Be the Poem: Living Beyond Our Fears
Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson
CAPS Press, 2025, $15
In her new poetry collection, Poet Gold goes from crafting an ode to waiting for spring in “this little spring game” one minute and describing how the sound of a van hitting human flesh sounds the same as a bag of chips being crumpled the next. The former Dutchess County Poet Laureate fills pages upon pages with stories of her history with the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that left her wheelchair bound. Still, she persists and insists that the reader do as well. “I’m going to ask of you/to be poetry,” she says, before turning her life into just that.
Including the Periphery: Personal Essays
Roselee Blooston
Apprentice House Press, 2025, $20
This kaleidoscopic collection of essays documents Blooston’s puberty, career, loss, friendship, health, and dating. A teacher from Red Hook, Blooston begins her collection with her early childhood, then dwells on the death of her husband before delving into life on her own. “The W Word,” chronicles her complicated relationship with the word “widow.” She writes about how much she despised being the widow after her husband’s death, hating to use the word but never finding a proper substitute for it. But, as years pass, she begins to reckon with being the widow, and even to embrace it. Each essay follows a similar narrative: a discussion of her hardships, and a triumphant ending in which she overcomes them.
Aftermath
Jeffrey Milstein
Jeffrey Milstein, 2025, $65
In January of this year, while fires burned in Los Angeles, acclaimed Kingston photographer Jeffrey Milstein seized the chance to turn the tragedy into something greater: a book showing the emotional and immediate impact of climate change. The second the fires were extinguished, Milstein found himself in a helicopter, doors removed, photographing aerial shots of the affected sites of Eaton/Altadena, Palisades, and Malibu. His close-up shots reveal the true tragedy of the fires: houses burned, toys left behind, and barbecues charred mid-family cookout. The end of the book features side-by-side photos, taken a year apart, showing how these fires, and the climate crisis that caused them, changed these beloved neighborhoods.
Reluctant Flirt
Jennifer Probst
Blue Box Press, 2025, $19.44
In Hudson Valley resident Jennifer Probst’s new romance novel, love and duty come head to head. Desperate for an escape after discovering her husband’s affair, Sierra Lourde heads to New York City and spends one drunken night with the handsome Kane Masterson. The morning after, Sierra flees for the Outer Banks, where, over time, she reinvents herself as the owner of Flirt, a trendy boutique. However, a developer with plans to bulldoze her boutique’s building soon threatens her newfound peace. And there’s another catch. The developer is the same man she left behind in New York. Now, Kane has to make a decision: Save his career by going through with the project, or risk everything for another chance at love with Sierra.
Foreclosure Gothic
Harris Lahti
Astra House Books, 2025, $26
The modern-day Hudson Valley gets an American Gothic makeover in Warwick author Harris Lahti’s debut novel. Disillusioned ex-Hollywood actor Vic Greener leaves behind his dreams after falling headfirst for the elusive Heather Roswell and heads to the Hudson Valley to follow in his father’s footsteps: flipping foreclosed houses. The novel blends reality and destabilization. When visiting a house known as the Painted Lady, Vic’s son Junior swears that he saw a random old lady in a room. “A mosaic of wrinkles and fear. Dead, but still alive, this woman,” he says. A provocative insight into the American Dream, the novel tells the story of three generations of men, with unsettling black-and-white photographs strewn between the pages.
This article appears in September 2025.
