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A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley
by Laurence Carr (Editor), Jan Zlotnik Schmidt(Editor)
Series: Codhill Press
Paperback: 210 pages/ 119 poems
Publisher: Codhill Press (August 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1930337736
ISBN-13: 978-1930337732


About the Book:


A collection of contemporary prose and poetry by women writers from New York’s Hudson Valley.
This volume celebrates the contemporary prose and poetry of more than a hundred women from New
York's Hudson Valley. Drawing on writers from the eastern border of New York State to the foot-
hills of the Catskills, and along the length of the Hudson River from Westchester to Albany,
editors Laurence Carr and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt bring together a wide variety of female voices that
evocatively address issues that touch not only women, but also every reader who desires insight
into the human experience.

A Slant of Light is divided into five sections, each addressing a theme of women’s lives. The book
begins with “Mythos”: representations and revisions of myths of women. The second section, “Body and
Gender,” explores visions of the body, gender socialization, and women’s roles. The third section,
“Identity,” presents works that examine both how women see themselves and how others see them. The
fourth section brings together works presenting women in a variety of roles, such as parent, child,
partner, and lover. The last, “Woman in the World,” collects works that meditate on our collective
fate in a global world.

What distinguishes this volume is the diversity of women’s perspectives in terms of age, ethnicity,
cultural background, and subject matter. The book brings together voices both lyrical and edgy, and
challenges readers to think deeply about our changing lives in the twenty-first century.


A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley,
edited by Laurence Carr and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt has won the 2013
USA Best Book Award in the Anthology (Fiction) category, sponsored
by USA Book News.


About the Authors:


Laurence Carr teaches creative and dramatic writing at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
He is the author of Pancake Hollow Primer: A Hudson Valley Story and The Wytheport Tales, the coeditor
(with Joann Deiudicibus, Penny Freel, and Rachel Rigolino) of WaterWrites: A Hudson River Anthology in
Celebration of the Hudson 400, and the editor of Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, all
published by Codhill Press.A SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at New Paltz,

Jan Zlotnik Schmidt teaches courses in composition, autobiography, creative writing, American literature,
women’s literature, and Holocaust studies. Her books include two volumes of poetry, We Speak in Tongues
and She Had This Memory. She is the editor of Women/Writing/Teaching, also published by SUNY Press, and
the coauthor (with Carley Rees Bogarad and Lynne Crockett) of Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction.





From the Book:


The Clay Goose
by Anne Richey

These forty-nine years on shelf or sill,
afloat on its blue-green base, safe –
safe-guarded through every migration

cushioned in my travel trunk or padded
in its own small box, fragile inked
across the top: fragile the goose,

fragile the troubled boy who made it.
Holding it, my fingers try to channel his,
shaping, smoothing, try to summon –

did he feel it? – the needful pleasure
of his power. They pause to explore
where he paused and pressed too hard,

the clay understanding. I love the rust
and creamy browns with hints of melting
yellow, the blue-green splashes on neck

and tail, the wet-shine of the glaze.
How high did the boy fly incising the V
of the back feathers' overlay, or tilting

the head in this quizzical life-like way?
Etched in the raw clay bottom, N.D.
for North Durham (the bullying ground),

N.W., my brother's initials, and 1963.
Was the torment on-going then?
The depression on the neck is a worry.

Imprint from a real time of a real boy,
now a man who's north today and south
tomorrow, like a bird trifled with

by wind or out of sync with seasons.
Rubbing the spot, if I'm not trying to
comfort the boy (a wistful exercise)

or musing on one of possible whys,
I'm reverting to my long-lost faith
in magic: rub enough, child,

your brother will come home.