This post is about two small gods: Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month, and a limited edition hardcover of Stone Telling 1 for Ursula Le Guin.

1. Amal el-Mohtar’s The Honey Month began as an  experiment to taste and write about 28 different honeys during the month of February 2010.  The entries first appeared in Amal’s blog, and then as a book from Papaveria Press:

Each day she uncapped a vial of honey, letting the brew inspire the words that became this book. Amal offers us much more than poetry and prose, however. Her words wrap around us like spiderwebs, gently pulling us into the web she weaves, where honey girls tempt and tease us, where things lost return and sorrow paints the leaves.

Others wrote beautifully about the book; my favorite review/prose poem is probably Dan Campbell. (Some other noteworthy reviews were written by  C.S.E. Cooney at the Interstitial Arts Foundation; Alexa Seidel at Fantastique Unfettered, and  Midori Snyder).

When the 2011 Rhysling award results were updated earlier this month,  Amal’s “Peach-Creamed Honey” took first place in the Short Poem category. There is no way right now to honor speculative poetry chapbooks, but Amal’s Rhysling win  underscores what many of us feel:  the Honey Month  was one of the  most significant speculative poetry events of 2010.

I won a copy of the Honey Month in the Goblin Fruit prize draw, and received it from Amal in the mail. Here’s the dedication page:

The second is an artist’s book – an extremely limited edition (of one) of the inaugural issue of Stone Telling, created by Erzebet. It goes off to Ursula Le Guin as soon as I can muster the courage to profane the small god with my lowly scribbles write a dedication.