This month, Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living magazine is celebrating Women in Business Leadership. To continue the celebration of women leading and paving the way, this column, too, will be a celebration of women writers in our community. This list is by no means exhaustive, as we are lucky to be a community filled with talented writers and artists.

Hezada! I Miss You by Erin Pringle (novel)

Hezada! I Miss You brings the circus back to life as we follow twins Heza and Abe through rural Midwestern villages. Pringle weaves loss, love, and suicide together in the tale spanning the summer. The circus is down to minimal acts, as desperate and dying as the towns they are visiting. Join the circus for one last hoorah, one last chance at something bigger, one more show.

Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese by Tiffany Midge (essay collection)

Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese is the humorous nonfiction collection dealing with life as Native Women that Midge had always hoped to see on shelves but didn’t. So, she wrote it herself. Bury My Heart mixes comedy, commentary on important and timely social issues, and personal life experience to bring you a complex, curious, and relevant read.

The Cassandra by Sharma Shields (novel)

Shields reimagines the story of the Trojan priestess Cassandra in a way that somehow simultaneously feels more magical than the original tale and more real and tangible. Mildred is a clairvoyant, an intellectual, a caretaker, and then, a secretary at a research center responsible for death and destruction. When Mildred finally feels she’s doing something important, something larger than life, an ethical ultimatum, falls upon her.  How will she get out?

In Accelerated Silence: Poems by Brooke Matson (poetry)

In Accelerated Silence captures that unexplainable, inconsolable moment of quiet amidst grief. Matson’s poems join science and humanity to dig deeper into grieving and mourning, love and the universe. Reality is blurred and explored in these poems moving lightyears through time and space. Buckle up. Dive in. 

Baby Speaks Salish by Emma Noyes (children’s book)

Language is sacred. Baby Speaks Salish is Noyes’ way of making the Salish language accessible to everyone. In her attempt to share her language with her daughter, this beautifully illustrated guide is not only perfect for an educational bedtime story, but also for the polyglots and language-admirers alike. 

Glaciers by Alexis Smith (novella)

This is a story about Isabelle, a young, curious collector of other people’s discarded items. Glaciers closely follows Isabelle’s every-day notions, from her intensive work on restoring old books, to an unrequited love, to her nostalgic reminiscence upon her life as a girl in Alaska.

I’m Fine But You Appear To Be Sinking by Leyna Krow (short stories)

Dive into Krow’s strange and fantastical mind in these stories about the world ending, about a pet octopus, about strange objects appearing in your backyard. No two stories are alike in this collection, except for the line of unexpectedness and curiosity that runs through them all. This collection is fun, fast-paced, and intriguing. 

And don’t forget The Book of Difficult Fruits by Kate Lebo and Self-Portrait With Cephalopod by Kathryn Smith, both featured in previous Lilac Lit columns.