Moving from fairy tale to kid book, film representation to fact, Leave of Absence: An Illustrated Guide to Common Garden Affection tells the love story of two trees as they fall from a growing forest into the outstretched limbs of the other. “Call us Scarlet, Call Us Red, but Not Green” & “The Pin Oak, Some Summer Tree” previously appeared in Masque & Spectacle.
Photo by G Thompson Higgins Photography
Sally Deskins is an artist, art writer and writer who examines women-artists and the female body, including her own. Her art has been exhibited in galleries in Omaha, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Ohio and Chicago; and has been published in publications such as Certain Circuits, Weave Magazine, and Painters & Poets. She has curated various solo and group exhibitions, readings and performances centered on women’s perspective and the body. Her first illustrated book Intimates & Fools, with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman, was published in 2014 by Les Femmes Folles Books. Find her at
SallyDeskins.tumblr.com.
Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of more than a dozen books and chapbooks and the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). Her recent books are American Galactic (Martian Lit Books, 2014), Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), Queen of the Platform (Anaphora Literary Press, 2013), Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012), and the collaborative book Intimates & Fools (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2014) with artist Sally Deskins. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nebraska and has received an Academy of American Poets Award, a Mari Sandoz/Prairie Schooner Award, and the Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie, Mid-American Review, Poet Lore, and Feminist Studies. Find her at LauraMadelineWiseman.com.
