“Anyone who goes against the pace of the grind culture is living as an outlier and a risk-taker.” Tricia Hersey
Personal Essays:
I’ve written 14 books of personal essays since 2016. This Fall, my keystone book, which opens the series, was named as a “Notable Book” in the ShelfUnbound Indie Book Awards. These books are available for free, here, via the drop-down menu above, and in paperback and Kindle form, at cost, on Amazon.com.This Fall, Last Spring, and First, Summer are also available as audiobooks here and/or on Audible.com.
Poetry:
I’ve written 6 books of poems since my wife passed in 2015. I also include 2 others that compile poems I published individually earlier in my career. It’s all here for free, in PDF form from the drop-down menu at the top the page, along with audiobooks for many of them. Paperbacks and Kindle versions are available at cost on Amazon.
Scholarly Books:
I published two scholarly books during my career as an English professor. The first, Writing/Teaching, which won the College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award in 2002, explores the teaching of writing in the context of cultural and historical ideology. My second book, Re-reading Poets, documents my life-long love of poetry via the many specific poets who have made my life deeper and more livable. The publisher owns copyrights on these books, which are available at their cost via the usual online venues. I provide more information about these under the “Scholarly Books” drop-down, above.
Essays and Talks:
I published numerous articles and book chapters during my career, the major ones (from the 80s and 90s, when articles rather than books were the primary vehicles for scholarly exchange) are available here in PDF form. I also include my favorite talk, and a couple of stand-alone essays, including the first essay I wrote after my wife passed, which opened the portal to all the rest of this work.
Music
I started singing in 2015, not long after my wife died. In the meanwhile I’ve produced dozens of cover albums and 9 albums of original songs. The latter are archived at https://paulkameen.bandcamp.com. I include a few of my cover albums here.
My Work on Other Platforms:
Instagram: In a series called “my tiny poems from olympia,” I assemble reels from photos/videos I take on my walks and combine them with poems I write to “illustrate” them. You can find them at https://www.instagram.com/paulkameen/.
Bandcamp: After my wife died I began to play guitar and sing for emotional release. I recorded many cover albums to share with family and friends. Then, all of a sudden, I began to binge-write my own songs, recording 9 albums, archived now for free at https://paulkameen.bandcamp.com/ This burst lasted for three years, then stopped completely. I have no way to account for it aside from the sometimes strange effects of trauma on creative production.
YouTube: I’ve created a number of montages from photos I take on my walks with musical accompaniments. There is also a series of videos of me doing “fireside mini-readings of my tiny poems”: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc0sDl44WnOI9hjIBTenJg