Linda McCauley Freeman’s poem, “The Room” has been nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize by Delta Poetry Review.

—THE FAMILY PLOT: 2022 LAUNCH SCHEDULE—

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In this, her first full-length collection of poems, Linda McCauley Freeman tells the story of an American girlhood spent in a large and boisterous family that is sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes dangerous. The Family Plot is part memoir, part survival history, with plenty of space for a heroic portrait of the materfamilias, described in the title of one poem as “My Italian Catholic Human Rights Commissioner Mother” who even as she descends into dementia rises mightily from her chair. Rises mightily, one might add, in these poems as one focus of meaning amidst this rich complexity of personality over which the poet’s keen intelligence broods with an objectivity not devoid of kindness and deep affection. “I will remind her who she is/every time she forgets,” McCauley Freeman writes, and again, “It’s not that I can’t remember/her face, a kaleidoscope/of pictures. . . .”

Advance Praise for The Family Plot

“The Family Plot, by Linda McCauley Freeman, pulses with life. Poems rich in sense detail portray one American girlhood, one American family, in all of its joy and its sorrow. McCauley Freeman understands that joy and sorrow often coexist inside one moment, .[…]”
—Suzanne Cleary, author of Crude Angel (BkMk Press, 2018)

“In The Family Plot, Linda McCauley Freeman describes the difficult and at times dangerous interiors and landscapes of childhood secrets[…]. Honest and brave, these poems chronicle a family’s wounds and a child’s survival.”
—Beth Copeland, author of Blue Honey (Broadkill River Press, 2017), winner of the 2017 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize

“McCauley Freeman’s, The Family Plot, is brave and unsettling. In these poems the poet unlocks words from her ‘diary with the tiny key’ to reveal family dysfunction, ancestral secrets, insecurities and, ultimately, the love she finds real and satisfying.”
—Julia Morris Paul, author of Shook (Grayson Books, 2015) and Staring Down the Tracks (Poetry Box, 2020)

Linda McCauley Freeman has been widely published in international journals and anthologies, including a Chinese translation of her work, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Recently, she has appeared in Delta Poetry Review, Poet Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, won Grand Prize in StoriArts poetry contest honoring Maya Angelou, and was selected by the Arts Mid-Hudson for Poets Respond to Art 2020, 2021 and 2022 shows. She was a three-time winner in the Talespinners Short Story contest judged by Michael Korda. She has an MFA from Bennington College and is the former poet-in-residence of the Putnam Arts Council. She lives in the Hudson Valley, NY.

The Family Plot is available from Amazon
Wholesalers may order directly from the publisher.