Arkansas Books by Erin Wood
A monthly series including news about an Arkansas book, author, event, or item of literary interest to Arkansans.
Paula Martin is a woman of many literary and entrepreneurial pursuits, most of which involve nurturing the creative
souls of others and fostering community through storytelling. You may know her as the 2017 Arkansas Writers’
Hall of Fame inductee, the creator and former producer of Tales from the South, and the producer of Potluck & Ivy
(Season 3 begins in January).
Recently, Martin has gathered her endeavors in Sacred Flow Arts: Creative, Healing, and Martial Arts
(sacredflowarts.com).
Her Touch Drawing and Writing workshop, in which I was fortunate to have participated last summer, is utterly
stirring. With no requirement that one be an experienced artist, the workshop merges Deborah Koff-Chapin’s Touch
Drawing—a simple yet profound process of creating ink drawings with one’s fingertips—and writing to invoke
inspiration and tap into creativity. By putting me in touch with my hands in a way that I had not been in perhaps
decades, it helped me break through creative barriers and made for an incredibly moving, healing, and dynamic
afternoon on which I still reflect. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.
Martin’s novel Bone by Bone: A Love Story, inspired by her search for her own roots, was released last year.
Spanning from 1830—2017, and beginning in the Choctaw homeland in Mississippi, the book follows seven
generations of a family and the tragedies, trauma, and ultimately love that they unknowingly pass to future
generations. A story of tragedy and ancestral healing, Bone by Bone reminds us that we are all connected and
loved.
A Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press
(etaliapress.com). She is editor of and a contributor to Scars: An Anthology and is currently at work on Women
Makers of Arkansas, featuring 50+ women creatives. Wood’s work has appeared in Catapult, The Rumpus, Ms.
Magazine’s Blog, Psychology Today, Tales from the South, and elsewhere, and was a Best American Essays
notable.
