Colleen Morton Busch

Author of Fire Monks

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Writing

Other Writing

Nonfiction

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Read my archived Huffington Post blog posts here.

My Wa Po piece on receiving my father’s 2020 mail-in ballot the day after he died.

Orion featured this piece about Jane Hirshfield’s poetry for our uncertain times.

Reflections on the hope brought by a burrowing owl population living on the grounds of a women’s prison, in the inaugural issue of Wild Hope: Field Notes and Images from Nature’s Front Lines.

An essay about a fleeting encounter with North Lake Tahoe’s elusive lone wolverine, published in Volume 3 of Wild Hope.

The Best Buddhist Writing 2012, from Shambhala, featured an excerpt of Fire Monks.

SFZC at 50 opening spread

In September 2012, when the San Francisco Zen Center turned 50, Shambhala Sun (now Lion’s Roar) published this profile.

Alice Walker feature opening spread

Lucky me, I got to talk with Alice Walker and write about it for Lion’s Roar.

Tricycle-Profile opening spread

My 2006 profile of poet Jane Hirshfield for Tricycle.

Yoga Journal Features

  • “The Search for Enlightenment”
  • “It’s Cool to Be Grounded”
  • “In Her Father’s Light” (Q&A with Geeta Iyengar)
  • “Heroes, Saints, and Sages”
  • “YJ Interview with Shiva Rae”
  • “YJ Interview with Angela Farmer”

Short Fiction

Big Ugly Review
“My Butter Likeness,” chosen as the winner of the “And so it begins” contest by Tom Barbash

Poetry

Poets Against the War

My poem Belief was published in the Poets Against the War anthology, edited by Sam Hamill. I was deeply honored to be included in this collection alongside some of my writing heroes, too many to name them all, but including Jane Hirshfield, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, Terry Tempest Williams, and C.K. Williams. Read the story behind the anthology.

Other poems have appeared in:

  • Sycamore Review
  • Yellow Silk
  • Poet Lore
  • Willow Springs
  • New Orleans Review
  • Iris
  • Whiskey Island Review
  • Spoon River Poetry Review
  • The Hollins Critic

Works in progress:

I’ve finished a novel manuscript, THE EDGE OF US, about a woman who’s coming to terms with the death of her best childhood friend, many years later. It’s an exploration of the bond between young girls and how that bond can be imperiled as they become women. It’s about the long and unpredictable arc of grief. It’s about the cruelty—and the kindness—within the human heart. It’s inspired by a true story—-mine, and hers.
Read the first chapter.

Other projects in the works include a memoir, THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS, about moving from New Orleans to Beijing with a depressed boyfriend and unacknowledged grief in tow, and a novel exploring the life of my great grandmother, Vitaline LeMieux, who deserted her husband and four children in Detroit in 1918 and may have worked in the thriving illegal liquor trade. It’s called VITALINE.

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