A Registry of Omens

Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard’s second collection of dark fantasy poetry, A Registry of Omens, is part of our 2024 chapbook series sponsored by a grant from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

Inspirations for the Poems#

The book is extensively researched from original folklore sources. Read about Dr. Leonard’s inspirations on her blog.

Get Your Copy!#

The book is available on Amazon.

Library Donations#

One of our goals for our books is to promote poetry literacy by placing copies of our books with libraries wherever we can.

Why not buy a copy to donate?

After you’re done reading the book, just drop it off at your local public, university, or high school library, then email us at info@ogre.red with the name and location of the library. We’ll credit you as a sponsor here on this page.

Reviews#

As someone raised in the 1970s, I have an insatiable desire for anything involving Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Mothman, La Llorona, or the Honey Island Swamp Creature. Spending so many hours of my life watching “In Search Of” movies has made me realize what we’re all looking for in these cryptids, what we are hoping to find, is unbridled proof of the unknown, something to put our own existence into context.

Page by page, Kendra Preston Leonard’s new collection of poetry, A Registry of Omens, offers that very same hope. Whether it’s the Capelogo, the Gloucester Serpent, Goliath Buck, or a fabled book bound with human skin, Leonard’s gift to us in these poems is the joy of mystery, of possibilities, and the rage of ghosts needing our memories to hold on to some slice of this life. I couldn’t have more appreciation for this poet, or for the opportunity this collection gives me to dance with banshees in the garden.

Dr. Jack B. Bedell, Ghost Forest, Against the Woods’ Dark Trunks, Poet Laureate of Louisiana, 2017 - 2019

Review Copies#

To review the book for your publication or blog, please email us at info@ogre.red and we’d be happy to send along a free PDF review copy.

About the Author#

Dr. Kendra Preston Leonard writes about music, movies, gorgons, werewolves, Shakespeare, feminism, nature, ghosts, disability, drama, race, paleontologists, and much more.

Her first chapbook, Making Mythology, was published in 2020 by Louisiana Literature Press.

Her novella in verse Protectress – a sequel to the Medusa myth – was published by Unsolicited Press in 2022.

Trained as a musicologist, she has written numerous scholarly books in addition to poetry, plays, lyrics, and libretti.

Kendra has also published poetry with us in Issue 7, April 2022.

About the Artist#

Matthew Fertel is an abstract photographer who seeks out beauty in the mundane. He was a fine art auction house catalog photographer in San Francisco for over ten years and currently works in the Photography Department at Sierra College.

Matthew has also published art with us in Issue 18, June 2023, Issue 22, February 2024, and Issue 25, August 2024.

Find him online at mfertel.wixsite.com and on Instagram @digprod4.

More Books#

Kendra published GRAB as part of our 2023 Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association chapbook series.

Want more? Find a full list of our books here.