Brown Bunny Finds A Home
Brown Bunny Finds a Home follows the adventures of a beloved stuffed animal as he sets out to explore the world, looking for somewhere where he can belong.
Brown Bunny Finds a Home
Written and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
8.5 x 11 inches, 44 pages
Smythe sewn softcover
Published by Luna Press 2022
Fun Fables for Kids
Fun Fables for Kids is an illustrated collection of short tales. Told in the tradition of Aesop, these family-friendly stories follow the adventures of animal characters faced with important life lessons.
Fun Fables for Kids
Written and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
8.5 x11 inches, 144 pages
Smythe sewn softcover
Published by Luna Press 2022
Grief Is Hiding In This Music
Grief is Hiding in this Music is the selected poetry of Dalt Wonk. The unassuming, direct, and enjoyable poems in this collection reflect Dalt Wonk’s life in the French Quarter, where he has lived for over 40 years.
The collection begins with a section entitled “Exile,” which includes poems inspired by New Orleans and Paris (where Wonk also lived for a decade). Another section entitled “Nocturnes” features poems originally printed alongside the photo-engravings of renowned photographer Josephine Sacabo. And as lagniappe (the New Orleans word meaning “something extra”), the final section features a new translation of the late, great Vicente Huidobro’s surrealist love poem Altazor, Canto II.
“Thank goodness for Dalt Wonk and his watchful eye. His collection of poems suggests an interior life full of meaning and wonderment and desire. He points us all to the poetry within.” — Gwen Thompkins (Journalist and Host of public radio’s Music Inside Out)
Grief Is Hiding In This Music
Written by Dalt Wonk
Softcover, 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches, 88 pages
Luna Press, 2021
Lonely Voyagers
2020 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist
These collages are assembled from images taken from “La Nature”, a 19th century French magazine. Simon Blake meticulously dissects the illustrations from this magazine with carbon scissors and surgical scalpels. He then pastes these pieces together to form new, original, imaginative pictures.
“Word and image combine seamlessly to bring to life a fantastic world. An alluring journey. A beautiful sense of bewilderment.”
— David Gordon Green
Lonely Voyagers
Images by Simon Blake, Text by Dalt Wonk
Hardcover, 10 x 12 1/2 inches, 56 pages, 26 images
Luna Press, 2019
Spiritual Gifts: French Quarter Short Stories
A piano bar on lower Bourbon Street. The kind of place tourists peek into but then avoid. Brenda Saenz, an elderly woman, holds court at the piano. She is abundantly made up and carries herself with the hauteur of a White Russian exile. In brief chapters, we meet Brenda’s staff and customers. The cleaning lady – a once famous rhythm and blues star. The waitress – a rebellious runaway from the Northeast. A carriage driver, who tries to help promote the bar with tourists. But it is Brenda’s own secret tragedy that this group must deal with or flee from – in the final chapter that gives the book its name.
“Dalt Wonk captures the eccentric heart of New Orleans. Spiritual Gifts: French Quarter Short Stories is peopled with the quirky, the disillusioned, the good-hearted who are the fabric of our world. Wonk has an unfailing ear for their speech, a presence at their most combustible moments and an extraordinary eye for the sultry, weathered city that shapes their lives. He brilliantly weaves each story into an unforgettable human tapestry.” – Jim Amoss (Former Editor, The Times Picayune – Former member of the Pulitzer Prize board)
Written by Dalt Wonk
Illustrations by Simon Gunning
Softcover, 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches, 72 pages
Luna Press, 2018
The Laughing Lady: A Book for Children
The Laughing Lady is a fantasy adventure for children age 6-12 years old.
Florence lives in the French Quarter. Her dearest friend is her pet — a wise-cracking bird named Signor Cockatoo. The dreadful Laughing Lady kidnaps Signor Cockatoo and takes him into the spooky Fun House where she lives. Why? Does it have something to do with Boss Bones, the skeleton she’s going to marry?
Florence follows the Laughing Lady into the Fun House. Wild, scary, but always fun! Can Florence save her pet?
The Laughing Lady is brimming with full-color illustrations and features original music written and recorded in New Orleans.
Play SongsWritten and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
Hardcover, 10 x 12 1/8 inches
112 pages
Luna Press, 2021
With free original music available for download
French Quarter Fables — Volume I
Little animals wearing clothes. Hard to resist in their bittersweet comic struggles.
These fables are, in a sense, Dalt Wonk’s love letter to the French Quarter — his home for over 40 years. The animals, flowers and insects are almost all Quarter denizens: a frog in his courtyard lily pond, a rat in the stone riprap on the levee, a roach in the kitchen of a restaurant. They call to mind people you know, difficulties you’ve faced.
A few Fables tell stories of exotic animals (like a seal or a hippo) in far-off lands. But all were written in the French Quarter and inspired by its singular, suggestive atmosphere.
Fables are one of the most ancient ways of talking about life. French Quarter Fables show how fresh, original, and entertaining they still can be.
Written and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
Sturdy softcover, 10 x 12 ¼ inch
110 pages
Luna Press, 2014
French Quarter Fables — Volume II
French Quarter Fables sold like hot cakes. So, there was nothing to do, but issue a second volume.
French Quarter Fables Volume II is a totally new collection of delightful tales! It doesn’t matter which volume you start with. Once you have one, you’ll want the other. They’re habit-forming!
Written and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
Sturdy softcover, 10 x 12 ¼ inch
115 pages
Luna Press, 2015
Answer
The Goblet
Answer
The Fan
Answer
The Light Bulb
Answer
The Candle
Answer
Eat, Drink and be Merry
Answer
The Fountain
Answer
The Volcano
Answer
The Song Bird
Answer
Death
The Riddles of Existence
A costume is a sort of visual riddle — especially on Mardi Gras, when the imagination runs wild. “What are you supposed to be?” one asks the mysterious apparition, walking toward you in the street.
Inspired by costume designs of the golden age of Mardi Gras, The Riddles of Existence is a kind of modern reinvention of Tarot Cards. But these cards are not for predicting the future — they are for having fun now!
The Riddles of Existence are an oversized deck of cards, each with a figure wearing a costume. Beneath the illustration, there is a riddle in verse. The costume is the answer, or a hint at the answer of the riddle.
It’s a game any number can play. You can have fun alone or, even better, with friends.
Turn up a card. Read the riddle. Contemplate the costume. Who can guess the answer?
Written and Illustrated by Dalt Wonk
Boxed set of fifty-three, 5.5 x 8.5 inch full-color illustrated playing cards.
Luna Press, 2013
Nocturnes
Nocturnes is an elegant art book that evokes the feeling of “moments of release” — twilight, summer rain, and the physical expression of love. Nine short poems are accompanied by a series of delicate images that bring these feelings to life.
The poems — unrhymed sonnets — are printed on translucent vellum, so that an image hovers behind the words until the page is turned.
The design of the book itself contributes to the mood of evanescence and refuge. Two artists responding to the night.
Signed and numbered limited edition of 350
Text by Dalt Wonk, Photo-engravings by Josephine Sacabo
Hard cover, 10 x 12 ¼ inch portrait
96 pages (plus foldouts and vellum)
Luna Press, 2012