This book began as a poem I couldn’t finish. I wrote the first lines in the back of a classroom at my first #writing craft talk seven years ago. I couldn’t finish the poem, because I couldn’t stop choking on my tears. I have, since, written seventy thousand words into that unfinished poem. It still chokes me—over and over and over. But that unfinished poem was a portal (thank you @lidiamiles) to a #book of #essays that will now have a real cover (wings!) and land on #bookshelves in March of 2025. I have felt so cradled by this literary and extended digital family of extra soft hearts: thank you for holding and supporting me on this path. Cheers to everything born of wet pages and the doors we find in the middle of poems we can’t finish and special gratitude to my agent @juliestevensonpfarr & editor @marisaemily who both saw through me and my work and declared (with the confidence I would later find myself): “No, you don’t need to make this book narrative. This IS an essay collection.” 😍😍 As I’ve written in the introduction, this book was never a “collection” of things scattered, but always a “book of essays”; “each piece born under the same moon. Fragments, yes. Because womanhood is fragmented, and motherhood is fragmented, and my understanding of my place in nature is as of one of billions of faceted fragments, and it was only through my fragmentation that the distinction between Earth’s womb and my own receded.”
Special hugs of gratitude to the mentors who helped me find my voice (@bklorenbooks, @kate_moses_writes), the magazines who first published essays from this collection (@orion_magazine @terrain_org @kenyonreview @catapult, @batcityreview @atticusreview), all those in my cherished residencies (@millayarts and @craigardan) and DIY-MFA writing communities (@lighthousewriters, @catapult *RIP*, @corporealwriting, @grubstreet), and to my pod of family and besties who have held me through all the twists and tears of this writerly-path especially @slade.o @parkecogs @caitlin @courtneyzen @k.homes @jade.mariposa @emily_braucher. Your names are my mantra of gratitude!
#bookdeal #bookstagram #myoceans
