"Reaching for Air, " Gayle Lauradunn's debut poetry collection, tells the story of a childhood spent in a landscape full of beauty, hardship, and violence. In their restless yearning and relentless motion, these poems feel completely American. Interspersed with the voice of the child is that of the adult woman, as both an extension of the child and as a counterpoint to the child's experience. Each poem stands alone, yet is a piece of the whole. This is poetic storytelling at its finest. REACHING FOR AIR was named a Finalist for the Best First Book of Poetry by the Texas Institute of Letters for 2015.