Launch Day for Old Girls and Palm Trees-- an Illustrated Chapbook by Meg Pokrass

& news of an upcoming "How to Generate a Chapbook" workshop!

Dear Friends, my new illustrated chapbook Old Girls and Palm Trees, a novella-in-wisps, illustrated by Cooper Renner, is out in the world today! The link to buy Old Girls and Palm Trees directly from Bamboo Dart Press is here. The price for the book is $10.99. On kindle, it’s less. The book is available worldwide from online booksellers.

Old Girls and Palm Trees is an illustrated exploration of iconoclasts, perpetual dreamers, tightrope walkers, living room magicians, cat lovers, and female friendship. The "old girls" in the linked pieces are women who, in an alternate reality, refuse to accept the stereotypes of aging. The collection is conjured from dreamscapes of what just may be true. The poems, prose poems, fragments, micros and drawings invite you into an alternate reality where joy and love for same sex friends become a magical force to be reckoned with.

Friends, it would mean the world to me if you picked up a copy of my chapbook. And at the bottom of this post, I’ll tell you about an upcoming workshop in July, “How to Generate a Chapbook”, which will be offered as part of my book launch celebration!

Praise for Old Girls and Palm Trees:

Tender, vulnerable stories, stories that go from whimsical to a darker irony in the turn of a phrase, stories that bear down with poignancy and wisdom on the micro geography of our friendships. Pokrass is a maestro of flash fiction. Her access to interiority; our unspeakable thoughts and desires make for a collection on friendship, both witty and tender. -Frankie McMillan, author of Eddie Sparkle's Bridal Taxi

Old Girls and Palm Trees by acclaimed flash fiction writer Meg Pokrass is so full of wit, whimsy, and wonder, so full of startlingly fresh images and tender emotion, so full of life, love and loss I found myself reading the book through in one sitting and then reading it again. This amazing hybrid collection of linked mini stories and prose poems—reminiscent of the great Israel Writer Yoel Hoffman’s The Shunra and the Schmetterling—tells the story of the friendship of two old girls reunited in imagination after many years, who kiss the rims of their wine glasses, who glow in the dark, who ride their bicycles all over creation, who propose to their cat and hold each other up while skating on ice. Pokrass reinvents old age as a joyous, lovely ride under the palm trees. Old Girls and Palm Trees shimmers with wisdom and aged beauty. -Jeff Friedman, author of Broken Signals

Workshop news! On July 20th, 2PM EST, American microfiction writer and award winning prose poet Jeff Friedman and I will be leading a zoom-based workshop on How to Generate a Chapbook! The cost to join our 1.5 hour workshop is simply to have in hand a copy of both Old Girls and Palm Trees and Broken Signals by Jeff Friedman. We’ll be using both chapbooks as models. More details about our upcoming workshop soon!

Below are both the cover and a wonderful book trailer, created by Dennis Callaci of Bamboo Dart Press and Shrimper Records.

Book Cover, illustration by Cooper Renner