Luminous Blue Variables

by Judy Staber

Print (softcover): $16.95
 

To pay by check please use this order form.

We are pleased to take orders from retailers. Email us with details about your order or call us at 207-837-5760.

This collection of poems presents the author's memories and knowledge of her family's lives in England. There are stories of deprivation, romance, tragic loss, and redeeming love. These verses are deeply personal, unforgettable, and profound.

POETRY / General 

ISBN: 978-1-971191-23-2 (print; softcover; perfect bound)

LCCN: 2026943922

Released July 7, 2026  |  Copyright 2026

82 pages

Author Biography

As a poet and writer, Judy Staber draws on family histories. Both of her published memoirs are based upon remembered times. Born to theatrical parents in London, Silverlands: Growing Up at the Actors’ Orphanage (2010) is about her unusual childhood. Rise Above It, Darling (2022) tells of her mother’s long life and, tangentially, her own, in the theatre. During a long career in arts management, Staber wrote and produced fifteen Pantomimes—slapstick performances based on fairy tales—two children’s programs for public television, as well as many other entertainments. Staber lives in the Hudson River Valley with her husband, John, a retired flight instructor, and Daisy, their rescued senior dog.

Endorsements

“An original, entertaining and satisfying collection, Staber looks back on her rich span of years with wonder and wit, and no trace of sentimentality. Here is nearly every extreme life dishes up: deprivation, romance, tragic loss, affirmation, and redeeming love. This is how art is made.”
—Emily Arnold McCully, novelist, author/illustrator, winner of the Caldecott Medal

“Judy Staber’s poems about the people and experiences of her life are a revelation and an inspiration. She writes about the ordinary and extraordinary in rhythm and rhyme, and with a depth of compassion that is unforgettable. These verses are deeply profound. They are the stuff of everyday life lived with passion and depth of feeling, and a wide knowledge of the very best possibilities of what it means to be human.”
—Elizabeth Diggs, playwright; professor, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

“From the storm of the Prologue—longing for an absent mother—to the Fairies creating bejeweled spiderwebs in her childhood garden, Judy Staber sings her heart out in Luminous Blue Variables, with rich poetic stories of love and loss, and memories nurtured like the plants that grew in her Granny’s garden.”
—Leslie Klein, artist and poet, author of Driving through Paintings (Shanti Arts)

“I Iove poems that talk to me directly, like Judy’s do. Hers come fully formed like conversations that we could have sworn we had with someone once upon a time—they are that familiar. Turns out it’s our own hearts responding.”
—Matt Tannenbaum, The Bookstore, Lenox, Massachusetts

News and Reviews