Theresa Kishkan
@fishgottaswim
a devotee of essays, novellas, hybrid writing, rivers, trees. 17 books. The Art of Looking Back: a painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze, forthcoming (Thornapple Press, 2026). North American half of fishgottaswimeditions.com theresakishkan.com
This morning, swimming, thinking about Herakleitos, my grandsons learning to shoot a bow, the tension of both, I thought I should write about this. And then I remembered I already had. Read it here: www.thetemzreview.com/kishkan.html
My grandson met her when he was 2, shirt on backwards, running full tilt in her direction. (A security guard stopped him.)
This morning I drew a name for a copy of The Art of Looking Back: A painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze. The winner is @calmspin.bsky.social (DM me with your address, Barbara, and I'll put the book in the mail.)
The Art of Looking Back has been out for a month! I am grateful for every generous review, letter, comment, and support from Thornapple Press to bring this book to life. Comment and repost and I'll enter your name in a draw for a copy, Canadian addresses only. Will announce winner next Friday.
This is publication day for The Art of Looking Back: A painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze! There's a launch at the Sechelt Library at 1 pm. With cake! Thanks to all who've read it already, who've reviewed it, written to me.
If you are on the Sunshine Coast, I'd love to see you at the Gibsons Library this evening, 6:30 - 7:30, where I will be talking about and reading from The Art of Looking Back: A painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze.
I love to how Talewind Books in Sechelt supports local writers, me included...
I'll be signing copies of The Art of Looking Back: A painter, an obsession, and reclaiming the gaze at Indigo-Rideau on Saturday, May 16, from 1-4. Drop by to say hello and if you buy a copy of the book, I'll give you a letterpress keepsake!
There's a new Steller's jay visiting me, with white streaks (like Interior birds; I'm on the west coast) and a white throat. Like the others who come for seeds, it talks to me but unlike the others, it uses my vocalizations. I've never heard a jay make these sounds. #corvid #stellersjay
In case you need to see a tree frog in a pot of young daylilies
On Earth Day, I came down to a cabal of Steller's jays waiting for breakfast and a tree frog calling in the honeysuckle. So many years of these mornings.
We are printing letterpress keepsakes for those who purchase my forthcoming memoir, The Art of Looking Back, due out in late May. If you pre-order a copy or buy a copy a bit later, let me know and I'll send you a keepsake, printed on our 19th c Chandler&Price platen press.
If you loved Hamnet, you will also love Jennifer Falkner's Susanna Hall, Her Book, a beautiful novella featuring Agnes and William Shakespeare's older daughter. Agnes's deep knowledge of medicinal plants takes root in Susanna. Visit fishgottaswimeditions.com to order a copy!
In 1978, after leaving Victoria and the relationship I write about in The Art of Looking Back, I lived on a small island off the Connemara coast. Today I will drink a little measure of Irish whiskey and remember that time of sweet tin whistle music, of corn crakes...Slainte mor!
In the greenhouse, arugula and miners lettuce to accompany our Valentine dinner.
An early copy of my new book from Thornapple Press! It's so beautiful
At my desk on a Sunday morning, thinking about how a stack of letters and some sketches became a book, due out in May. How somehow the notes, the scribblings, the late-night thinking, the hesitations, the questions that never resulted in answers (exactly), found a shape, a coherence
Today's sourdough cooling on the counter for today's lunch. Bread is always kind of miraculous.
One thing of beauty on a Sunday morning, this raku pot made by Robin Righton sometime before 1979. #raku #robinrighton #swanlakepottery
I love the moment when I've snipped out the last of the basting threads, when I've steamed the bindings flat (more or less), and when I hang the finished quilt on the clothesline. Just now, as I pegged it to the line, I heard the foghorn over where Agamemnon Channel meets Malaspina Strait...
Winter lived wild before he found us, is a fierce hunter, and is very proud that he hunted down and caught an origami crane fallen from a window sill.
When I gather my thoughts about the year we're leaving, it's here I want to be, above the Côa River in Portugal, or else right where the Ribeira de Piscos empties into it, watched by two horses meeting face to face 20,000 years ago.