Sudden Seances - by Michelle Awad (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For women learning to turn their ghosts into power.

Sudden Seances conjures a world where memory hums like a spirit in the walls. It is a collection about loss, grief, and yearning--but at its core, it is about the haunting nature of the human experience. These poems call out beyond the veil, traversing the countless everyday rituals we use to summon the dead--whether through memories, objects, or the quiet ache of longing for something that's long been lost.

Delving into all that's said and unsaid between hello and goodbye, Sudden Seances explores the ways we continue to reach out long after a connection has closed. Awad's poems linger in the spaces where the living and the remembered overlap, where ghosts--both literal and emotional--refuse to fade. Through ruminations on nostalgia, grief, and identity, this collection reflects on how the past never truly lets us go, and how we, too, are often unwilling to let what's gone stay buried.

About the Author

Michelle Awad (she/her) is a poet, occasional novelist, and dedicated observer of the everyday, convinced that poetry can be found anywhere--provided one looks closely enough. Her work often explores themes of nostalgia, memory, and the unseen, tracing the ghosts and emotional detritus that shape the human experience. She is the author of the debut collection Soul Trash, Space Garbage and the chapbook Poems for the Apocalypse. Awad resides in New Orleans, where she can often be found enjoying a gin and tonic on an ironwork balcony or seeking insight from readers in Jackson Square.