Winter fuel. That’s what I call the few extra pounds I’ve put on this long winter. Not that this winter is any longer than any others–where I live it seems it’s winter three quarters of the time, with a bit of heat thrown in to relieve the monotony. Fuel could be food for the mind, but this winter’s been a dry cold, with not much writing and not much desire to write much of anything.

This year, like any cold-bound place, the ice will break, the dam will be free and the world will spin me around on an axis that I have no control over. What that means is that I will have a new book of poetry out this fall from Thistledown Press. I have laboured over edits with the help of Jeanette Lynes, an editor with a keen eye. The manuscript awaits the next phase of production, this process of writing for more than five years nearly over, this winter chinook blowing out the season, the work waiting like a youth for spring, that will arrive on the tails of the fuel that feeds us all. Words have a way of growing.