Valerie Nieman

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She digs intently
with her pink shovel,

saying “Daddy, Daddy,
Daddy.”

She keeps working.
Something is down there.

She doesn’t ask for
his help. Just his witness.

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Valerie Nieman’s latest novel, In the Lonely Backwater, joins To the Bones and three earlier novels as well as three poetry collections, including Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse. A graduate of West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte, she is an NEA recipient, a former journalist and professor of creative writing.