There Was an Old Woman: Reflections on Aging, a collection of personal essays, will be published by OSU Press, Fall 2023.

A River Runs Under It: 40 Years on a Houseboat in Oregon, a memoir, May 2020.

What Lasts, a response to coronavirus published by Artists and Climate Change, May 2020.

I Miss My Little Problems, a response to coronavirus, republished in Yes magazine, April 2020.

I Miss My Little Problems, a response to coronavirus, published in McSweeney’s, April 2020.

Short story published in Adelaide, March 2020.

Short story brought out of the archives by J Journal and shared on Twitter (January, 2020): “An intense #FridayReads from @JJournalNYC this week, Choose Your Partner, from author Andrea Carlisle.”

Excerpt from upcoming memoir published in Kaleidoscope, January 2017.

Essay on vanity in old age, Mirror, Mirror: Who’s Looking at Older Women, published in ROAR, February, 2017.

Short story, The Old Woman and the Boy, published in Catamaran, Spring 2017.

Column, There Was An Old Woman, in ROAR:

May 22, 2017: “A Wide View from a Far Shore” 

June 9, 2017: “The Sweetie Boat” 

June 19, 2017: Ready for my Crackpot Close-Up

July 3, 2017: Life in the Family Museum

July 17, 2017: The Ages of Grief

July 31, 2017: The Vocabulary of Erasure

August 14, 2017: What We Talk About When We Talk About Grandmas

September 25, 2017: When We Were Two

October 23, 2017: Where Are We Now?

November 25, 2017: Weathering

Excerpts from reviews for The Riverhouse Stories:

“A first novel with the deft, simple touch of a fable.” – Kirkus Reviews

“A sophisticated exploration of adult relationships and celebration of love…this joyful work is hard to resist.” Booklist

“In this novel you can find out why ducks are holy and life is embarrassing, how to get from a houseboat to a balloon, what an Oregon conversation is, and many other interesting things. It is the most good-natured book I ever read.”   – Ursula Le Guin

“Her stories are carefully crafted magic, and the rhythm of the writing is the rhythm of the river: They joyously lull and illuminate.” – Chicago Tribune

“There is something here for everyone: fantasy, humor, romance, and adventure…a book full of the joy of just living…Let us hope that just because it defies categories, this gem of a book will not be overlooked by discriminating readers.” – Belles Lettres

“Reading one a day is better than taking a vitamin.” – Inland Book Company

“It’s a gift to the world…Although in tone it resembles Saint-Exupery’s ‘La Petit Prince’ and Gertrude Stein’s ‘The World is Round,’ it is not a children’s book…A precious moment in the channels of contemporary literature. Very simply, a book of the heart.” – San Francisco Chronicle

More about my writing:

Garrison Keillor read “Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List” on his radio program, The Writer’s Almanac, and that poem has appeared in a few anthologies, including Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson, edited by Sheila Coghill and Thom Tammaro, published by the University of Iowa Press, and in a college textbook of prose and poetry, Literature and the Writing Process (Pearson). The only other poetry online is in YB Poetry, the Animal Issue (Issue 5).

A short story, “Floaters,” is published here in the online journal Melusine. Another short story, “Choose Your Partner,” was published in J Journal: New Writing on Justice and was nominated for a Pushcart prize. An essay, “The Full Brontë,” was published in A Woman’s Europe, a collection of essays by women travelers, published by Travelers’ Tales. Various other work can be found in literary journals, in print only.

Recipient of an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist’s Fellowship (for fiction) and a fellowship from the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts (for nonfiction). Co-writer and co-director for a video program on disability titled “Looking Up,” which won a first place award at the John Muir Medical Film Festival and was a finalist at the American Film Festival. Co-writer for The Peasant and the Priest, a documentary about the effects of globalization on Tuscany (directed by artist Esther Podemski).

For seven years, I kept a blog about my mother, Alice, under the title “Go Ask Alice…When She’s 94.” This has now become a memoir in search of a publisher. The last few posts are under Archives at the bottom of this page. To read more about this project, see About Go Ask Alice…When She’s 94.

Pictured above: Abigail Scott Duniway‘s typewriter.