Abby Letteri

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here. If you’ve found this page, please know that I do not update it regularly. Maybe soon? I dunno. Watch this space??

Published March 2021 down they forgot is a memoir of an American childhood and adolescence in the turbulence of the 1960s and 70s, a time of sweeping social and political discontent. Assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and dropping out all inform this haunting story about personal identity and the consequences of loneliness, despite the passionate and fleeting friendships of youth....

Have you got yours yet? Published March 2021 down they forgot is a memoir of an American childhood and adolescence in the turbulence of the 1960s and 70s, a time of sweeping social and political discontent. Assassina…

Very pleased to have a short piece published today in Deborah Shepard's In the Time of Coronavirus collection. If you aren't familiar with this initiative, I encourage you to read through these pieces. There are some real gems.
https://www.deborahshepardbooks.com/covid-19-stories

for Ivanie Mae Down Joslin (August 1930 - March 2000) When I was very young, my family took an annual vacation. There was never a destination, no Disneyland at the end. We travelled by car, leaving at dawn, my mother riding shotgun with the big road atlas spread open next to her on the bench seat of the Rambler, the Buick, whichever hand-me-down car my father was driving....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/08/14/vacations/

Vacations for Ivanie Mae Down Joslin (August 1930 – March 2000) When I was very young, my family took an annual vacation. There was never a destination, no Disneyland at the end. We travelled by car, l…

On Reading Room at Newsroom today!
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/readingroom/essay-taking-my-big-brother-for-a-walk

Essay: Taking my big brother for a walk A portrait of an American family in the 1970s.

I woke that first morning in Katikati to birds more riotous than the ones in my own trees at home. I padded to the dark kitchen and made tea by the glow of the kettle switch. My hosts were already up and out, feeding the horses, mucking out. We had a busy day ahead so it was agreed that I would write my daily words while my friends ushered in the day on their farm. ...

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/06/01/schoolmaster/

Schoolmaster I woke that first morning in Katikati to birds more riotous than the ones in my own trees at home. I padded to the dark kitchen and made tea by the glow of the kettle switch. My hosts were already …

So pleased to see my book listed in the Unity Books May newsletter. Shame they misspelled my name (!) but the original summary, written by someone on Unity's staff, is really interesting. So proud!

Here is a link to Lisa Adler's review (of Charlotte Grimshaw's The Mirror Book and my memoir down they forgot) — VicBooks for Breakfast on RadioActive yesterday:
https://www.mixcloud.com/Radioactive_FM/vic-books-for-breakfast-wlisa-adler-22-04-2021/
It is such a privilege to have my book discussed so insightfully!

Vic Books for Breakfast w/Lisa Adler (22-04-2021) Lisa Adler joins Mia on the Thursday Breakfast show for another round of good old fashioned book discussion! Get your hands on the two aforementioned books here at vicbooks.co.nz

down they forgot will be reviewed on RadioActive's VicBooks for Breakfast, this Thursday morning at 8:15! You can listen live or search it up later. I'm so excited (and honoured). Lisa Adler and Sarah Rennie from VicBooks do a marvellous job of reviewing.
https://www.radioactive.fm

RadioActive.fm

Just love holding a new book in your hand?
down they forgot is available at Unity Books Wellington from today!
http://unitybooks.nz

Unity Books Our summer reads for 20/21 are landing now. Peruse or selection of the best new books this reading season by picking up the booklet in store now. Want to read...

In my local paper today, The Dominion Post!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/300274357/how-i-write-abby-letteri-finds-birdsong-a-perfect-soundtrack

How I write: Abby Letteri finds birdsong a perfect soundtrack Abby Letteri's poetry, stories, reviews and essays have been published in the US and New Zealand. "down they forgot"​ is her first book.

Excited that VicBooks is now stocking my book at Kelburn and Pipitea and online ...
https://www.vicbooks.co.nz/down-they-forgot-a-memoir?gn=Home&gp=18

Down They Forgot: A Memoir - Vic Books Wellington A memoir of an American childhood and adolescence set in the turbulent 1960s and 70s, down they forgot traces the story of a girl finding her way in a family overshadowed by mental illness. Social and political discontent—assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and droppi...

The First Family’s young “rescue” dog bites a secret service agent and the dogs are sent home to Maryland. Now the internet is ablaze with voices, most of them barking, why don’t they just hire a trainer? As if a dog is a simple machine, a robot, and the right set of coding will magically erase all fear and anxiety, all unacceptable behaviour....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/04/03/cat-amongst-the-pigeons/

Cat Amongst the Pigeons The First Family’s young “rescue” dog bites a secret service agent and the dogs are sent home to Maryland. Now the internet is ablaze with voices, most of them barking, why don’t they just hire a t…

Received a 5-star review on Goodreads for down they forgot from a reader in the US today, which blew me away. Thanks Caitlin!

