161. Annie Connole with Frances McCue: A Conversation On Grief and Transformation

Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

“By turns raw and mystical, steeped in loss but also reconciliation, it is a book that challenges our preconceptions, in regard to content and form.” So says author David L. Ulin about The Spring, the debut book from author Annie Connole. Connole joined writer Frances McCue in a virtual conversation about the book-length lyric essay. Together, they explored the themes in the book, which examine grief and transformation through the lens of mystical animal appearances following the death of the narrator’s partner. Traversing the wild landscapes of the American West, it combines prose and photography to create a lucid, dream-like vision of visitations and allegorical animal encounters with Snake, Owl, Horse and Dragonfly, among others. Connole invited us to experience a bit of that mysticism as she shares from the stirring, elegiac tale of death, love, rebirth, and friendship.

Annie Connole is a writer living in the Mojave Desert. She was born and raised in the rocky highlands of Helena, Montana. Her work has appeared in literary journals including The Rumpus. Connole received a BA from The New School where she studied art and philosophy and an MFA in Creative Writing from University of California Riverside — Palm Desert.

Frances McCue is a poet, writer, and teacher whose lifelong work is to connect literature to community life. For its first decade, 1996-2006, McCue was the founding director of Richard Hugo House. She has published six books, three were finalists for the Washington State Book Award in poetry, history and biography, and one book of poems, The Bled, was the winner in 2011. Her other books include The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs and Timber Curtain. Her most recent book is I Almost Read the Books Whole, a “book-jacket blurbs as poems.”

Buy the Book: https://www.chinmusicpress.com//product-page/the-spring

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