EMPTY BOWL

Empty Bowl, an independent press founded in 1976 in the Pacific Northwest as a cooperative letterpress publisher, publishes literary anthologies, poetry, translations, essays, and occasionally fiction.


Coming in November

My Heart Is Good

Ron Charles & Josh Wisniewski

My Heart Is Good is a history of treaty rights, told through the life story of Port Gamble S’Klallam elder and former tribal chair Ron Charles, with context and background provided by anthropologist Josh Wisniewski. In recounting Charles’s story, the book traces the historical arc of the Port Gamble S’Klallams from treaty signing to the landmark 1974 Boldt Decision that affirmed tribal fishing rights in Washington State, the subsequent 1994 court decision affirming the tribes’ shellfish harvesting treaty rights, and the growth of today’s S’Klallam commercial fishing fleet. My Heart Is Good offers keen insights into the impact of the Boldt Decision on tribal communities in western Washington and the subsequent development of tribal fisheries management. In chronicling Ron Charles’s pivotal role during this transition, it shows how one small Indian community transformed into the stable commercial fishing community it is today. Through this unique collaboration, My Heart Is Good makes an original contribution to the growing body of treaty-rights literature, Salish Sea history, and Native American oral history.


Of Note

A new book by longtime Empty Bowl publisher Michael Daley, Ground Work, will be released by Ravenna Press in October.

Andrew Schelling, author of Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers, has a new book of translations coming out this November from Circumference Books. Old Time Love Song Magic is a bilingual edition of poems by Vidyā, who may have been the earliest woman to write poetry in Sanskrit.

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