Katharine Haake, The Heaviness of Ghosts (Pre-Order)

The Heaviness of Ghosts
A Memoir in Essays
Winner of the Wolfson Press Prose Award
by Katharine Haake
Foreword by Kelcey Ervick
paperback, 196 pages
2027

Cover art by Lisa Bloomfield.

A new title in our American Storytellers series

This collection of personal essays constitutes a memoir that is both intimate and haunting. Haake looks back on the peculiarities of her childhood, the contradictions of her marriage, and the ferocities of her mothering—in other words, a life that is completely ordinary but, being her own, does not feel that way—all the while exploring a sense of wonder at the strangeness and beauty of human life at what sometimes feels like the end of the knowable world. In the process, she discovers the surprising extent to which those she has known, loved, and lost also grappled with the mysteries that shape us all. As Haake's unsparing self-questioning takes her beneath the details of her life's disappointments—and its marvels—she exposes us to our own most secret selves.

Reviews

Fearlessly, in stunning prose, Katharine Haake examines her life and losses in a way that will make you want to do the same—pick up and put down your heartaches, align your pain with the pain of the world, layer yourself into memory and time. Oh, and she will make you laugh out loud, too! This is a wonderful book.
—Sharman Apt Russell, author of What Walks This Way

About the Author

Katharine Haake is a fourth-generation Californian whose work reflects a deep engagement with the land, the people, and the history of the place. Her recent eco fable, What Happened Was (2024), inaugurated a new climate change fiction series from 11:11 Press, Nothing Exists Alone. 

Her other books include an eco-dystopian science fiction fable, The Time of Quarantine; a hybrid California prose lyric, That Water, Those Rocks; and three collections of stories. She was also lead editor on a 2021 anthology, What Falls Away Is Always: Writers Over 60 on Writing and Death. Haake’s writing has appeared widely in literary journals and has been recognized as distinguished by Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays, among others. A collaborative text/image piece she did with artist Lisa Bloomfield is included in Bloomfield’s portfolio in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Haake is a prominent figure in the field of Creative Writing Studies, long-time contributor to its scholarship and pedagogy, and the author of the foundational What Our Speech Disrupts: Feminism and Creative Writing Studies.

She is a professor emerita at California State University, Northridge, and lives in Los Angeles.