“Memoir is one of my favorite genres. I’ve usually been attracted to it for superficial reasons. What’s it like to be a child soldier, hike the Pacific Coast Trail, kill someone in a car accident, or escape a cult? Memoir allows me to explore a specific experience vicariously. Even my motive for picking up “down they forgot” was a bucket list item: what’s it like to read a memoir where one of your friends is a major character in the narrative? I bought the book to find out.

“This book challenged me to experience Letteri’s childhood as poetry rather than prose. It wasn’t the first stop on the path to important adult accomplishments. It was childhood on its own terms: messy, confusing, and at times painfully lonely. The title comes from an e e cumming’s line “down they forgot as up they grew” describing a loss of feeling or understanding when we become adults. A better title for this might have been “down she remembered” as she crafts her memory snapshots with a disciplined economy the aspiring writer in me envies and beckons the reader not with the promise of telling the tale of how she got from point A to point B but with an explanation of how she learned to understand life both forward and backward in each small offering.

“As a woman who lost her mother and recently gave birth to a daughter, I felt like this book reached out and spoke to me through Abby’s relationship with her mother of whom she says “set aside her own ambitions and her considerable intellect went largely unnoticed.” This is an understatement. There is a vignette that broke my heart early in the story where her mother bravely canvased their neighborhood with her daughter in tow trying to convince nervous or apathetic white housewives to support civil rights and ended up later calling those same houses to apologize for menstrual blood stains she may have left on their couches. Later, Abby punctuates the end of her childhood with an event that made me want to cry and hug her mother for a goodness that transcended the cultural norms of that era and how it valued women and motherhood. Her mother’s idealism is tempered by the poverty the family suffered as a result of one of their father’s failed business ventures. Meanwhile Abby and her brother Richard navigate adolescence during a pivotal decade of American history. I am grateful they both survived to share this part of their lives with me.”

Very pleased to announce the release of my first book! A memoir of my American childhood and adolescence set in the turbulent 1960s and 70s, down they forgot traces the story of finding my way in a family overshadowed by mental illness. Social and political discontent—assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and dropping out—inform this haunting story about personal identity and the consequences of loneliness, despite the passionate and fleeting friendships of youth....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/03/12/down-they-forgot-a-memoir/

down they forgot: a memoir Very pleased to announce the release of my first book! A memoir of my American childhood and adolescence set in the turbulent 1960s and 70s, down they forgot traces the story of finding my way in a…

I've been fielding lots of questions about where to buy my book, so here are some ideas!

The print version is:
down they forgot: a memoir
Abby Letteri
Lilith House Press
ISBN 978-1-7353387-4-3
(please note the title is all lower case!)

You can order the print copies immediately from Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Ingram (who also supply the book to retailers) honoured the March 11th release date, so it should be available to order from Book Depository and other outlets after that date.

If you want an ebook, it is available on Apple Books and Smashwords now, and can be pre-ordered for Kindle through Amazon, for delivery on March 11th. The ebook ISBN is
978-1-7353387-5-0

It would be very cool indeed if you'd like to pop into your favourite independent bookshop and ask them to order it for you! The hardest thing for me, especially in times of pandemic, is marketing the book to booksellers — yet bricks and mortar bookshops are my absolute favourite places to buy books! If you have one you love and want to support, please see if they can order it in for you. It will take longer, but think how good it will feel!

One night in January 1968, I’m lying on the floor reading the comics, when I catch a fragment of David Brinkley reporting from Washington: “The ten thousandth US airplane has been brought down over Vietnam.” By February, I’m watching anxiously along with my family, as the North Vietnamese launch the Tet offensive, and the State Department announces the highest casualty toll yet....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/03/06/from-down-they-forgot/

from down they forgot One night in January 1968, I’m lying on the floor reading the comics, when I catch a fragment of David Brinkley reporting from Washington: “The ten thousandth US airplane has been brought down over…

My book is now live on Smashwords as an ebook, and I've just completed an "author interview" there:
https://www.smashwords.com/interview/Abz509

Smashwords – Interview with Abby Letteri

There goes the moon again, sneaking above the old man tree, pulling light out of darkness, splintering shards and sparks and tossing them into the dome of sky to twinkle and blaze in the firmament.

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/02/25/half-moon/

Half Moon There goes the moon again, sneaking above the old man tree, pulling light out of darkness, splintering shards and sparks and tossing them into the dome of sky to twinkle and blaze in the firmament…

Been a little quiet here as I get ready to begin a PhD in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington. Starts today!
Also today I signed off on the author’s proofs of my first book, down they forgot, a memoir. Published by Lilith House Press, it will be released worldwide through IngramSpark and Amazon on March 11th. I’m pretty excited. Launch event in Wellington, details soon!

My latest blog post...

