The Write Question

Encounters in grief, with animals: Annie Connole’s ‘The Spring’

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This week, Lauren speaks with Helena, Montana native Annie Connole, whose debut book, The Spring: A Mythic Memoir, chronicles the author’s episodic, almost encyclopedic encounters with grief, with the animals that crossed her path after the loss of her partner in 2014, both in her waking life and in her dreams. The Spring is the author’s grief in-process — a transformation, a resurrection.

About Annie:

Annie Connole is a writer and artist living in the Mojave Desert. She was born and raised in the rocky highlands of Helena, Montana. Annie received a B.A. from The New School, where she studied art and philosophy, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of California Riverside - Palm Desert. Her essays have appeared in Writers Resist, zimzum, and The Rumpus.

Annie Connole recommends:

What to Read When You Are Visited by Grief” by Annie Connole (The Rumpus)

Lauren Korn recommends:

Grief Sequence by Prageeta Sharma (Wave Poetry)

Obit by Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon Press)

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Lauren R. Korn holds an M.A. in poetry from the University of New Brunswick, where she was the recipient of the Tom Riesterer Memorial Prize and the Angela Ludan Levine Memorial Book Prize. A former bookseller and the former Director of the Montana Book Festival, she is now an Arts and Culture Producer at Montana Public Radio and the host of it’s literature-based radio program and podcast, ‘The Write Question.’