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Welcome to Russell Books: an indie bookstore on an island in the Pacific Ocean, where anemones dispense life advice and staff recommend books to mollusks. Staff Picks for Invertebrates, inspired by the poet’s experiences over the last decade working in a large bookstore, is a love letter to books, and to people who love books. In these poems, divisions between human and non-human fall away. Staff and customers, swallows and starfish, the store itself and the books that live inside: all are part of the same family and dwell in the same fragile, radiant world.


Staff Picks for Invertebrates releases May 1, 2026 but you can pre-order now on the Guernica Editions website, or via Russell Books!


Zoe Dickinson has published two award-winning chapbooks: Public Transit and intertidal: poems from the littoral zone. Her poetry is rooted in BC’s Pacific coastline, where she is a manager at Russell Books and Artistic Director emerita of the Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series. Staff Picks for Invertebrates, Her first full-length poetry collection, is forthcoming from Guernica Editions in 2026.


More about Zoe...

photo of Zoe Dickinson with the ocean in the background