Tobey Hiller

New Fiction: Flight Advice: a fabulary (Unlikely Books, New Orleans, 2021)

A collection of stories with fabulist/magic realist elements that delve into the many strange geographies of our actual and imagined lives.

The latest book of poems: CROW MIND

A personal message:

CROW MIND is a collection of poems about a pair of crows that began visiting my backyard daily, because I was feeding them. In short order, I found myself writing a series about them: their varied and fascinating habits, my growing relationship with them, the illuminations fostered by focusing on another species so like our own--smart, resourceful, social and playful, capable of filling all niches, not to mention ruthless, cunning, dangerous to smaller life. It's a book about an inter-species relationship that grew much larger and more resonant than anticipated.

Here is what Marsha de O says about Crow Mind:

"Tobey Hiller depolarizes human and animal, she plumbs the knowledge 'our tribes share.' ....Do not neglect the luster between these covers."
–Marsha de la O, author of Every Ravening Thing

Go to this link to read more:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/crow-mind-by-tobey-hiller/

For Susan Nordmark's review of CROW MIND in the Los Angeles Review, go here:

http://losangelesreview.org/review-crow-mind-tobey-hiller/

Selected Works

Poetry

Crow Mind (Finishing Line Press, 2020)

This book is a careful observation of crows who visit the poet's backyard. The poems step into the space between one species and another, between an inside and an outside, the domestic and the wild, the familiar and the strange.

Crossings

This beautiful chapbook (Oyez, 1980, handbound and printed in letterpress by Don Gray) is Hiller's first book of poems.

Aqueduct

This book (Clear Mt. Press, 1993) is a mosaic of fragments, lyrics and prose poems that add up to a long poem, a meditation on water, love and the continual motions of life. Joanna Axtmann's striking drawings, inspired by the piece, accompany the poems. It's a love poem to water and its ways.

Certain Weathers

In this collection (Oyez, 1987) Hiller writes of the daily and domestic relationships that make our lives both challenging and gorgeous. She writes of the pulse and magnetism of the natural world we inhabit and how our selves are inextricably bound to the weather of it, its past, its future, the communities of its being.

"...delicate strength as it weaves and cross-ticks, delicate beauty."
RICHARD SILBERG (editor of
"Poetry Flash").

Novel

Charlie’s Exit

(EdgeWork Books, 2002, ISBN 1-223-01-7)

This is a moving novel of psychological growth, an engrossing mystery, and a drama of discovery in which the characters speak in their own voices and the reader comes to understand the story from multiple perspectives. A mystery, a coming-of-age story, and a meditation on both marriage and journey all at once.As Charlie travels across a continent, sorting out the tangle of broken promises and violent surprises that have changed her life, a second story of risk and discovery weaves itself into the first through the diary of her great-great-grandmother, a pioneer who made her way across the same plains generations ago, facing her own adventures, losses and hard truths. Eventually Charlie, too, becomes a pioneer in a new way of life, as she uncovers and faces family secrets, absorbs some hard truths of her own and finds new beauties in the world.

"Hiller manages her conclusion with a skill that is admirable in a first novel. This is a book that will long stay in the reader's mind, a vivid and arresting experience." (The Compulsive Reader)

Psychology

Recreating Partnership: A Solution-Oriented, Collaborative Approach to Couples Therapy

“The authors of this beautifully written book give invaluable insights into what couples need to turn their relationship around during therapy... This is one of the clearest and most creative books I have ever read on couples therapy!”

--(Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Washington, author of Love Between Equals).

Works

Crow Mind (Finishing Line Press, 2020)

This book chronicles a daily backyard meeting between a poet and her crow visitors. The poems are full of careful observation, and they bring the corvid-human similarities and differences into high relief.

Crossings

This beautiful chapbook (Oyez, 1980, handbound and printed in letterpress by Don Gray) is Hiller's first book of poems.

Charlie’s Exit

(EdgeWork Books, 2002, ISBN 1-223-01-7)

This is a moving novel of psychological growth, an engrossing mystery, and a drama of discovery in which the characters speak in their own voices and the reader comes to understand the story from multiple perspectives.

A woman’s house burns to the ground, and she disappears without word or trace. Her husband claims she set the fire and accuses her of desertion. Other people in her life, however, see these events very differently, and gradually the reader gathers clues and learns secrets that shed both light and darkness on the puzzle of the heroine's life and sudden exit.

As Charlie travels across a continent, sorting out the tangle of broken promises and violent surprises that have changed her life, a second story of risk and discovery weaves itself into the first through the diary of her great-great-grandmother, a pioneer who made her way across the same plains generations ago, facing her own adventures, losses and hard truths. Eventually Charlie, too, becomes a pioneer in a new way of life, as she uncovers and faces family secrets, absorbs some hard truths of her own and finds new beauties in the world.

Aqueduct

Certain Weathers

"...delicate strength as it weaves and cross-ticks, delicate beauty."
RICHARD SILBERG (editor of
"Poetry Flash").

This collection presents a spectrum of Hiller's work, containing love poems, lyrics, meditations, and a few long poems.

Recreating Partnership: A Solution-Oriented, Collaborative Approach to Couples Therapy

with Phillip Ziegler

This is an eminently readable and very practical book for the use of therapists working with couples, that most challenging of therapeutic undertakings. It contains clear exposition of theoretical assumptions and technical practices, along with clear and helpful case examples. These examples are accompanied by the kinds of running commentary that make learning and applying new assumptions and techniques manageable.

The book has been translated into German under the title Verliebt, verlobt und dann . . . ?

Scott D. Miller, PhD., Co-Founder, Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, Chicago, says: “Recreating Partnership provides therapists with a wealth of practical suggestions for helping couples. The authors certainly practice what they preach. They have created a highly readable and timely volume that builds bridges between the various constructionist approaches and will be of benefit to clinicians and couples alike.”

Michael Hoyt, Ph.D., author of Some Stories are Better than Others and Interviews with Brief Therapy Experts, says: “Ziegler and Hiller have provided us with a great resource for helping couples recreate the kind of stories that produce happy and vibrant relationships... Recreating Partnership is valuable and well written, a book that should be on the shelf of everyone who works with couples.”