Blog Archives
We the Mourners
We the Mourners, by Vanessa Shields, is a poetry collection about grief, love, embodiment, and the strange communal work of surviving loss. Built around the repeated phrase “We the mourners,” the book moves like a chant through sorrow’s many rooms: the body as tombstone, grief as food, loneliness as yarn, trauma as a kitchen, memory as something stitched into the living. It’s less a narrative than a ritual, a long lyric procession that insists mourning isn’t passive. It roams, cooks, protects, questions, rages, receives, and eventually releases.
Shields doesn’t write grief as an abstract ache floating somewhere above the head. She drags it into the ribs, throat, hips, tongue, blood, skin. I felt that especially in the poems where mourners “eat grief for every meal” or “crawl in the knotty-nooks” of loneliness. Those images are strange, almost unruly, but they work because grief is strange and unruly too. The collection understands that sorrow can be grotesque and tender in the same breath. I loved the way the poems keep returning to Love with a capital L, not as a soft greeting-card sentiment, but as a force with teeth, appetite, memory, and weather inside it.
The writing is lush and I admired its nerve. Shields has a taste for abundance, for alliteration, compression, body-language, and sudden verbal inventions like “Love-net” and “humanuscripts.” At its best, that language feels alive on the tongue, full of heat and pulse. Even when the language gets crowded, it’s crowded with conviction. The ideas stay compelling: grief as shared labor, the body as sacred witness, creativity as resistance, the earth’s suffering as inseparable from our own, and mourning as a form of radical attention.
It’s a book that doesn’t tidy sorrow into lessons, which I appreciated; instead, it makes a place for suffering to be seen without shame. The final movement, with its request that when we break our “feet turn to lungs,” left me with the sense that Shields is asking readers to let pain become breath, not because pain is beautiful, but because being witnessed inside it can be. This is a fierce, generous, bodily collection, and I’d recommend it to readers who like spiritual, emotionally saturated poetry about grief, healing, and love’s difficult, luminous endurance.
Pages: 57 | ISBN: 978-1-0674877-0-6
From Innocence to Wisdom
In From Innocence to Wisdom, Marty Lynch traces a life shaped by childhood trauma, inherited anger, marital loss, hard-won self-recognition, and the slow, deliberate work of becoming gentler. The book begins in the charged atmosphere of family inheritance, with a beloved but volatile father and a Catholic upbringing that left deep marks, then moves into the author’s devastating recollection of childhood sexual abuse at summer camp. From there, Lynch follows the consequences of pain carried in silence: his temper, the collapse of his marriage to Kathleen, the loneliness of starting over at fifty-four, and the surprising inner shift that comes through therapy, reflection, accountability, and something as deceptively simple as learning to truly smile.
What moved me most was the book’s refusal to keep suffering abstract. Lynch doesn’t write about pain as a polished concept. He writes about the tiny loft above the barn after Kathleen asks for a divorce, the dark train rushing through a tunnel in his imagination, the airport beer no one is waiting to hear about, and Brendan’s hand resting quietly over his on the U-Haul’s shifter as they leave the family home. Those moments have a plainspoken force. I found the strongest passages to be the ones where he stops explaining and simply lets memory breathe. The writing sometimes revisits things, especially when circling the ideas of brokenness, resilience, and “the best version of ourselves,” but I also felt that repetition belonged to the emotional reality of the book. Trauma often thinks in loops. Regret returns. Self-forgiveness doesn’t arrive in one clean sentence.
The ideas in the book are earnest, practical, and sometimes unexpectedly luminous. I admired Lynch’s insistence that change is possible, not as a slogan, but as a daily discipline rooted in awareness. His chapter on anger as a nuclear weapon felt especially honest because he doesn’t excuse himself, even when he gives the reader the history that wounded him. I also appreciated the way his “smile” revelation, which could have sounded slight in a less sincere book, becomes something larger here: a theory of reciprocity, of how the face we offer the world changes what the world offers back. Lynch’s wisdom is most persuasive when it emerges from the grain of his own life, from the therapy session where his father still can’t listen, from the letter returning pain to its source, from the tenderness of remarriage after ruin.
I finished From Innocence to Wisdom feeling that I had spent time with a man determined to tell the truth as best he can, even when the truth embarrasses him, grieves him, or forces him to stand uncovered before the reader. It’s a sincere and often affecting book that’s carried by humility, remorse, and an almost stubborn faith in personal repair. Its power lies in the belief that innocence may be shattered, but wisdom can still be chosen, practiced, and shared. I’d recommend this book to readers drawn to reflective memoirs about trauma, emotional growth, marriage, fatherhood, accountability, and the difficult beauty of becoming softer without becoming less strong.
Pages: 122 | ASIN : B0H461M6W7
Borrowed Child
Borrowed Child is an intimate and layered story about what happens when love crosses boundaries of culture, class, family, and expectation. Author Marguerite Welch builds the book around two voices: Helen, a grieving mother who becomes a tutor and mentor, and Mia, a girl pulled from her beloved grandmother in Mexico into a crowded, unstable life in the United States. Their relationship begins at Eileen’s Place, a tutoring program, but it slowly becomes much more complicated than homework help. Helen sees Mia’s intelligence, tenderness, and potential. Mia sees in Helen’s home a kind of safety she’s rarely known. The title fits because Mia is never simply “saved” or adopted into someone else’s life. She’s “a borrowed child,” loved deeply, but never fully belonging to the world Helen imagines for her.