What we Lose and What we Carry
(for Elaine)
It’s summer. The farmer across the road begins to shift a mob of sheep over the hills at 5:45am. Perhaps he’s taking advantage of the dawn’s cooler temperature to get the day’s hottest work done, but I can hear the commotion and my own dogs are restless. They wake me with their wining and pacing and I lie still, eyes closed, and picture the scene: the hills, still green, are steeply pitched and rugged, tattooed with narrow veins of scree....
http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2021/01/13/what-we-lose-and-what-we-carry

What We Lose and What We Carry for Elaine It’s summer.  The farmer across the road begins to shift a mob of sheep over the hills at 5:45am. Perhaps he’s taking advantage of the dawn’s cooler temperature to get the day’s hot…

“We just stood therein stunned silence. We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect.” * Before there was Secretariat, there was the 60s. I pressed my awkward girl body to the speaker, To the unholy events that marked us. 10,000 planes shot down and my mother’s bare lips Pressed together in grief. The world shed that decade as I shed my girl skin, Took refuge in a dusty barn where Jose and Luis Carried water and photos of their babies In Mexico....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/12/23/that-huge-engine/

That Huge Engine “We just stood therein stunned silence. We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect.” * Before there was Secretariat, there was the 60s. I pressed my awkward girl body to the speaker, To the u…

Many years ago, driving along the 280 freeway south of San Francisco, commuting to a job I had long stopped caring about and trying to let dark thoughts settle into the kind of numb that helps with accepting the things you cannot change, I saw a dog running scared along the concrete barrier at the heart of the freeway. Four lanes of traffic separated her from the scrappy, litter-strewn bank and the tenement houses below....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/12/01/portents/

Portents Many years ago, driving along the 280 freeway south of San Francisco, commuting to a job I had long stopped caring about and trying to let dark thoughts settle into the kind of numb that helps with…

First leaf fall from the sapling in the home paddock. Rough and taste-tested by someone at some time during the season. One edge jagged and true to the flag of its ancestral home. The other dulled, a flattened curve on a graph, indicating success or the ravages of drought. Such wilful splendour to go out blazing, imperfect. Our Antipodean home…...

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/11/27/canadian-maple/

Canadian Maple First leaf fall from the sapling in the home paddock. Rough and taste-tested by someone  at some time during the season. One edge jagged and true to the flag of its ancestral home. The other d…

President Kennedy has been shot. I am in kindergarten, but they close school early and send us home. My mother is coming to meet me, and I see her a short distance ahead in the road. She is wearing a pale pink shirtdress. Her coat, hastily pulled around her shoulders, is unbuttoned even though the day is damp and raw. She is crying as she walks toward me....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/11/23/november-22-1963/

November 22, 1963 President Kennedy has been shot. I am in kindergarten, but they close school early and send us home. My mother is coming to meet me, and I see her a short distance ahead in the road. She is wearing…

You can buy it from Amazon, or from Smashwords, or soon from any bookseller that is able to order from IngramSpark. Or from me, if you live in NZ, I'll have a dozen or so copies I can send to you!

What She Wrote: An Anthology of Women's Voices What She Wrote: An Anthology of Women's Voices

This was written on Good Friday, 2020, during New Zealand's full Level 4 lockdown. Out in the paddock this morning there was a perfect storm of agitated Andalusian. Nishka is separated from the other horses because of an unresolved medical issue that causes her intermittent pain. We’ve had her back and forth to the Equine Hospital three times, and we’ve exhausted their arsenal of diagnostic testing....

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/11/19/holding-space/

Holding Space This was written on Good Friday, 2020, during New Zealand’s full Level 4 lockdown. Out in the paddock this morning there was a perfect storm of agitated Andalusian. Nishka is separated from t…

It started with a little bay mare. She was 30 years old, blind in one eye, a tired school horse in a riding school barn somewhere west of Chicago. She was the first horse to steal my heart, and the first creature of any kind to break it. It's an old story and doesn't bear repeating, but for her sake and to exorcise the demons of memory, I will. [ 1,221 more word ]

http://horsefarmlife.home.blog/2020/11/09/horse/

Horse It started with a little bay mare. She was 30 years old, blind in one eye, a tired school horse in a riding school barn somewhere west of Chicago. She was the first horse to steal my heart, and the…

The Lilith House Press Anthology that includes some of my writing can be pre-ordered as an e-book through Smashwords here ...

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1052716

Or you can hold out for a print copy, which will be available after November 9th from any bookseller associated with IngramSpark, such as Book Depository — or be a mensch and order it from your favourite local bookshop!

What She Wrote, an Ebook by Lilith House Press What She Wrote: An Anthology of Women’s Voices is the creation of women who have written what is in their hearts and minds. You will find not only seasoned authors in this anthology, but also women who’ve kept their words enclosed in a journal. Women who’ve set their words free in a blog. Wome...