Thresholds

Like Joy is Glenna Cook's third full-length collection of poems, all published by MoonPath Press. The first is Thresholds (2017), a finalist for the Washington State Book Award for Poetry in 2018. The second is Shapes of Time (2022).Cook grew up in Olympia, Washington, where, at age 18, she married her husband, Kenneth. They had 3 children (their oldest, a son, died of cancer in 2016 at age 60), and she has9 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. After a 25-year career with the telephone company, she retired from US West Communications in 1990, then immediately enrolled in college. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound, Magna cum Laude in 1994 at age 58, with a BA in English Literature. While at university, she won the Hearst Essay Prize for the Humanities and the Nixeon Civille Handy Prize in poetry. She is a Hedgebrook alumna and a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. She has read her poetry many places in the Puget Sound region, and published dozens of poems in journals and anthologies, the latest being This Light Called Darkness, a Raven Chroniclesanthology (2023), and When a Woman Tells the Truth: Writings and Creative Work by Women Over 80, edited by Dena Taylor and Wilma Marcus Chandler (2024). Her husband died in 2018, after 63 years of marriage. Cook has Parkinson's disease, which she keeps at bay with medicine, diet, and a rigorous exercise program. She serves as an advocate for others with Parkinson's disease. She loves reading, watching PBS and Netflix, taking walks, and interacting with people. Two of her favorite sayings are: We make our own weather, and (fromRumi) What you seek is seeking you.

Ansley is a writer and teacher from the Pacific Northwest. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Colorado Boulder and is the author of the chapbook Geography (dancing girl press, 2015). Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, swamp pink, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She currently works as the Director of the Writing Center at The Evergreen StateCollege and teaches poetry and mixed media workshops at local community arts organizations, including Hugo House in Seattle. She lives in Olympia, Washington with her dog.