Sandra Lindow

CONTACT:
Sandra Lindow
1308 16th Ave. E.
Menomonie, WI 54751
Email: lindowleaf@gmail.com

Writer/Editor/Teacher
Regional Vice President for the West Central Region of Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets

Previously meeting at the Eau Claire Public Library, the Writers' Group now meets the first Thursday of each month via Zoom. For further information contact Sandra Lindow at lindowleaf@gmail.com or call 715-309-2084.

BIO:
Since 1988 Sandra J. Lindow has had twenty-seven Rhysling nominations for the best speculative poem published during a particular calendar year. In 1990, her collection, The Heroic Housewife Papers, won the Council for Wisconsin Writers’ Posner Award for best poetry collection by a Wisconsin writer. Her poem “If Death: A Preprimer” was included in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: 2001. In 2003 she received the Wisconsin Press Women’s Award for Poetry. In 2003 and 2018 she won WFOP Triad Theme Contest first prize awards and in 2020 the Triad Poet's Choice Award. In 2004 and 2011, she won Jade Ring first prize awards in poetry from the Wisconsin Writers’ Association. In 2014, her critical book, Dancing the Tao: Le Guin and Moral Development (Cambridge Scholars, 2012) was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship in Myth and Fantasy Studies. In 2018, she won the Blei Award for Poetry and in 2020, the WFOP Muse Prize. Her poetry reviews can be found in Star*Line, and her poetry has been published in The Dwarf Stars Anthology, Star*Line, Asimov’s, Scifaikuest, Dreams and Nightmares, Tales of the Talisman, and The Magazine of Speculative Poetry. Her work can be found on-line in the Verse Wisconsin archives, Word Gathering, Blue Heron Review, Strange Horizons, Eye to the Telescope, UpNorth Lit, and Sky Island.

She has published nine books of poetry: Rooted in the Earth, Heroic Housewife Papers, A Celebration of Bones, Revision Quest, Walking the Labyrinth, Touched by the Gods, The Hedge Witch’s Upgrade, Amazonned: A Woman Warriors Guide to Breast Cancer and Recovery, and Chasing Wild Grief. Since 1987, she has served as West Central Vice President of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. In 2015, she was elected Vice President of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. For twenty-five years she worked as a Reading Specialist at the Eau Claire Academy, a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents. Throughout her career, she has taught reading, writing and study skills to students from preschool through post graduate. From 2006 -2016, she taught part-time at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. Presently she continues to do free-lance writing and editing. She lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Her husband Michael Levy died April 4, 2017.

PUBLICATIONS:
Chasing Wild Grief (Kelsay Books, 2021) is a response to the death of my husband of nearly 35 years, Michael Levy. It describes the process of grieving, and finding support and hope through nature and community. $16.50

Amazonned: A Woman Warriors Guide to Breast Cancer and Recovery (Cyberwit, 2019) a chapbook that charts a journey of breast cancer and recovery poems, Includes factual information and suggestions for journeying. $15

A hedge witch is an older woman, living at the edge of a village and the unruly wild, who is able to sometimes slip sideways into the fantastic. The Hedge Witch's Upgrade (Linden Leaf Press, 2012) is a light-hearted look at the magic in everyday life: lilacs, lycanthropy, love, missing children, rain for rent and Diamond Lil. $13.00

Touched by the Gods: (Sam's Dot Publishing, 2008) "Touched by the Gods" tends to mean crazy but crazy can be pretty good. Some of these poems take a look at modern-day gods and goddesses. Others describe working, marriage and child-raising and the magical in everyday life—the visage of the virgin Mary burned on the bottom of a pressure cooker, animals with cruise control, a poet who reads entrails for H&R Block, a physicist who wears ultra-violet. $10.00

A Peace of the Valley:  Chippewa Valley Poets and Artists On Peace and War (Linden Leaf Press, 2005) This book came as a result of the Wisconsin Epidemic Peace Project Imagery Show. Profits from this book will be donated to the United Nations Children's Relief Fund. $6.00

Walking the Labyrinth:  Poetry of Conflict and Resolution (Foothills Publishing, Oct. 2004) These poems explore conflict and the process of finding inner peace through connecting with the natural world as well as working through conflict with others.  Some poems are in response to the Desert Storm, 911 tragedy and to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  $13.00

Revision Quest (Lindenleaf Press, 1997) retells and revises old stories and folktales in an attempt to find meaning for those who often suffer in darkness.  Much of my inspiration for this volume came from my work with emotionally disturbed children at the Eau Claire Academy, a residential treatment center. $6.00

The Heroic Housewife Papers (Pandora, 1990) was chosen by the Council for Wisconsin Writers as the best poetry collection published in 1990 by a Wisconsin writer.  It tells the story of a housewife with three preschool children who uses her homemaking skills to fight dragons.  Sometimes she has to take the kids along.  The dragons are all sexist and they say demeaning things to her about being a woman.  She is not dismayed and responds confidently via her Teflon-covered sword using skills learned from racquetball. $6.00

Rooted in the Earth (Sand and Silk Publishers, 1989) tells the story of a family farm.  Told through the eyes of various family members, the history of my grandparents' century farm is recalled and the family grieves when it becomes apparent that we may have to sell the farm when aging grandparents can no longer deal with the many problems of running it.  A complicating problem is Grandmother's Alzheimer's.  $6.00

Signed copies may be purchased from me postpaid. Mail a check to Sandra Lindow at my home address, including $3 shipping per book. Books will arrive by first class mail.

Poetry

If Your Clothes Catch Light
Sign in a New Lanark, Scotland Water House

If your shirt catches light
and sparkles like an infestation
of fireflies, use techniques
from Flea Circuses for Fun and Profit,
to write a shimmer of haikus
across your back and chest.

If your shoes catch light,
take them off quickly unless
you would float down the street
like an astronaut in freefall
passing skateboarders and bicyclists,
only to stumble into the Farmer's Market
where light would force you
to buy apples, onions and zucchini
until your purchases weigh you down.

If your apron catches light
while canning apple chutney
and you see it seeping
through the warp and weft
of your apron pockets, 
quickly capture it in Tupperware,
then add a teaspoon to each jar
so that the light will be preserved
when your days become short.

If your coat catches light and sneezes
cascades of incandescent stars, become
the crossing guard for a grade school.
With your arms outstretched
like the Milky Way, guide small voyagers
through half lit Novembral space. 
Remembering your time in freefall,
share the magic of abundant light
with every small ship you guide home.