I was so thrilled to have Patricia Ann McNair interview me for the Washington Independent. She gets it. Here's the link. https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/an-interview-with-anne-marie-oomen
Another richly poetic book from a self-avowed book nerd Perhaps my favorite piece of the whole collection is the one called "Finding (My) America," in which Oomen travels to four different small-town libraries in northern Michigan as part of a book tour. She identifies herself as "a nerd for valuing books, for reading them, for loving to hold them, smell them and turn their pages, for
Each of the 15 essays exhibits Oomen’s concise yet ethereal style, grounded in detail yet floating in the hidden regions of our hearts and minds. “I want this to be a book that helps people think about America and the things that happen here. It’s not just about traveling to a place, but also about traveling to a particular characteristic or spirit of the American experience.” Yet
Part traveler's guide, part soul-searching memoir, part political commentary, An American Map is a richly painted canvas of the small but resonating experiences of a woman in love with, and inquisitive of, her home country. Andi Diehn Foreword Magazine
In these essays of place, Anne-Marie Oomen—poet, playwright, performer, teacher, memoirist—turns experience in her prose like a precious jewel, polishing every facet. With penetrating insight, generous warmth, and keen attention to the lilt and heft of language, she transforms each locale she occupies into a place that inhabits the reader. — Robert Root, author of Following Isabella, editor of Landscapes with Figures: The Nonfiction of Place
In this wonderfully moving book, Anne Marie Oomen, one of our finest regional essayists, goes looking for a larger map. She hits the road in the true American spirit, although this traveler is a midwestern woman, comfortable with her age and uncertainties. She turns the passion and precision of her prose on places as different as the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the Santa
Anne-Marie Oomen’s full-hearted essays in An American Map remind us that to be rooted in place is also to be rooted in tenderness and compassion toward humanity. Her beautiful language and elegant images lead us to a clarified sense of our yearning to belong—to a people and to a place. It's very satisfying to go along as she moves through landscapes that feed her, from the