I see these so rarely, maybe once or twice a year: a creature that emerges from its cocoon with no mouth, whose only purpose is to find a mate. Whose antennae can detect the molecular love song of a female from miles away. Who flies by moonlight, trailing curly wingtips that confuse the echolocation of hungry bats.
Knowing that science doesn’t change how I feel when I see a Luna, every time: that I’ve been visited by magic.
Also: that love takes many forms, and is literally everywhere, even in pollen, and molecular love songs of moths. We inhale it without knowing.
#LunaMoth
#ActiasLuna
#ProdigalSummer
Joy is deeply honored to have the endorsement of Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, farmer, and one of Appalachia’s clearest, strongest voices.
Barbara understands this place. She understands rural people, working families, and the kind of leadership this district deserves. Thank you for your support Barbara. We are grateful beyond words.
"I’m endorsing Joy Powers for Congress because she cares about the things that really matter to my family and my neighbors: protecting our rural hospitals and health care, improving markets for farmers, and strengthening local businesses and job opportunities so our kids don’t have to leave the region to make good lives. I’ve called our current representation in Washington about these things until I’m just about blue in the face, but nobody’s listening. It’s time for a change.
When I met Joy, I didn’t see a politician, I saw a Mom, a farmer, the kind of smart, responsible friend you want on your side. I saw everything our region could be: upbeat, energetic, fair-minded and devoted to community. I can’t wait to vote for Joy in November." -Barbara Kingsolver
Photo by Evan Kafka
Most of what I do at my desk all day is deletion: crafting lean prose means endlessly paring down every page, honing sentences, striking out excess, distilling plot to its energetic core. My first novel drafts are always 100 to 200 pages longer than the book that’s eventually published.
Then I go outside and laugh. Over the Top has its place.
#springtime
I’ve been deeply unexcited about upcoming observances of our country’s 250th birthday, until I got this announcement from my publisher, HarperCollins. Their planned release of this curated collection telling our nation’s story is a worthy celebration. Read the list, and you might agree. This country started as a colonial, genocidal land-grab, all right. And it’s been peopled ever since mostly by immigrants escaping misery (including genocide) in the homelands behind them, looking to make something better. And by increments, often succeeding, through risk and protest and beautiful literature.
In case you can’t read the photo, I’ve listed the entries below. I’m honored to be in this canon, and proud of HarperCollins - the nation’s longest-running trade publisher - for championing these diverse voices, empowering stories, free speech, and me, every step of the way.
1850 The Scarlet Letter
1851 Moby Dick
1854 Walden
1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1918 My Antonia
1932 Little House in the Big Woods
1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
1938 Our Town
1940 Native Son
1943 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
1946 The Street
1952 Charlotte’s Web
1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
1962 Silent Spring
1963 The Bell Jar
1963 I Have a Dream
1963 Selected Poems: Gwendolyn Brooks
1968 House Made of Dawn
1974 The Dispossessed
1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
1978 Tales of the City
1980 A People’s History of the United States
1993 The Giver
1998 The Poisonwood Bible
1999 All About Love
1999 Daughter of Fortune
2001 Bel Canto
2003 The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni
2003 The Known World
2003 The Namesake
2011 We the Animals
2012 The Round House
2017 The Hate U Give
2018 The Poet X
2022 South to America
#HarperCollins
#AmericanClassics
The Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence has gone solar! This installation was the incredibly generous gift of Norfolk Solar Solutions, a nonprofit that installs solar electricity in communities where it’s most needed. These collectors will eliminate more than 75% of our residence’s utility bills, savings that will increase the resilience and reach of our project.
Our residents are proud to have what we think is the first solar household in Pennington Gap. Thank you Ruth, Ivy, and Alden, for your creative and brilliant work with Norfolk Solar Solutions.
If you’d like to know more about Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence, a project founded on the royalties from Demon Copperhead, check the links in my bio.
#NorfolkSolarSolutions
#HGWRR
#sunpower
I’m a proud Virginian today. Thanks to my State Senator Todd Pillion for bringing me to the floor of the Virginia General Assembly for a resolution passed in my honor (co-sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Boysko). I loved meeting my state legislators who are also regular folks - farmers, high school teachers, readers of books, all with highest hopes for our Commonwealth - as well as Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi (who has a PhD in American Literature!) and our magnificent Governor Abigail Spanberger.
The real joy today was seeing common ground in both parties, as I talked about and found so much support for the Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence - the house that Demon built. If you’d like to know more about it, check out the website and donation links in my bio.
#VirginiaGeneralAssembly
@todd.pillion@ltgovhashmi@abigailspanberger
There is nothing we love more than knitting with friends and talking about our favorite books! We invite you to spend a weekend like no other with us and our friend, Barbara Kingsolver, in Tulsa, Oklahoma July 31- Aug 2, 2026.
For those who have never picked up a pair of needles: this invitation is for you too. We will provide everything you need to learn—supplies, a small group setting, and sisterly instruction. It’s a place where you can be both a beginner and a part of our welcoming community.
Whether you are a lifelong knitter or have always wanted to learn, this is an all-inclusive weekend for crafting and celebrating land, literature, and slow living.
Barbara's beautiful poem, Where It Begins, captures the power of knitting to bring us together: "It begins with the circle of friends." Nothing is truer. And only Barbara could concoct: "Cast on, knit two together girlfriendwise." We can't wait to cast on together soon with you.
This event includes all meals, exclusive use of a private lodge on 1,000 acres in the Osage Hills, your knitting kit, and a variety of workshops—and, as always, we love to throw in some surprises!
Our retreats travel the country to match the settings of our chosen themes. We haven't officially announced this year's book yet, but for the super-fans out there: the Oklahoma location is your first hint.
April is the last of our early bird pricing, so visit the link in our bio to view the full details and join our waitlist.
#sistersquad #knitters
🎹 COVER REVEAL! 🎹
From Barbara Kingsolver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'Demon Copperhead,' comes the deeply moving new novel, 'Partita.' Add it to your Want to Read shelf at the link in our bio!
Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she's kept at bay for a lifetime. Shifting between past and present, Livia's decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life. With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Barbara Kingsolver's new novel reflects on class barriers, ambition, and the timeless love affair between life and art.
Available October 6, 2026
Published by HarperCollins | @harpercollins
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
It’s time for the Redbuds to start bursting flowers straight out of their knees and elbows. I always suspect these trees of having an excess of joy, but it’s a botanical thing - flowers and fruits growing directly from a tree trunk - with a proper botanical name: “cauliflory.” What it has to do with a cauliflower, I do not know. Merriam Webster will have to settle that one.
(Extra points if you can find the spider hiding in photo 2. I didn’t even see it until I’d posted this.)
#redbuds
#springtime
I’ve had a few more grate brthbays since this one, but I think this will always be my favorite card.
Sometimes, no matter what, if you possibly can, you just need to take a day to grow your garden. It all adds up to a life.
#birthday
#stillhere
#grateful
