From the Pacific to the Palouse, writers take on the Northwest's gloomy landscape

Evergreen trees shrouded in a light mist, a cloudy morning with an 8 a.m. sunrise, the churning sea, the rolling hills of the Palouse: landscape takes a central role in the anthology "Evergreen: Grim Tales and Verses from the Gloomy Northwest."

Sharma Shields was surprised when she put a call out for grim and gloomy work by Northwest writers.

"I expected some of the submissions that we got to be very rooted in the Northwest, but I thought they would maybe be more like Grimm Brothers fairy tale style," Shields said. "And what we ended up getting was this kind of beautiful, almost autobiographical work...that really drives into the flora, the fauna here, but also the really spooky history."

The poems and short stories Shields collected were for the anthology "Evergreen: Grim Tales and Verses from the Gloomy Northwest." Shields co-edited the book along with Maya Jewell Zeller for Scabland Books.

"Evergreen" collects the work of writers and illustrators from around the region, and tells stories about colonialism, mental illness, and even conflict with climate-denying relatives — all with the backdrop of the Northwest.

The landscape becomes a character in many of these poems and stories. The shadowy forests on both sides of the cascade, the moss, the churning sea, and the sagebrush steppe all have a presence in the anthology.

"I loved kind of all of that coming together," Shields said. "The mushrooms here, the mountains here, the shadow of the trees, all of that kind of speaking to one another was really cool to me."

Shields spoke to Soundside about the gloom of the Northwest and some of her favorite selections from "Evergreen: Grim Tales and Verses from the Gloomy Northwest."