Blue Earth is a compelling novel of Minnesota, a land that guards its secrets. Carver Heinz loses both farm and family in the farm crisis of the 1980s. Displaced into urban Minneapolis, he becomes obsessed with Angie, a beautiful child he rescues from a tornado in an encounter he insists they keep silent. Her close friendship with a Dakota Indian boy fuels Carver's rage and unleashes a series of events that reveal the haunting power of each character's past and of their shared histories, especially the 1862 Dakota Conflict and public hanging of 38 Dakota--the largest mass execution in U.S. history. "We... see our own lives reflected in Blue Earth 's dark mirror, even as we learn a tragic history kept from us by those who would forever erase our origins... This is a brilliant novel by one of our truly intuitive and accomplished writers" --Margaret Randall, author of Ruins "Achtenberg's passionate, brilliantly crafted language, combined with her profound ethical imagination, makes Blue Earth one of the most important books to appear at this moment in our history." --Demetria Martinez, author of Mother Tongue "Achtenberg creates morally complex and culturally diverse characters whose lives are affected by loss, poverty, disease, and war, but whose ultimately redemptive encounters with one another take Blue Earth far beyond its Midwestern setting." --Martha Collins, author of Blue Front "In the great tradition of Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner, Anya Achtenberg writes of the violence, past and present, that shapes the people of the vast American Midwest. Deep and searing, Blue Earth is perhaps one of the best novels of the past decade." --Kathleen Spivack, author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle Learn more at www.Anya-Achtenberg.com ¿¿From the Reflections of History Series at Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
ANYA ACHTENBERG is an award-winning author of the novel Blue Earth, and novella, The Stories of Devil-Girl (both with Modern History Press); and poetry books, The Stone of Language (West End Press 2004; MHP 2020); and I Know What the Small Girl Knew (Holy Cow! Press; MHP 2020). Her fiction and poetry have received numerous prizes and distinctions, and been published in numerous literary journals, including Harvard Review; Malpai¿s Review; Gargoyle; Tupelo Quarterly; Hinchas de poesi¿a; Poet Lore; and many more. As of this re-release of her first book as an e-book, Anya in quarantine is close to finishing History Artist, a novel-in-progress centering in a young Cambodian-African American woman, born the moment the US invasion of Cambodia begins. Anya is a writer's consultant and unique teacher of creative writing, in-person through universities, writer's organizations and conferences, and privately through Anya's The Disobedient Writer School; and online, reaching 60 countries and thousands of students to-date. Anya's teaching on writing craft goes beyond conventions with creatively expansive approaches that reflect multiple experiences, histories, aesthetics, uses of language, and approaches to story. Her essay on out-of-category identities and their relationship to the inadequate instruction to "write from a sense of place" was published in How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse. She has begun work on volumes that collect her radical creative writing pedagogy and workshop materials, including her Writing for Social Change: Re-Dream a Just World Workshop Series; The Disobedient Writer Workshop Series; and Body Stories, Body Song, and the Elements of Story Craft, informed by the many kinds of bodies, such as the captive, the liberated, the traumatized, the adorned, the dislodged and diasporic, the body in resistance, in a way that opens and shifts the writer's relationship to the craft of story. Anya has organized a number of arts and history-focused multicultural journeys to Cuba, and worked to curate Cuban film festivals. She never forgot that it was in Cuba, after being asked what she did or loved to do, and responding, shyly, that she loved writing poetry, the questioner addressed her always afterwards, as "Poeta!" Anya's forthcoming Patreon.org page will make her workshops and writings more widely available. Her courses, webinars, and critique groups are gathered at Teachable.com For more information, please visit Anya's website, The Disobedient Writer, here: https://thedisobedientwriter.com/
Show moreBlue Earth is a compelling novel of Minnesota, a land that guards its secrets. Carver Heinz loses both farm and family in the farm crisis of the 1980s. Displaced into urban Minneapolis, he becomes obsessed with Angie, a beautiful child he rescues from a tornado in an encounter he insists they keep silent. Her close friendship with a Dakota Indian boy fuels Carver's rage and unleashes a series of events that reveal the haunting power of each character's past and of their shared histories, especially the 1862 Dakota Conflict and public hanging of 38 Dakota--the largest mass execution in U.S. history. "We... see our own lives reflected in Blue Earth 's dark mirror, even as we learn a tragic history kept from us by those who would forever erase our origins... This is a brilliant novel by one of our truly intuitive and accomplished writers" --Margaret Randall, author of Ruins "Achtenberg's passionate, brilliantly crafted language, combined with her profound ethical imagination, makes Blue Earth one of the most important books to appear at this moment in our history." --Demetria Martinez, author of Mother Tongue "Achtenberg creates morally complex and culturally diverse characters whose lives are affected by loss, poverty, disease, and war, but whose ultimately redemptive encounters with one another take Blue Earth far beyond its Midwestern setting." --Martha Collins, author of Blue Front "In the great tradition of Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner, Anya Achtenberg writes of the violence, past and present, that shapes the people of the vast American Midwest. Deep and searing, Blue Earth is perhaps one of the best novels of the past decade." --Kathleen Spivack, author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle Learn more at www.Anya-Achtenberg.com ¿¿From the Reflections of History Series at Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
