Fear of The Beast

This book is about that transience: of animals, of seasons, even of plants. Like our first book, Fear of the Beast combines Elisabeth Sharp McKetta's poetry with Troy Passey's artwork. But this book is entirely its own animal. Unlike the first, it has a specter of a plot-line as we track a beast (or are tracked by one?) through a forest in the snow. In contrast to the restrained lines in our first book, here the poems shake off their harness and grow longer, at times wending a path over several pages.

The art and the words play at the blurred line between ordinary and enchanted, how we inadvertently make myths, and how we are all interrupted by life as we never imagined it would be. Fear of the Beast looks at the idea of the animal--both self and other, human and humane--and examines how our collective fear and longing shapes our perceptions. Like any good book about beasts, our book is intended both for children and for adults.

Our relationship with animals is complicated, both primal and mythic, whether we are eating animals, keeping animals as pets, or telling stories about animals that we are too afraid to tell of ourselves.

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta is a storyteller, poet, and the author of seven previous books, including a writing guide, a children's book, and a biography of a coal miner who set out to change how America uses energy. She is a writing instructor at Harvard Extension School, a mother of two, and a TEDxBoise speaker with a talk titled "Live Like a Poem." (elisabethsharpmcketta.com)

Troy Passey grew up on a farm in Paris, Idaho. The agrarian landscapes of his childhood still pervade his art. He has exhibited widely and most recently created artwork for the book Woodsmoke: Reflections on Place, After James Castle. (troypasseyart.com)