Sugartown Publishing

Sugartown Publishing is proud to feature its latest titles, hot off the press!  To order or find out more, visit our Catalogue & Order (subpage).

Released February 2016

My Dad Believed in Love

Poems by Catherine Elizabeth Dana

Sugartown Publishing

Paperback, perfect-bound, 6x9

130 pages

$17.95

ISBN: number to cme

Book interior and cover design by Margaret Copeland, terragrafix.com

Cathy Dana’s poems are lyrical and touching. A loving tribute to her father and to the pain of watching him slip away. The beauty of her words triumphs over the bleakness of the nursing home and the profound sadness of her loss.    — Elliot Aronson, author of The Social Animal

The poems and essays in My Dad Believed in Love, by Catherine Elizabeth Dana, constitute a moving tribute to the author’s father, Alfred Langdon Dana, who was known to his friends and family as Lang. The book, which covers the events of Lang’s life from childhood through old age, not only honors and celebrates Lang but also shows why Dana loved her father and how we can find our way through the labyrinth of grief. — Lucille Lang Day, author of Married at Fourteen and Becoming an Ancestor



RELEASED NOVEMBER 1, 2015

The Harsh Green World

Poems by Robert Coats

Sugartown Publishing

Paperback, perfect-bound, 6x9

130 pages

$16.95

ISBN: 978-0-9863346-8-9

Book interior and cover design by Margaret Copeland, terragrafix.com

Cover photograph by Elizabeth Carmel: "Bristlecone Pine and Sierra Crest at Sunrise." from The Changing Range of Light (copyright 2009). www.carmelgallery.com

Back cover photography by the author: "Lake Tahoe from Bliss State Park"

With a foreword by Daniel Marlin.

At the core of The Harsh Green World is that very "green" world of nature -- weather, mountains, wildlife, water, soil, rock. Unpredictable as it may be, in its droughts, storms, turbulent rivers, and inescapable heat, this world is the supportive base for one who can hold Earth close and dear -- with respect for its need for order and protection. The poems share a beautiful equanimity with nature through this remarkable poet's keen senses.

The Harsh Green World is also a study of relationships -- especially that territory between men: grandfather, father, sons, and friends. The reader is taken into a place epxressed in gestures, tools, and shared exploration more often than in words. Finally, there are poems that share disgust and horror at what people do in the name of politics o position but even here, the poet's tenderness often wins out over rage.

"Robert Coats has walked and worked in wildernesses for decades, and in this collection — of family narrative, ode to wilderness, and social protest — the restorative power of nature shines though. My favorite poems of his are about family and the natural world: even when mourning failing ecosystems and personal tragedy, he returns to the corrective order of landscape and the wild: in one poem, to “slide to a stop and sit up, at home in this world.” And after a set of poems on our collective inhumanity, he returns to nature again, inviting us, through a poet’s appreciative eye, to “think of the night canyon, wind hissing through pines.”
— Patti Trimble, poet and teacher

This book is such a rich collection I read it cover to cover in one sitting and wished for more. His narratives are strong and sure, his endings poignant and memorable, and there are no missteps. I love his comfortable, lyrical use of language and the heart in every poem.
— Gail Entrekin, editor, Canary

RELEASED JULY 13, 2015

Joyriding on an Updraft

Poems by Deborah Dashow Ruth

Sugartown Publishing

Paperback, perfect-bound, 6x9

148 pages

$16.95

ISBN: 978-0-9863346-5-8

Book cover and interior design by
Margaret Copeland, terragrafix.com
Cover photograph from www.swallowsnest.co.nz
Author photograph by Laura Lundy-Paine

Joyriding on an Updraft chronicles a life in poetry spent very
much in the spirit of its title. Deborah Dashow Ruth has been
steadfastly paying attention, catching poems as they come in all
manner of guises, holding on for the ride, and expecting joy.
— Dan Bellm, Practice

Deborah Dashow Ruth, a long-time supporter of the poetry
and theatre communities in the Bay Area, reveals a voice both
playful and bemused in this retrospective collection. In the
title poem, “From the Bluff at Fort Worden,” fresh similes
delight: “clouds like giant grapes” and “swallows like a random
toss of jacks . . . that swoop and jink.” In my other favorite
poem, “Division of Labor,” the short blunt lines fit the clipped
and spare nature of the bleak conversation, or lack thereof,
between husband and wife. The poet revisits the moments of
her life with humor, nostalgia, and insight.
— Gail Entrekin, Rearrangement of the Invisible,
editor of Canary

