THE OYSTER GARDEN is a portrait miniature of the estuaries and rivers of the Chesapeake Bay. The collection evokes pine and pecan trees, the fresh water of the Blue Ridge Hills, evokes the Rappahannock River and its banks. It conjures lightning-season burns that promote growth of fire-adapted native plants in the Wiregrass region of Alabama. But The Oyster Garden transcends regional scope to resonate with universal meaning as it limns a family linked to the land. The collection is timely. Greenhouse gases driving climate change threaten both ecosystems. Not long ago, oysters of the Chesapeake Bay region were nearly decimated by increased algae resulting from warming oceans. Though recovery efforts recently brought a resurgence of crassostrea virginica oysters, this progress has been imperiled. The Oyster Garden is also the figuration of southern identity as it shapes a family who ultimately finds the land is inseparable from their own course, flight, and return. What Others Are Saying “Waterfield is a convinced verbalist, obsessed with not just the right words but also the most surprisingly electric combinations of words about the sea and family...” -- Robert Peebles Arthur, award winning playwright, poet, and author of Hymn to the Chesapeake About the Author Cesca Janece Waterfield grew up in the Wiregrass of South Alabama, and on the Rappahannock River of Virginia. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in Map Literary, Scalawag Magazine, LUMINA, Foliate Oak, Deep South Magazine, The Other Stories, and more. She received the 2017 Editor’s Prize in Fiction from MARY: A Journal of New Writing, judged by Natalie Baszile. About selene pressworks We seek to raise awareness of ecological imperatives by publishing outstanding poetry and essays that provoke action through arresting craft and unique perspectives.