“Take care of my poetry.
Do your creative work.”
Those were among the last words Nevin spoke to me.
I’ve been living into these promises ever since.
Nevin Compton Trammell was a poet, a thinker, a brilliantly funny and deeply passionate man. He was my partner in life and in creative work for many years.
When he died, I needed a way to honor what we had built together—and a place to carry it forward.
I wanted to create a publishing imprint that could house both of our voices. His poetry. My books and field guides.
What to name it?
I wanted something visual and evocative. Something that captured the long, rich, winding river of our life together.
So, I began to riff on river themes:
Moon River.
Spoon River Anthology.
The French Broad River we walked together.
The Ohio River of my childhood.
Every river that has ever carried something beloved around a bend and out of sight.
Then, I realized that Nevin had written it years before I knew I needed it:
Our love began as a
couple of streams
and grew into a river
filled with
ripples
eddies
dams
spillways
stones
and
all forms of
life.
-Nevin Compton Trammell-
AND THERE IT WAS: