Double Book Launch Eleanor Berry and Abigail Brandt

Eleanor Berry and her husband lived on rural land in the Santiam Canyon east of Salem from August 1994 until Labor Day 2020, when their house, outbuildings, and woods were destroyed in the Beachie Creek fire. They now live in the West Valley. Berry’s latest poetry collection, Works of Wildfire, won the 2022 Grayson Books Chapbook Award. Previous publications include two books, Green November (Traprock Books, 2007) and No Constant Hues (Turnstone Books of Oregon, 2015), and a chapbook, Only So Far (Main Street Rag, 2019). A past president of the Oregon Poetry Association and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Berry co-founded and chairs the Mid-Valley Poetry Society. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and has taught literature and writing at several Wisconsin colleges and universities, as well as Willamette University, and led poetry workshops for OPA, Sitka, and other literary and arts organizations.

Abigail Brandt is a West Coast native. She has produced and directed numerous arts and literary events, edited poetry journals, and served as a poetry event consultant for universities, booksellers, and libraries. She co-founded and directed the Santa Barbara Poetry Festival, has taught poetry in the classroom, and for 10 years led the Carpinteria Poetry Workshop, a private writing group of award-winning poets. Her poetry has won statewide contests in both California and Oregon. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including Art/Life, Café Solo, Calyx, rivertalk, Spectrum, and Talus & Scree; and in various anthologies, including California’s Wild Edge; The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place; Intimate Kisses; and Red Tiles, Blue Skies: More Tales of Santa Barbara. She lives in Salem, Oregon with her husband Werner Brandt.