listen to coyote chatter.


Riffing on the Moon

by Gina Hietpas

A full moon rides the scruffy sky.
Restless as incoming tide, I wander,
room to room, in raw pursuit of sleep.

Led by mosaic light, I step into the yard
to breathe frost and stars
and expanded space.

A coyote yips an opening chord.
The pack jubilates – howling tremolos,
braided barks, a high descant.

Across the valley another band accepts the challenge,
riffs with alto warbles, solo yelps,
a running keen.

Echoing pitches volley, a call and response
of boundaries and bonds.
As the canticle fades, final alpha barks

dissolve all illusion of aloneness.


IMG_1215Gina Hietpas is a self-taught poet, born and raised in Tacoma, Washington state. Nowadays, she lives outside Sequim, WA, on a small farm with her husband, a few cows and a passel of chickens. Her land is a habitat for elk, deer, coyotes and an occasional bear. It is, for the most part, a peaceful coexistence. The opportunity to be a back-country ranger for several seasons shaped her connection to wilderness. Professionally she was a middle school teacher for twenty five years.  Now that she has retired, she focuses her efforts on writing. She has studied with Kelli Russell Agodon, Alice Derry, Holly Hughes, Susan Rich and Kim Stafford. Hietpas’ work has appeared in Minerva Rising, Tidepools, Spindrift and New Plains Review.

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Author Interview: Kellie Richardson

We can’t keep Kellie Richardson’s book cover under wraps any longer! It’s too good to keep to ourselves, and the story behind it – and behind Kellie’s creative work in collage – is worth sharing. So, let us introduce you to The Art of Naming My Pain, a collection of prose, poetry and collage by Kellie Richardson.

The cover of is based on one of Richardson’s collage pieces, “Listen,” created in 2019 with acrylic, tissue paper and found items on canvas.

Continue reading Author Interview: Kellie Richardson