BOOKS | excerpt from Shovels & Chandeliers

Combray House Books, 2026

Cover & frontispiece art by Barbara Takenaga

Published: Spring 2026
Pre-order copies wherever fine books are sold.

Combray House Books ✴︎ Bookshop.org ✴︎ Barnes & Noble ✴︎ Books-A-Million ❧ Amazon

Shovels & Chandeliers

Preface

When I decided to select my favorite writing for this new collection, SHOVELS & CHANDELIERS, I thought to separate prose-poems, poetry, and fiction into three sections, but my publisher suggested that perhaps I could mix the different genres together into elemental groups— Water, Earth, Fire and Air. The idea of collaging my writing appealed to me. When I spread the work out and arranged it, I saw that many of the pieces in the first section WATER WAYS came from my early days on Oconomowoc Lake, Wisconsin.

Next came work that related to raising our two sons in Berkeley, which became the section, EARTH BOUND. Those mothering years in the vitality of the Bay Area, were somewhat influenced by the language school poets that led me to more experimental writing. In Berkeley I was diagnosed with lupus and needed to find an anthroposophical doctor which led us to the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

Sadly, after a year renting a farmhouse on Baldwin Hill, our marriage began to fall apart. We had just bought a small antique home on a splendid five-acre parcel, when cohabiting became increasingly strained. My husband moved out. Though we shared custody, for the first time in my life, I was alone. Many love affairs followed during this time, which led to the section FIRED UP.

After eight years, I met and married again. Together we designed and built a Mexican style abode outside the remote little town of Patagonia, Arizona. I had my own separate study and was inspired to write a great deal of dark-humor. This final section, OPEN AIR, was influenced by the big skies and solo rides over the expansive grasslands of the San Rafael Valley, where my soul felt most at home.

After transitioning back and forth for many years, transporting horses, dogs and a Siberian Forest cat, we decided to sell our dream house, and make Rose Hill our permanent address. Here there was space for family and friends, and I still had a one-room cottage to myself, where I am now pondering how I arrived at this collection.

“Do we really need so much Laura Chester?” my friendly ex-hus-band declared. Who knows! But truth be told, maybe I needed it, to reflect on my past writing, and to find out what I still found redeemable. Editing myself was a bit like picturing the body of my work from way up above in the desert sky— Looking down, this book appeared like an enormous egg, ready to hatch out.

Some have said that I would have gone further if I had just stuck with poetry, and poetry alone, but I think of the gaits of a horse— walk, trot and canter. Would anyone want to ride, or drive, for that matter, in only one gear? In any case, I have always followed my nose, and one form led to another.

I realize this book is a bit of a mishmash, but I am hoping, while paging through, you will enjoy the variety, as I have enjoyed being there for you. To all of you readers, I dedicate this book— Yes, it is for you, and only you. And it puts to rest, and to the test, five decades of consistent work that has sustained and entertained me— I hope it will do the same for you.

Laura Chester, Alford MA, September 2025

Combray House Books

Published: Spring 2026
Pre-order copies wherever fine books are sold.