Steam Laundry is a novel in poems based on the true story of Sarah Ellen Gibson, a minerÆs wife during the Klondike and Alaska gold rushes. Her journey began as she followed her husband to Dawson City, Yukon Territory in 1898. She stayed there three years as the townÆs boom and her marriage burned out. In 1903, she left her husband and sons to start over in Fairbanks, Alaska, with another man. Based on archival research and incorporating historical documents and photographs, the poems approach the past through the ghosts of correspondence. The poems, written in the voices of Gibson, her family members, and the people who knew her, take on love, loss, failure, and desire. Some confront the drama of failed marriages, troubled family relationships, and alcoholism. Others spin the dramatic details of hunting accidents and subarctic survival into compelling stories in verse. They embody the opposing voices of an era during which men and women struggled in different, but overlapping, universes. By staring at Gibson through the spectral lenses of the people around her, the documents she left behind, and the vision of a contemporary poet, the particulars of GibsonÆs life are transformed into an exploration of the people history usually forgets. Steam Laundry offers the reader the chance to try on the dusty, mining-town overcoat of GibsonÆs life.

Steam Laundry

Literature & Fiction

Stellon O'Donnell, Nicole

United States

Boreal Books

In her third collection, Nicole Stellon O'Donnell explores the landscapes of memory, argument, and wilderness. These poems deconstruct memoir, dig at the roots of philosophical argumentation, and critique the role of the poet as an observer of the natural world. From manicured baseball fields to the debate podium, from the lobby of the public pool to the hallowed Alaskan cabin where John Haines once sat down to write, these poems push against the notion that the solitary self is the arbiter of truth.&nbsp;

Everything Never Comes Your Way

Poetry

Part memoir and part investigation into the educational system, this collection of linked shorts is a compelling portrait of one teacher’s family history, her experience of being a student, and the persona she has to wear in the classroom.

You Are No Longer in Trouble

White Pine Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stellon O'Donnell, Nicole. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stellon O'Donnell, Nicole

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stellon O'Donnell, Nicole. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Steam Laundry

Everything Never Comes Your Way

You Are No Longer in Trouble