Diana Rosen

Diana Rosen is an essayist, poet, and flash writer with credits in journals from the U.S., U.K., Australia, India, and Canada. Her first full-length book of poems and flash, "High Stakes & Expectations”, was released in 2022 by www.thetinypublisher.com. She lives in Los Angeles where she works as a content provider for all things tea, and has published 13 nonfiction books. To read her work, please visit

www.authory.com/dianarosen.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

I’m apparently a follower of tsunduko, the Japanese concept of collecting piles of books you may, or may not, ever read. But I will! That’s why there are piles from foraging thrift stores, piles of books reserved from the local library, and way too many bought online and in stores.

Nonetheless, I persevere, always dipping into several at once. Right now it’s Jill Bialosky’s riveting autobiographic book of poems, “Asylum” that is both poignant and astonishing in their intimacy; “Practically Vegan” by Nisha Melvani for total inspiration although I still eat animal protein on occasion, and “Sidewalking” by David L. Ulin, a look at his personal walks around that most un-walkable of cities, Los Angeles, where I live. Teetering on the piles are other memoirs, books on writing, and a novel or mystery.

A book you loved reading at a child.

ALL the delights of Ludwig Bemelmans but, in particular, the series of Madeline (my role model), and Babar just because it was so bizarre to read of a talking elephant.

A book you have given as a gift / recommended to a friend.

Not everyone I know is into poetry as I am, but all my friends cook and love to eat, so Nicole Gulotta’s “Eat This Poem” is a fun way to introduce this literary feast.

A book you have read more than once.

I never re-read novels, but do dip back into books of short stories and poems. One book that answers this question and those on one underrated and a book of personal resonance is Gina Berriault’s “Women in Their Beds” which is a masterclass on the short story. 

A book with personal resonance.

“Inheritance” by Dani Shapiro had me making countless notes of quotable lines and references to her quest to determine who her father was after a lifetime devotion to a man who turned out not to be her biological father. Shapiro writes relatively short books and yet there’s so much in them that they’re a testament to concision and Elmore Leonard’s admonition to “leave out the stuff people skip over” …This book, in particular, answers both the philosophical and fact-based questions of “who am I?” that Shapiro asks and her concerns about her identity as a Jew particularly resonated with me. I also envied her Aunt Shirley, a woman every family should have for her gentle wisdom.