This poetic memoir chronicles R.B. Simon’s life as a daughter, wife, mother, and survivor of addiction and abuse. At the intersection of Black, queer and disabled identities, Bird, Bone, Blood tells its tale in a direct, unflinching voice and weaves the landscape of Wisconsin into reflections on emotionally significant moments.

Just as R. B. Simon was finishing the final edits on the book, in early 2025, she passed away. Milk & Cake Press is honored to see the book into print, in accordance with the wishes of her family. We will donate all proceeds above printing costs to her wife and children.

The book is available in our store: https://milkandcakepress.com/?post_type=product&p=47619&preview=true

 

 

The poems of Quickfall document a love story, the death of a spouse, and the widow’s grief. Written in a direct yet tender voice, these poems echo the swift and unexpected changes of falling in love a second time and the development of a relationship that is all too brief, leaving the surviving spouse to make sense of it after it’s gone. Now available in our store: https://milkandcakepress.com/product/quickfall-by-malisa-garlieb/

In this hybrid collection, the narrator wanders through her genealogical past, from the American Dust Bowl to Bandra, India, from Hoovervilles to the Arabian Sea. Her male ancestors hold important social positions: lawyer, Navy doctor, minister; roles that shape culture and history in official ways, while families shape it in private, personal ones, represented by her female ancestors. Alison Strub traces what is similar and what is different across two cultures: “This is all foreign, like the Madras ruby.// All things will drift away./ The dust I can’t keep out/will be the dust I can’t keep in.//Is there any place or time I won’t feel foreign.” Dust Rites interrogates the connections between family and global history, showing that everyone has a role to play, for good or ill, across centuries and decades.

You can order the anthology here.

The fourth anthology in the Dead of Winter series brings the danger and dread of winter cold and the hope that comes with the return and renewal of spring. These poems explore the sublime and uncanny nature of this period, at a time when everything is still and resting, or dead, when winter festivities have ended, but the starving months stretch out before the first harvests arrive. We wanted to create an anthology that captured this atmosphere and serves as a companion through the bright, cold days and the long, dark nights.

The poets in this anthology range from new voices to the well-published, united in exploring the cold, dangerous, frightening dark, and in recognizing that eventually, that season gives way. We hope that Dead of Winter helps us all hold on through the coming months as we forge new paths.

A deep thank you to all of the contributors for sharing their work so generously.