Deborah Dashow Ruth’s first full-length book of poetry spans
fifty years of a life well-lived, and well written about. Her poems
show a mastery of styles, from free verse to villanelles, sonnets to
concrete poetry. Dashow Ruth’s poems show that a life does not
have to be fraught with trauma to be meaningful to the reader.
— Margo Solad, Some Very Soft Days

Joyriding on an Updraft leads you through musings, worries,
denials, and wonderment about mother, father, brothers,
husbands, strangers, famous poets, lovers, sex, cats, mock–
ingbirds, and the craft of poetry — weaving in tidbits of advice
(“Save your sad news until tomorrow”) and reminders of
mortality (“Memento Mori”) that will resonate long after . . .
— Marianne Betterly, poet, member of the Bay Area Women's Poetry Salon

RELEASED JUNE 1, 2015

Sun on the Rind

Poems by Bonnie Thomas

Sugartown Publishing

Paperback, perfect-bound, 114 pages

ISBN: 978-0-9863346-2-7

$15.95

Cover art, “Fruit and the Glass Plate” by Bonnie Thomas
Solid oil pastel, turpentine and linseed oil painted on paper
Book design and graphics by Bonnie Thomas
Preproduction coordination by Margaret Copeland

Any creative person is both plodder and plunger; no one avoids the labor or can function at all without the occasional creative leap. Yet different poets seem to combine these modes in different proportions. I have a special admiration for those who frequently Plunge. Such a one is Bonnie Thomas.  – John Hart, The Hart Institute

This is a precisely crafted poetry—each word standing at attention, each line peppered with depth charges—and a joy to read. — Jacqueline Kudler, Sixteen Rivers Press

Alert to the many ways light moves in the world, Thomas’s poems illuminate the many small journeys that comprise our larger journey. — J. Ruth Gendler, Notes on the Need for Beauty



RELEASED  May 1, 2015

STRONGER THAN I KNOW:

MY STORY IN POEM

Inspirational verse from Cheri Coleman

Sugartown Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-986336-1-0

Paperback, perfect-binding,  6x9

104 pages

$14.95

"Stronger Than I Know is an empowering, nurturing and inspirational collection of insightful poems that takes you on a journey of truth, addressing feelings, emotions, and circumstancesthat happen in relationship transitions. It is a wonderful read of honesty that uncovers the depth of who you are, what you want, what is healthy for you and how supported you really are in life. It all becomes clear, page by page as this method of understanding, forgiving and moving forward is attained and a life of happiness unfolds with decisions and choices that are all up to you with the powerful support that was there for you all along. I highly recommend this beautifully and intelligently written book."-- Victoria Levine, author of Wolf In Sheep's Clothing.

Cheri Coleman found herself at age 49 facing a cancer diagnosis, economic uncertainty and a marriage that she termed "toxic." Through a process of poetry writing and open-hearted self-examination she achieved clarity about what she needed to do. The strength to confront the problems in her marriage -- and her own role in it -- eventually depended on building a deep and abiding faith that God had something better in store for her. Learning to trust and listen to that Guidance, Coleman found both acceptance and forgiveness and ultimately made the decision to move on.

Coleman's popular Facebook page, "Just Say NO to Toxic Relationships" now has over 21,000 followers who enjoy positive and encouraging messages daily as they wrangle with their own issues of making sense out of love and relationships that may have grown abusive or overly conflicted. Coleman works as a speaker and teacher to help others move through the process of freeing themselves from toxic and abusive relationships. She is also a business entrepreneur and the mother of two adult children. She lives in Northern California.

RELEASED January, 2015

Truchas: Closer to Heaven, Poems by Chantal Guillemin



POETRY/TRAVEL

Sugartown Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-9913870-9-0

$15.95

6x9, 116 pages

In the 1950s, Chantal Guillemin’s Southern California family visited New Mexico and succumbed to the enchanting beauty of the landscape, the breathtaking vistas and the people of a small town on the High Road between Taos and Santa Fe. Truchas, off the beaten track of most tourists’ travel plans, was where Guillemin’s family decided to put down roots, buying a small parcel on Llano Abeyta, a hamlet of Truchas. They moved a log barn next to an existing two-room house to create a house large enough for six children.

Truchas: Closer to Heaven is Guillemin’s homage to a place that continues to live in her heart and imagination, a place still unspoiled by rampant over-development where many cultures come together: the Tewa, Spanish and Mexican settlers, and Norte Americanos.