Smoky Zeidel
Smoky Zeidel is a novelist and poet whose love of the natural world is thematic in all she writes. She taught writing and creativity workshops for many years at venues throughout the Midwest before—in lieu of having a midlife crisis when she turned 50—she succumbed to her bohemian urges and moved to Southern California. Her work has earned her five nominations for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.
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Smoky lives in the Coachella Valley, which is part of the vast Colorado Desert in Southern California, with her husband Scott, two cats, and a Chihuahua named Tufa (who considers herself the Boss of Everything). She is an avid master gardener, and when she isn’t gardening or writing, she spends her time hiking in the mountains and deserts with Scott, creating funky yard art, and resisting the urge to speak in haiku.
Smoky's work is sold in all major bookstores, including the following:
Poetry
In this moving book of poetry, author Smoky Zeidel celebrates her walk with nature while exploring the peaks and valleys of life through her kinship with the natural world.
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In "Crescent Meadow," she shares her deep and abiding love for the flora and fauna of this planet we call home. Through "On the Anniversary of My Father’s Death," she reflects on the cycle of life while remembering her father, who has sent her a gift every year since his passing. In "I’ve Always Thought I Am Like Water," Zeidel takes us on her personal odyssey of growth and discovery. And in "Hush," she invites us to stop, listen, and connect.
In the midst of a confusing and frightening world, Smoky Zeidel remains true to form with her poetry, gently reminding us to close out the superfluous and remember that which is sacred. Garden Metamorphosis is both a love song to Mother Earth, and a celebration of the cycle of life.
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In “Dirt,” Zeidel wishes us “More dirt paths through forest, meadow, and desert,/pine needles and humus and sand sticking to your feet.” In “Hawk Dance,” she shares with us a spiritual moment: “Oh hawks, if I had wings! I hear your music’s secret score,/I start to dance, and dance into the night.” And in “The Big Picture,” her silent prayer is a benediction for all of us: “Slay me with a sunset numinous/ whose colors have no names./Let me see the big picture,/live a macro life,/before my days are over and/my bones reduced to dust.”
Children's Books
When Ms. Gardener discovers something has been munching on her milkweed plants, she embarks on a fun and educational monarch butterfly journey that enchants both children and adults.
Novels
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It’s the early twentieth century, and the tragic deaths of her mother and two younger siblings have left Grace Harmon responsible for raising her sister Miriam and protecting her from their abusive father Luther, a zealot preacher with a penchant for speaking in Biblical verse who is on a downward spiral toward insanity.
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In the midst of his delusions, Luther believes God has abandoned him and devises a plan to get back into His good graces—a plan that puts both his daughters’ lives in danger and unleashes a frenzy of events that threatens to destroy the entire family.
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Will Luther succeed in carrying out his crazed plot against his daughters, or will an unlikely hero step in to rescue them all?
Short Stories and Collections
“The way I see it,” said Daniel, “the fence lizard eats the fly, so the fly becomes part of the fence lizard. The fly is the fence lizard. The fence lizard gets eaten by the snake, and thus becomes the snake. What’s to say that snake won’t get snatched up by a Golden Eagle, and thus become the eagle?”
Does the same principle apply to humans?
Marina is about to find out.
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Leap: A brave woman prepares to take her final journey.
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Breathe: How many people can pinpoint the precise time their marriage died; can repeat verbatim the words that sent the marriage plunging into the grave?
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Goodbye, Emily Dickinson: Sometimes the delusion is what helps us get through the reality.
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Lesser Offenses: Stepmothers had disappeared before, for lesser offenses. It was Carlotta’s time to go.