Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, a collection of fiction and hybrid prose was first published by ELJ Editions in March 2017 and sold out July 2017. A second edition was published by WTAW Press September 2017. The book was featured by Poets & Writers magazine's second annual "5 over 50" and is the 2017 Indies Book of the Year in Literature, is an Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention, was a short list finalist for the Eric Hoffer First Horizons Award, and several stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
You can get a copy through WTAW Press or through Small Press Distribution. A signed copy is available directly from me HERE. The book is available at Copperfield's Books, Book Passage, Four-Eyed Frog Books, Pt. Reyes Books, or your favorite local bookstore. (Yes, also Amazon.)
To read reviews of the book and interviews with Peg, go to this page. Will Peg be in your area? Find out here. If you'd like to have her come to your event or class, contact her here. To learn more, look at this page, sign up for her newsletter, and/or check the occasionally updated news here.
P R A I S E
What intense bits of insight these are—dramas, both painful and lyrical, are captured in these superb concentrations of prose, with their flashes of brilliant detail. An original book, with a long, shimmering after-effect. --Joan Silber, author of Fools and Ideas of Heaven
To call this volume "slim" would be a mistake. It is rich in the way of poetry—lyric intensity applied to the small wonders of the world—and resonant in the way of music, summoning again and again the mysterious visceral response from its reader. Many of these sentences ("I wished it would rain, to quench something," for instance) are running repeatedly through my mind, like noteworthy and unforgettable songs. --Antonya Nelson, author of Funny Once and Bound
A gorgeous parade of narratives where every sentence is an insight, and every paragraph a mosaic that turns broken shards of language into poetry. I read Show Her the way you read in a dream, the way you see that flickering in the corner of your eye which means you're haunted. Highly recommended. --Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside
What a pleasure to read Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow. In story after story Peg Alford Pursell creates vivid characters and piercing situations. Nothing is too small for her imagination--a wren on a branch, a hole in a sock, ginger tea--and nothing too dangerous--a girl hit by a stone, a mother and daughter struggling. In a matter of a few words, a few lines, Pursell transports us into vivid situations of loss and longing. This is a dazzling and lovely collection. --Margot Livesey, author of Mercury and The Flight of Gemma Hardy
With precise beauty and unsparing wisdom, Peg Alford Pursell shows us “Anything can happen: anytime.” The dead resurrect in fragments of memory, kindness is necessary courage, lives dissolve, reshape, renew, and another’s hand will imprint on us its lesson in brokenness or its blessing of love as we fly into and out of the cages of our temporal selves. Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow is a small but fiercely sacred book, immense in its gifts. --Melissa Pritchard, author of A Solemn Pleasure and Palmerino
I've always firmly believed that the amount of words a story contains has zero to do with how much weight the story carries. Peg Alford Pursell's new book, Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, proves this once again, and proves it in spades. Read "Circle" or "A Lot to Learn" or "The Girl in the Picture" or "My Descent"—and many more—and you'll see what I mean. These stories are like gut checks to the soul.
--Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here? and Love and Shame and Love
Peg Alford Pursell writes beautifully and evocatively about both the world around us and the one within. Her prose is spare, her observations keen, her heart fully on display. Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow is striking debut from a great new writer.
--Tom Barbash, author of Stay Up With Me
Reading this book is like walking through a snowfall of petals—and thorns. There is a light airy feeling to Peg Alford Pursell's delicately worded fragments that is seductive, at first, until you realize that each swirl contains small stabs of loss and pain and violence. A really beautiful, unique collection. --Molly Giles, author of In All the Wrong Places and Iron Shoes
You can get a copy through WTAW Press or through Small Press Distribution. A signed copy is available directly from me HERE. The book is available at Copperfield's Books, Book Passage, Four-Eyed Frog Books, Pt. Reyes Books, or your favorite local bookstore. (Yes, also Amazon.)
To read reviews of the book and interviews with Peg, go to this page. Will Peg be in your area? Find out here. If you'd like to have her come to your event or class, contact her here. To learn more, look at this page, sign up for her newsletter, and/or check the occasionally updated news here.
P R A I S E
What intense bits of insight these are—dramas, both painful and lyrical, are captured in these superb concentrations of prose, with their flashes of brilliant detail. An original book, with a long, shimmering after-effect. --Joan Silber, author of Fools and Ideas of Heaven
To call this volume "slim" would be a mistake. It is rich in the way of poetry—lyric intensity applied to the small wonders of the world—and resonant in the way of music, summoning again and again the mysterious visceral response from its reader. Many of these sentences ("I wished it would rain, to quench something," for instance) are running repeatedly through my mind, like noteworthy and unforgettable songs. --Antonya Nelson, author of Funny Once and Bound
A gorgeous parade of narratives where every sentence is an insight, and every paragraph a mosaic that turns broken shards of language into poetry. I read Show Her the way you read in a dream, the way you see that flickering in the corner of your eye which means you're haunted. Highly recommended. --Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside
What a pleasure to read Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow. In story after story Peg Alford Pursell creates vivid characters and piercing situations. Nothing is too small for her imagination--a wren on a branch, a hole in a sock, ginger tea--and nothing too dangerous--a girl hit by a stone, a mother and daughter struggling. In a matter of a few words, a few lines, Pursell transports us into vivid situations of loss and longing. This is a dazzling and lovely collection. --Margot Livesey, author of Mercury and The Flight of Gemma Hardy
With precise beauty and unsparing wisdom, Peg Alford Pursell shows us “Anything can happen: anytime.” The dead resurrect in fragments of memory, kindness is necessary courage, lives dissolve, reshape, renew, and another’s hand will imprint on us its lesson in brokenness or its blessing of love as we fly into and out of the cages of our temporal selves. Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow is a small but fiercely sacred book, immense in its gifts. --Melissa Pritchard, author of A Solemn Pleasure and Palmerino
I've always firmly believed that the amount of words a story contains has zero to do with how much weight the story carries. Peg Alford Pursell's new book, Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, proves this once again, and proves it in spades. Read "Circle" or "A Lot to Learn" or "The Girl in the Picture" or "My Descent"—and many more—and you'll see what I mean. These stories are like gut checks to the soul.
--Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here? and Love and Shame and Love
Peg Alford Pursell writes beautifully and evocatively about both the world around us and the one within. Her prose is spare, her observations keen, her heart fully on display. Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow is striking debut from a great new writer.
--Tom Barbash, author of Stay Up With Me
Reading this book is like walking through a snowfall of petals—and thorns. There is a light airy feeling to Peg Alford Pursell's delicately worded fragments that is seductive, at first, until you realize that each swirl contains small stabs of loss and pain and violence. A really beautiful, unique collection. --Molly Giles, author of In All the Wrong Places and Iron Shoes