Books
Everything Thaws
Published February 2023 by Ben Yehuda Press
R.B. Lemberg’s poems are a manifesto of memories, unearthing worlds that are gone and poignantly present: their childhood in the Soviet Union, suspended between Ukraine and the permafrost of Siberia, among the traumatized, silent, persecuted members of their Jewish family; Lemberg’s coming of age in Israel, being the other wherever they go, both internally and externally, in multiple identities, languages, genders; and the arrival in “the lost land” of their America, where they have put down “tentative roots.”
Every line in this stunning, lyrical memoir is chiseled with the poignant precision of ice into a coruscating cascade that engulfs us with the author’s sensations of solitude, anger, grief; sometimes hurling like an avalanche, sometimes tenderly unfolding like constellations in a circumpolar sky – leaving open the possibility that with the disturbing truths covered for decades, the thawing permafrost from Lemberg’s past might also lay bare layers of love.
The Unbalancing
Published December 2022 by Tachyon Press.
2023 Locus Award Finalist
2023 SCKA Finalist
Beneath the waters by the islands of Gelle-Geu, a star sleeps restlessly. The celebrated new starkeeper Ranra Kekeri, who is preoccupied by the increasing tremors, confronts the problems left behind by her predecessor.
Meanwhile, the poet Erígra Lilún, who merely wants to be left alone, is repeatedly asked by their ancestor Semberí to take over the starkeeping helm. Semberí insists upon telling Lilún mysterious tales of the deliverance of the stars by the goddess Bird.
When Ranra and Lilún meet, sparks begin to fly. An unforeseen configuration of their magical deepnames illuminates the trouble under the tides. For Ranra and Lilún, their story is just beginning; for the people of Gelle-Geu, it may well be too late to save their home.
“Lovingly crafted with a deep and rewarding world full of complex characters who are often LGBTQIA+ and/or neurodiverse, this is an outstanding novel from a rising star in fantasy fiction.” —Booklist, starred review
Geometries of Belonging
Published 2022 by Fairwood Press
2023 Urusla K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Finalist
2023 Locus Award Finalist
Nebula and Locus award finalist Lemberg returns us to the Birdverse with this powerful collection. The intricate Birdverse has at its core a magic based loosely in geometry, from which comes healing, love, and art. It is a complex, culturally diverse world, a realm with LGBTQIA characters and a wide range of family configurations. Lemberg probes the obstacles behind traditional social boundaries of cultures; overseeing this world is the deity Bird and all its incarnations. Each story and poem, exquisitely crafted, will richly reward long-time fans and newcomers alike.
Lemberg once again presents their complex, beautiful Birdverse world in a collection of mostly previously published short works. Fans will enjoy having them all in one volume, while new readers will be introduced to a delightful fantasy anthology." — Library Journal, starred review
The Four Profound Weaves
Published September 1st 2020 by Tachyon Publications.
2021 Nebula Award Finalist
2021 Ignyte Award Finalist
2021 Locus Award Finalist
2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist
2021 Otherwise Award Honoree
The Surun’ do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But Uiziya now seeks her aunt Benesret in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.
Among the Khana, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.
As the past catches up to the nameless man, he must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya, and Uiziya must discover how to challenge a tyrant, and weave from deaths that matter.
A beautiful, heartfelt story of change, family, identity, and courage.” —Library Journal, starred review
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Marginalia to Stone Bird
Published January 1st 2016 by Aqueduct Press
2017 Crawford Award finalist (first poetry book to be a Crawford finalist)
2017 Elgin Award finalist
2018 Elgin Award finalist
In this powerful debut collection, Rannu Award-winning poet Rose Lemberg explores the deep-rooted fluidity of gender, tradition, language, and desire in landscapes as familiar as high fantasy and as foreign as San Francisco. Written in the voices of immigrants, shape-changers, sentient ships in a distant future and heroes of a mythic past, her poems inhabit a fragile, vital space of complex identity and story as a conscious act, stubbornly urging the reader's attention toward the marginal, the liminal, and the unheard--a firebird cautioned to burn less brightly, a ghost-child ignored by the gods, a lover laying a road of words for a beloved to follow. By turns devastating and deeply hopeful, Marginalia to Stone Bird writes a fearless commentary on our history and others.
In their debut collection, Lemberg summons elements of speculative fiction to capture a world in which everything is in motion, yet remains guided by language: a song can lead the way in darkness, writing can be a portal from one world to the next, and it's possible to know an incantation "to make the stars unfold/ their arms of ghostly vapor.
— Publishers Weekly