Book Recommendation | Harnessing Light by @studiogoncarova #poetry #no
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  • N. N. Light
    • Dec 2, 2019
    • 3 min read

Book Recommendation | Harnessing Light by @studiogoncarova #poetry #nonbinary #bookish


Title Harnessing Light

Author S.B. Goncarova

Genre Non-binary love story/poetry/travel/ inspirational

Publisher Clay Grouse Press

Book Blurb

Can one create a love so bright, that it crosses distance and time? In this enduring love story, Harnessing Light is the journey of one woman trekking across the world in a search to find home, peace, purpose and love. In a quest that transcends physical limitations, Harnessing Light beckons us to our own, to discover what the true search really is.

Excerpt:

I SAID GOODNIGHT knowing full well it was goodbye, and then in the dark, you were there, on the bed next to me, only three thousand something miles away, and the quiet sounds of you muddling on your guitar seep into my veins and lull me into that cloudy space between awake and asleep, and in the end I am brought back to the beginning—

—to the first day that it was warm enough to have the kitchen door open, and I see and feel things around me with vibrant clarity. The warmth of the afternoon sun gracing the kitchen floor the color of a jar of honey in a windowsill. The smell of onions frying for dinner and me thinking hot damn how could I not love a man who cooks onions like that. I can feel the quiet bliss of that time; gratefulness for the peace and gentle rhythms of our days. The exhilaration at each small discovery where I’ve learned one more thing about you.

The soundscape unfurls, layer by layer: you noodling on your guitar in the other room; the ghost-like moan of wind through the house; rustling leaves of the Virginia creeper jungle that is the front balcony; neighbors chatting from across the way; here and there the random dog bark; the guy next door practicing the piano; a constant hum of cars buzzing down Saint-Denis. It’s a Sunday afternoon, the first weekend warm enough for Montrealers to trade their winter coats for t-shirts and go for walks in the sunshine. Chatter from the street ebb and flow like the tides. Voices of neighbors on the phone with parents back home, talking about plans for summer. Cheery optimism as pungent as the scent of microorganisms in the soil awakening after a long winter’s sleep. The squeak of the clothesline pulley as I take down laundry still warm from the afternoon sun. The clatter of silverware on dinner plates echoing down the alleyway.

Wind crinkles the plastic bag on the kitchen table. I undo the knot and find the artichokes we bought at Jean-Talon Market that morning. What the eff do you do with artichokes besides steaming them to death? Under the table I see a small quartz stone catching the last of the afternoon sun. As you swirl nascent harmonies like river stones in your palm, I swirl the quartz stone around in mine. It fits the negative space of my hand perfectly like a squished piece of play-doh someone left out and forgot about. I put it in my coat pocket, and my thoughts return to murdering artichokes, and I forget all about the stone and it falls through a hole in the lining, where it stays until next winter when I put my hands in my pockets to keep warm and feel a rock or something in the lining and dig it out and wonder, well where the hell did that come from—

Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):

Giveaway:

I’m one of the authors participating in the Curl Up With a Book Giveaway and you can win an autographed print copy of Harnessing Light by S.B. Goncarova (US/Canada only).

Runs December 1 - 31 and some prizes are open internationally.

Winner will be drawn January 3, 2020.

Author Biography

S.B. Goncarova is a writer and visual artist based out of Montréal. She has been the grant recipient of the Puffin Foundation and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her visual work can be found in the Archive of Digital Art, Danube University, Austria, PS1 MoMA Contemporary Art Center Digital Archive, The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Art Library, and Rutgers University Special Collections.

She loves creating sound compositions for films, combining almost-whispered spoken word with nature sounds, city soundscapes and meditative music. She is currently working on some short video pieces for her ASMR youtube channel called Abba ASMR, which feature segments from Harnessing Light. (Her nieces call her Abba.)

Her next book, "Education of a Diva," is due out in 2020 by Clay Grouse Press.

Social Media Links

Facebook: S.B. Goncarova

Instagram: sb_goncarova

Goodreads: S.B. Goncarova

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