“Gather Seeds of Hope” is an anthology that immerses readers in a journey of self-empowerment and kindness, guiding them through life’s unpredictable cycles and affirming they are never alone. What personal experiences or philosophies inspired the themes in your work?

I think sometimes when the world feels so dismal and we are going through so much as a society, people can start to feel like they are all alone, and they find themselves in a bit of a bubble of self containment. The pandemic and shut downs definitely did not help to calm these feelings of isolation. I try to get the message through that we are all going through similar life experiences so people fell less alone in how they are feeling. The poem Have You Ever…definitely speaks to different life experiences that I have had, and the final two verses hit on this message that we are basically all in the same boat with going through similar things. That being said, not every poem is pulled from my own life experiences. The poem Gone definitely was, as it was intended to be about the night my father passed away suddenly in his sleep. But as I was writing it, it started to take on the direction of anyone passing away suddenly, not just based on my own father’s passing. I hope that anyone who has lost someone in this way can relate to the words of looking around and seeing all these person’s things, but they are not there, and how do you cope with this feeling of loss? So that definitely drew on my own personal experiences, as did The Scent of You, which was a supernatural experience I had regarding my Mom and the perfume she wore, and how I could smell it on occasion after she passed. But as far as other poems, honestly some of them are based in fiction, or characters that I made up in the poem. Regret is very much based on four fictional characters who tell the story of their own regretful experiences. The Dinner Party is another one where the narrator of the poem is trying to host a large dinner party and has to deal with all of the dietary requests, which gets overwhelming, so he or she moves onto the seating chart and gets into seating people by various political and religious beliefs, and so on. I have not dealt with that personally as I have never hosted a big dinner or event, but I know people who have, so I drew on that experience of witnessing them go through it and the stress of it all. In either case, whether it is my own personal experience or inspired by a fictional character or made-up experience, I try (hope!) to write it in a way where the reader finds him or herself shaking their head in agreement because they know exactly what I am trying to convey, and they have either witnessed it or experienced it in their own lives.

The book balances gentle tones with impactful messages and real-life examples; can you elaborate on how you strike this balance in your writing process?

Thank you for noticing that! I try to use real-life examples whenever I can because I think people can relate to it more if the author has experienced it, and I feel like experiencing something myself allows me to write about it more authentically. I use gentle tones because I think you can get your message across more powerfully if its relatable. A message doesn’t have to hit someone over the head for them to understand it. I use the term “kind reminder” a lot. I haven’t experienced everything personally, so sometimes I have to dig deep and put myself into a situation to imagine how it would feel or how the character in the poem would react or respond. The impactful messages usually come as a way to wrap it all up or allow the reader to take something from the poem or the prose with them. The poem Darkness was very much inspired by a friend’s suicide, but the reader was left with the message (kind reminder) about checking on friends and loved ones frequently to make sure they are okay.

Your use of metaphorical language, particularly in relation to Mother Nature, adds depth to your work. How do you view the relationship between nature and human emotion?

I believe nature and human emotion are like two sides of the same coin. I think nature, and in particular the weather and seasons can greatly impact our moods. Sometimes it seems as if the weather and our moods are in perfect sync. I wrote a little bit about that in the intro to the poem Lost and Found, about how I sometimes wake up in a crabby mood so I am happy to look out the window and see that Mother Nature feels the same way and has painted the sky a gloomy gray. But then if the weather changes, as it does in this poem, and the sun comes out, I feel slightly betrayed by nature, like I now need to change my mood to one that is more upbeat to match the now sunny day. Mother Nature has been a character in my Seasons series of poems, which have been featured in all of my books so far. In this book we have the poem Its Summertime Once Again, and Mother Nature is found sipping lemonade and fanning herself from the summer heat. I enjoy making Mother Nature an actual character in these poems because I think she mimics how so many of us feel during the different seasons. We always find her doing something that most of us do during the different seasons we experience. I think that nature has a great impact on our moods and our emotions and can definitely impact our day.

Your first book, “Scatter Seeds of Kindness,” introduced themes that are further developed in “Gather Seeds of Hope.” How did your vision for these themes evolve between the two books?

That kind of happened by accident. When I was writing “Scatter Seeds of Kindness”, I didn’t have a title for it until half way through the book when I noticed the emerging theme of kindness coming through in many of the poems. I did not expect a follow up to that book, but when I started writing “Gather Seeds of Hope” I noticed again a theme emerging but this time it was about hope with some kindness added in. They really do go together. It is hard to be hopeful if you are not a kind person, and vice versa (in my opinion) So quite accidentally, it ended up being a nice follow up and I do feel that the two pair nicely together.

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