Author Leah Browning
AUTHOR News:
SAN JOSE, Calif. — ‘When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain’, the first full-length collection of poetry by Los Alamos High School (LAHS) alumna Leah Browning, was published by Kelsay Books in November.
Browning is the author of Two Good Ears and Loud Snow, a pair of flash fiction mini-books published by Silent Station Press; three short nonfiction books for teens and pre-teens, all released by educational publisher Capstone Press; and six chapbooks of poetry and short fiction.
Browning’s fiction, poetry, essays and articles have previously appeared in a variety of publications including the Los Alamos Monitor, Mothering Magazine, albuquerqueARTS magazine, Harpur Palate, Flock, Four Way Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, The Threepenny Review, The Petigru Review, Necessary Fiction, Terrain.org, Thin Air Magazine, Parhelion Literary Magazine, Superstition Review, Oyster River Pages, The Broadkill Review, Newfound, Tipton Poetry Journal, Watershed Review, Mojave River Review, Poetry South, Santa Ana River Review, The Stillwater Review, and elsewhere.
Her poems have been featured on materials from Broadsided Press and Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, in The Wardrobe, with audio and video recordings in The Poetry Storehouse, and in several anthologies, including Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage (Grayson Books), Miracles of Motherhood: Prayers and Poems for a New Mother (Center Street/Hachette Book Group USA), and The Doll Collection (Terrapin Books).
In addition to writing, Browning serves as editor of the Apple Valley Review, an online literary journal established in 2005. The journal is published twice annually and features poetry, short fiction, personal essays, and translations.
Browning was born and raised in New Mexico. In 1992, she graduated from Los Alamos High School, where she was a student of Santa Fe resident Jeffrey Laing. During her time at LAHS, she received second prize in Seventeen Magazine’s annual fiction contest and an achievement award in writing from the National Council of Teachers of English. Her stories and poetry were published in the Los Alamos Monitor, the Southwest High School Creative Writing Awards, and the New Mexico English Journal.
Browning has lived in San José, Calif. for the last 12 years.
When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain is available from the Kelsay Books website, Amazon, and other online booksellers. For more information about Leah Browning, visit her website.
When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain by Leah Browning
Paperback, $23.00, Poems, 114 pages,
Kelsay Books, November 2022
ISBN-13: 978-1639802173
EXCERPT:
ANY DAY NOW
by Leah Browning
The test results are due back
any day now.
Life is like a mouse,
sniffing around me,
and I am a doll,
on the floor on my side,
lying where someone
has flung me.
At some point
the telephone will ring
and the wooden hinge
of my arm
will bend in its direction,
but I will let it go on ringing
for a moment
with that face at my neck
because I want to remember
at least once more
the scent of the lemon tree
in the back yard
and the view of the shoreline
on a windy day
and everything else
I’ve ever seen
in this world, which is so frightening
and wondrous
“Any Day Now,” a poem by Leah Browning, was first published in Dressing Room Poetry Journal. It is available online on a printable broadside with original artwork by the author’s sister, Sarah Browning, who also grew up in Los Alamos and graduated from LAHS.
