October 2011, 110 pp, £9.95, $14.95

Cover Illustration: Woman in Feathered Cape, Deborah Barrett, 1999

King Cobra. Draculess. Son of the Pope. Black leather cats. Panther-parrots. A wild child. An eighty-year-old woman eight months pregnant. A man and a woman. A woman and a woman. A woman and a dead man. Flash floods and earthquakes. Spirit animals and strange herbs. The pig that knew the trick. A man’s heart roasted on a spit. A red ruby.

Tall tales, cataclysms, transformations.

'Victoria Nelson must stop being a national secret. What a writer she is! And what a mind she is—brilliant, original, imaginative; her language dazzles. A splendid critic and storyteller, she is also an authority on the literature of the spectral and the surreal. In A Bestiary of My Heart, Nelson and Deborah Barrett achieve a mesmerizing fusion of tale and drawing reminiscent of the high art of Bruno Schulz.' - Cynthia Ozick

'Rather than a bestiary, Victoria Nelson could well call her book a treasure chest or jewel box. She gifts the reader with gems, crowns, amulets—poetry. Resplendence. Deep Satisfaction.'   - Maxine Hong Kingston

Victoria Nelson is the author of the award-winning The Secret Life of Puppets and its companion volume, the forthcoming Gothicka. Her other works include a memoir, a study of creativity, and a previous collection of stories, Wild California. She was the cotranslator of Letters, Drawings and Essays of Bruno Schulz and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Booklaunch at City Lights Bookstore in December 2011. Hear it at the podcast [a href="http://www.citylightspodcast.com/"]here[/a].

October 2011, 110 pp, £9.95, $14.95

Cover Illustration: Woman in Feathered Cape, Deborah Barrett, 1999

King Cobra. Draculess. Son of the Pope. Black leather cats. Panther-parrots. A wild child. An eighty-year-old woman eight months pregnant. A man and a woman. A woman and a woman. A woman and a dead man. Flash floods and earthquakes. Spirit animals and strange herbs. The pig that knew the trick. A man’s heart roasted on a spit. A red ruby.

Tall tales, cataclysms, transformations.

'Victoria Nelson must stop being a national secret. What a writer she is! And what a mind she is—brilliant, original, imaginative; her language dazzles. A splendid critic and storyteller, she is also an authority on the literature of the spectral and the surreal. In A Bestiary of My Heart, Nelson and Deborah Barrett achieve a mesmerizing fusion of tale and drawing reminiscent of the high art of Bruno Schulz.' - Cynthia Ozick

'Rather than a bestiary, Victoria Nelson could well call her book a treasure chest or jewel box. She gifts the reader with gems, crowns, amulets—poetry. Resplendence. Deep Satisfaction.'   - Maxine Hong Kingston

Victoria Nelson is the author of the award-winning The Secret Life of Puppets and its companion volume, the forthcoming Gothicka. Her other works include a memoir, a study of creativity, and a previous collection of stories, Wild California. She was the cotranslator of Letters, Drawings and Essays of Bruno Schulz and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Booklaunch at City Lights Bookstore in December 2011. Hear it at the podcast [a href="http://www.citylightspodcast.com/"]here[/a].