Wonder of Mushrooms

Maya Jewell Zeller is a poet, essayist, educator, editor, and recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Centrum, Artist Trust, University of Oxford, and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Research Forest. Her most recent poetry collection, out takes/ glove box, was selected by Eduardo Corral as winner of the 2022 New American Poetry Prize; she is also the author of the memoir-in-essays Raised by Ferns, coauthor of Advanced Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, and coeditor of Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest. Maya teaches writing and publishing for Central Washington University, as well as poetry and nature writing for Western Colorado University’s low-residency MFA program. She lives in the Inland Northwest.Jenny deFouw Geuder is an artist and educator from Michigan. She has taught art at the middle-school level for 20 years and has continued her own artistic interests on the side, both in commissioned work and personal topics. She is the award-winning author and illustrator of Drawn to Birds: A Naturalist's Sketchbook and Nature Explorer. While she primarily works in watercolors, she also enjoys oils, ceramics, and graphite.

“Beautiful, beguiling book... The Wonder of Mushrooms is an informative, charming introduction to the kingdom of fungi.”—Rebecca Foster, Foreword Reviews“This delightful marriage of fungal poetry and fungal watercolors is the perfect gift for the beginning mycophile, be that individual a child, an adult, or even an elder. May the fungi be with you, it eagerly declares, and if you purchase the book, they will indeed be with you!”—Lawrence Millman, author of Fungipedia“The Wonder of Mushrooms shows us the world of mushrooms through a poet’s eyes and with the magic of a painter’s strokes. Each line in this book contains astonishing science and lyrical beauty.... This book is the kind of delight you might find at the center of a fairy ring.”—Kathryn Nuernberger, author of HELD: Essays in Belonging“This marvelous new book guides us through the enchanted territory that literature and mycology share. Zeller’s precise yet poetic language emphasizes the otherworldliness of the fungal kingdom; lovely watercolor illustrations by Jenny deFouw Geuder likewise balance the scientific with the mystical. I recommend The Wonder of Mushrooms to readers of all ages—as long as they’re willing to be carried away.”—Lesley Wheeler, author of Mycocosmic

• A Kingdom of FungiA Rainbow of ColorA Myriad of ShapesForms & Caps & GillsCrinkle Skirts to a Fan That Frills: GillsAnd Some Have Pores...Spore Prints as Upside-Down FlowersA Web Beneath the Forest FloorMycelial MultitudesThe Warm and Necessary Breath of DecompositionWorlds unto ThemselvesA Fecund Celebration of DeathA Brief History of FoxfireTreasure from the ForestOf Mushrooms and MordantsWitches Know What’s WhatInside the Fairy RingAn Unexpected Savior?A Sampling of Words for “Mushroom” from Around the WorldMushroom NamesAbout the AuthorAbout the IllustratorWorks Cited and Further Reading