Cancer treatment is a winnowing through which something uncanny can bloom...in this edge space, the ghosts can rise out of you.
The Cemetery Cure is a small book of spells. Beginning as an attempt to find language for the rough magic of the medicalized experiences of breast cancer treatment, Miranda Schmidt's poems weave through encounters with heritage, folklore, sexuality, gender, and the more-than-human world. With otherworldly illustrations by Verena Raban, poems wend over pages, seeking shape. The Cemetery Cure is an underworld journey of the body brushing up against the life/death veil and finding new form there.
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Miranda Schmidt is the author of the novel Leafskin (Stillhouse Press) and the chapbook The Cemetery Cure (dancing girl press). Their work circles the folkloric, the familial, queer magic, and the more-than-human world. Miranda’s writing has also appeared in Triquarterly, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, and more. With an MFA from the University of Washington and a PhD from Bath Spa University, she has taught creative writing at Portland Community College, the University of Washington, the Loft, Portland Literary Arts, and the Portland Book Festival. Their ongoing newsletter and teaching project, Writing Toward Nature, explores methods for bringing the more-than-human more deeply into our writing craft.