A brief pause from my ornately worded overthinking to herald some good news: my debut book, a collection of poetry and prose, was published today. Fool’s Gold is now available in paperback and for Kindle. You can find her here.

I love the word ‘fool’. It’s so often used as an insult, a disparagement. But I think there’s something whimsically wonderful about being a fool. I think of a court jester, of a village pariah, living unabashedly in the way that they intend to. Free from labored posturing, unconcerned with their standing in society, they dance through the streets unfettered. They are utterly available for all the tomfoolery of the world, the kind we often miss when we’re looking for our own meanings in the ordinary.

And so I wrote a book about it. Foolhardy love, foolish pursuits, foolproof adages of self, and the spoils and trials of embracing it. There is a special brand of pain and wonder in a life that welcomes it all in, but I somehow can’t imagine living any other way. I will always show up for what I care for, entirely. I will lend out my absolute essence to the things that I want, regardless of the personal risk. Over and over again, I will have faith. In people, in dreams, in the divine. I will love and trust without hesitation, no matter the consequences. Maybe that makes me a fool, but I will never wonder what could have been, and my passion will be poured upon the world. That doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Fool’s Gold includes poetry and prose that has been written since 2008, with the latest having been written mere days ago. The girl who wrote that first poem was meek and withdrawn. She was scared of the world, scared to love, scared to be. But her darkness deserves some place here. She would go on to love and lose, she’d dip her toe back in the waters of seclusion and she would return to the land of the sun. The girl who published this book is no longer afraid of what could hurt her, she very much understands her small place in the world. But she still loves in the evergreen way she did when that first poem came to be.

I hope you find something of yourself in this collection. I hope you are unafraid of pouring your gifts, unabashedly, into the world.