Signature Publishes Two New Poets
For National Poetry Month this April, we’re honored to celebrate two extraordinary new collections that feel especially timely, These Saints Are Stones by Millie Tullis and Some Hard Stars by David Thacker.
In her striking debut, Tullis offers spare, haunting poems that trace the silences of her ancestry. Following the fragmented life of her third-great-grandmother Martha—a woman whose story survives only in shadows—Tullis blends history, imagination, and dream to search for what cannot fully be recovered. These poems ask what it means to inherit both absence and memory.
Critics have called the collection “ghost-woven” and “hunger-haunted,” praising Tullis’s unflinching exploration of grief, violence, and the erasures within women’s history. Gathering scraps—letters, artifacts, and silences—she shapes something both delicate and devastating—and, ultimately, something that reaches toward meaning.
To learn more about Millie Tullis and her work, listen to our most recent podcast.
Alongside Tullis, we’re thrilled to feature David Thacker’s new collection, Some Hard Stars, a book that meets this moment with equal parts clarity and care. Poet Steven Peck writes of Thacker’s work:
“How did you know to write a book of poetry that I needed in these fraught times? Poetry that captures the dance required to navigate the violence and beauty of life with language that flies above and dives into the depths of hard things? How did you manage to confront the complexity and confusion of a dangerous age contrasted with care from neighbors, combined with children asking questions, and framed in an ecology of hope?”
Thacker’s collection moves through the tensions of our time—violence and beauty, fear and tenderness—while insisting on attention, connection, and the possibility of hope.
Join us on April 8 at 7:00 PM for a special evening of poetry with live readings from Tullis and Thacker. See the events section below for all the details.
In Case You Missed It
Exponent II reviewer Katie Ludlow Rich says These Saints Are Stones moved her and changed how she thinks about recovering women’s histories. She praises Tullis for leaving gaps visible rather than filling them in, calling it an act of “profound historical integrity.” Read the full review here.
In his review for Times and Seasons, Chad Nielsen highlights Changemakers: Women Who Boldly Built Zion as something genuinely distinctive within Latter-day Saint literature.
The book’s authors, McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel, have “pioneered a genre” by putting women’s experiences at the center of the Restoration narrative—something that hasn’t traditionally been the focus, especially in works aimed at younger audiences, Nielsen writes. He also underscores the contribution of illustrator Jessica Sarah Beach, noting that the artwork doesn’t just complement the text—it elevates it. Calling the book “visually stunning,” he says the illustrations play a major role in engaging readers and reinforcing the emotional and historical impact of the stories.
Carol Lynn Pearson was interviewed by John Dehlin on Mormon Stories to discuss her powerful new book, The Diaries of Carol Lynn Pearson—Mormon Author, Feminist, and Activist: 1956–1990. Watching Carol Lynn read her poem “Pioneers” alone is worth watching the interview.
