Here is a review of Nickels: "This is the book we've been waiting for. Christine Stark has crafted a language and a diction commensurate with the shredding of consciousness that is a consequence of childhood sexual abuse. She brings us a wholly original voice in a riveting novel of desperation and love. Stark enables the reader to inhabit the intricacy and chaos of this potent inner landscape, and we have not seen this before. Every sentence vibrates with a terrible beauty. Every sentence brings the news." - Patricia Weaver Francisco, Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery
According to Reader Views website, "Christine is an award-winning writer and visual artist whose work has been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies. Christine has also spoken at numerous conferences, rallies, and universities nationally and internationally. She has been on National Public Radio's Justice Talking and she has appeared on national TV. She has been a community organizer and activist for nearly twenty years. She is a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2010 Loft Mentorship winner in creative non-fiction. In 2011 her poem, 'Momma's Song,' was released as a CD in collaboration with musician Fred Ho. Christine teaches writing at Metropolitan State University. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner, April, and their dog and cat."
Here is the synopsis of Nickels from the Reader Views website: "Nickels follows a biracial girl named 'Little Miss So and So,' from age 4-1/2 into adulthood. Told in a series of prose poems, Nickels' lyrical and inventive language conveys the dissociative states born of a world formed by persistent and brutal incest and homophobia. The dissociative states enable the child's survival and, ultimately, the adult's healing. The story is both heartbreaking and triumphant."
Christine is also a co-editor (with Rebecca Whisnant) of Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography,an international anthology about violence against women.
I'm looking forward to reading my copy of Nickels when I finish grading end of semester finals, research papers and journalism portfolios.
Best wishes to all the other teachers out there wrapping it up for the semester and heading into the victory lap.