ANYA ACHTENBERG is an award-winning author of the novel Blue Earth, and novella, The Stories of Devil-Girl (both with Modern History Press); and poetry books, The Stone of Language (West End Press 2004; MHP 2020); and I Know What the Small Girl Knew (Holy Cow! Press; MHP 2020). Her fiction and poetry have received numerous prizes and distinctions, and been published in numerous literary journals, including Harvard Review; Malpai¿s Review; Gargoyle; Tupelo Quarterly; Hinchas de poesi¿a; Poet Lore; and many more. As of this re-release of her first book as an e-book, Anya in quarantine is close to finishing History Artist, a novel-in-progress centering in a young Cambodian-African American woman, born the moment the US invasion of Cambodia begins. Anya is a writer's consultant and unique teacher of creative writing, in-person through universities, writer's organizations and conferences, and privately through Anya's The Disobedient Writer School; and online, reaching 60 countries and thousands of students to-date. Anya's teaching on writing craft goes beyond conventions with creatively expansive approaches that reflect multiple experiences, histories, aesthetics, uses of language, and approaches to story. Her essay on out-of-category identities and their relationship to the inadequate instruction to "write from a sense of place" was published in How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse. She has begun work on volumes that collect her radical creative writing pedagogy and workshop materials, including her Writing for Social Change: Re-Dream a Just World Workshop Series; The Disobedient Writer Workshop Series; and Body Stories, Body Song, and the Elements of Story Craft, informed by the many kinds of bodies, such as the captive, the liberated, the traumatized, the adorned, the dislodged and diasporic, the body in resistance, in a way that opens and shifts the writer's relationship to the craft of story. Anya has organized a number of arts and history-focused multicultural journeys to Cuba, and worked to curate Cuban film festivals. She never forgot that it was in Cuba, after being asked what she did or loved to do, and responding, shyly, that she loved writing poetry, the questioner addressed her always afterwards, as "Poeta!" Anya's forthcoming Patreon.org page will make her workshops and writings more widely available. Her courses, webinars, and critique groups are gathered at Teachable.com For more information, please visit Anya's website, The Disobedient Writer, here: https://thedisobedientwriter.com/
Show moreAnya Achtenberg is an award-winning fiction writer and poet. Her publications include the novel Blue Earth, and the autobiographical novella The Stories of Devil-Girl, both with Modern History Press; and poetry books, The Stone of Language, published by West End Press after being a finalist in five poetry competitions; and I Know What the Small Girl Knew (Holy Cow! Press). Her short fiction has received awards from Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story, New Letters, the Raymond Carver Story Contest, and others.She is at work on History Artist, a novel centering in a Cambodian woman born of an African American father and Cambodian mother at the moment the U.S. bombing of Cambodia began. This work received a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is also writing a book of poetry and short prose, The Matadors at the Crossing.Anya teaches creative writing workshops and classes around the country and online with growing international participation, and offers manuscript consultations and coaching for fiction writers, memoirists, and poets. She also organizes groups of writers, artists, filmmakers and educators to travel to Cuba. Along with her numerous fiction and memoir workshops, she developed and teaches a series of multi-genreworkshops on Writing for Social Change (Re-Dream a Just World; Place and Exile/ Borders and Crossings; and Yearning and Justice: Writing the Unlived Life), which she has started writing into a movable workshop.Visit Anya at www.Anya-Achtenberg.com
"Psychologically and politically penetrating, Blue Earth portrays the frailties and quiet triumphs of contemporary individuals coping with their own loss of land, family, and culture against a historical backdrop of unacknowledged violence and theft. Characters that are often both victim and perpetrator operate with complex humanity amidst the wide scope of Achtenberg's vision. This book is, put simply, magnificent." - Christine Stark, author of Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation"In Blue Earth generations repel and embrace one another, and individuals are people you want to know. The characters in this novel dance with loss and despair, rage and hope. We are seduced by their historic burden and contemporary doings and undoings; see our own lives reflected in the book's dark mirror, even as we learn a tragic history kept from us by those who would forever erase our origins. Achtenberg takes the reader backward and forward in time, through the lives of people who are violently split open and cleave to one another in a desperation and relief that leap from the page. Memory is the thread that binds and finally lets them loose. This is a brilliant novel by one of our truly intuitive and accomplished writers." - Margaret Randall, author of Ruins"Blue Earth is the story of the United States, a country that has yet to own up to its past in order to move on and heal. Achtenberg's passionate, brilliantly crafted language, combined with her profound ethical imagination, makes this one of the most important books to appear at this moment in our history." - Demetria Martinez, author of Mother Tongue"Anya Achtenberg's Blue Earth is a thoroughly absorbing narrative, rich in both lyrical grace and historical depth. Farm and city, past and present, life and death converge on the land, lost by both its original and later inhabitants. Using dream, vision, and memory to enhance her compelling story, Achtenberg creates morally complex and culturally diverse characters whose lives are affected by loss, poverty, disease, and war, but whose ultimately redemptive encounters with one another take the book far beyond its Midwestern setting. - Martha Collins, author of Blue FrontIn the great tradition of Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner, Anya Achtenberg writes of the violence, both past and present, that shapes the people of the vast American Midwest. It is a story of bloodshed, loss, despair and the search for redemption. Deep and searing, Blue Earth is perhaps one of the best novels of the past decade." - Kathleen Spivack, author of With Robert Lowell and His Circle: Plath, Sexton, Bishop, Kunitz et al.
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