What makes the book so engaging is the way it lets both women speak. Helen’s chapters are full of worry, hope, guilt, and the ache left by the death of her son Sammy. Mia’s chapters bring the reader inside a life shaped by displacement, responsibility, violence, young love, and the need to survive before she’s old enough to understand what survival is costing her. The alternating structure keeps the story from feeling one-sided. We see Helen’s good intentions, but we also see how those intentions can become pressure. We see Mia’s choices, but we also see the loneliness and fear behind them. That balance gives the book its emotional honesty.
Welch writes especially well about the small moments that reveal whole lives: a girl clutching keepsakes from her grandparents, a dinner table that feels strange because people actually talk to each other, a bedroom with the shades drawn despite an ocean view. The book is full of painful material, including migration trauma, domestic violence, gang control, teen motherhood, and grief, but it doesn’t flatten Mia into her hardships. She’s funny, stubborn, observant, and capable of deep love. One of the most moving threads is her connection to the little quetzal carved by her grandfather, a symbol of freedom that stays with her long after childhood is taken from her.
Helen’s side of the story is just as important because the book is also about the limits of helping. She wants to give Mia opportunity, structure, college visits, safety, and a future. But she slowly learns that love isn’t the same as understanding, and that parenting across cultures means listening to what a child actually needs, not only what an adult hopes for her. The book’s strongest insight is that care can be sincere and still incomplete. Helen’s grief over Sammy shapes her bond with Mia, and Mia’s absence forces Helen to confront how much of her mentoring was wrapped up in her own longing. That self-awareness keeps the story grounded.
By the end, Borrowed Child becomes a story not just of loss and separation, but of repair. Mia’s return, her motherhood, and her decision to help tell the story give the book a sense of earned healing. The closing reflection, “I’m starting to have faith that time and love work miracles,” doesn’t feel tidy or sentimental because the book has shown how hard-won that faith is. This is a compassionate, conversational, and emotionally candid book about mentorship, motherhood, immigration, and the fragile work of loving someone without owning their path.
Pages: 328 | ASIN : B0FXBGL9X2
Stories of Our Encounters
Armando and Maisie follow a poet, his dog, and a homeless man whose quiet encounters in the woods of Central Park unfold into a tender portrait of friendship, aging, loss, and the grace of showing up for one another. What inspired you to turn these encounters into poetry?
I had been using the time I spent walking my lovely dog every morning in Central Park to also put together poems in my mind. We often went by Armando’s place in the Ramble Wild area of the Park, and when he was there, we would stop in for a visit. I found the interchange with him so vibrant and fun, especially his friendship with Maisie, which grew by leaps and bounds (they both did do leaps and bounds), that I began to compose poems about them after memorable meetings–not big events but subtle interchanges which interested me. So much in Armando’s life became increasingly vivid to me: his survival in a big city in the outdoors of a park, his easy wisdom about life’s priorities, his connection to animals, dogs, squirrels, coyotes, and birds. My instinct as a poet was to write poems about my gradual exploration of his way of being rather than to try to sum him up; little stories of our encounters seemed an excellent way to use poetry to understand an interesting fellow human and to plot the vagaries in our triple intersection, man, dog, man.
Maisie often serves as a bridge between you and Armando. How did writing about her shape the emotional heart of the book?
The poems show my friendship and respect for Armando. Most of the emotional substance comes from my perceptions of Maisie’s feelings about Armando and his response. I sometimes thought of myself like the Nick Carraway figure in The Great Gatsby, who is a somewhat removed witness to a great romance but therefore has the writer’s insight and freedom. There are central moments of love expressed between them that are major nodes of the story. As often as in great love stories, there are places of absence (Maisie misses him in a number of poems and yearns for him, but the loved one is away). And the hints and then realities of final parting quietly cast a sad emotion over the later poems. The relation of my protagonists gently and in a lesser mode describes the great arc of romance.
Themes of aging and absence surface quietly but persistently. How conscious were you of these themes as you wrote?
As I say above, they provide the overall form of the work, but I was writing in effect on the fly, giving snapshots of their relations as I was seeing them. I really fell into these themes as I found them; they are inevitably present in stories about connections with dogs, who seem tragically to prepare to leave us once they occupy our hearts. Writing about these themes with Armando and Maisie eventually allowed me to express my own sense of going out into the world with an aging dog; poems were written over a number of years, and my company with Armando allowed me to connect little by little with my own feelings of ongoing distance and loss.
How has sharing this work changed the way you think about brief or passing relationships?
I should begin by saying these were not brief or passing relationships. The three of us were involved together for over three years; I am still friends with Armando, who has been kind in his assessment of the poems, even allowed a report in the local paper, West Side Rag. So if anything, it has made me feel that we can find connection in what seem like everyday encounters, and they allow us to have significant relationships wherever we respond to people or animals. These were extraordinary dog and people folk, and they showed me how to show my readers what serious interest in others (or even in their dog treats) can open up for us.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | LinkedIn | Website | Amazon
Line ‘Em Up!
Line ’Em Up! by Oscar Avery is a heartfelt, motivating children’s book about a classroom many have already written off. After three teachers walk away, a weary group of students, often labeled as misfits, meets a new teacher, Mr. Murant. He refuses to define them by their past. He shares pieces of his own story. Trust forms slowly, then steadily. With small but meaningful lessons, down to something as simple as standing tall in a straight line, Mr. Murant helps his students recognize their worth. Confidence builds. Self-perception shifts. The change feels real, and it lasts.
The story carries a more serious tone than many children’s titles. Even so, it stays warm, hopeful, and deeply encouraging. Oscar Avery handles complex themes with care. Self-doubt appears on the page. So does perseverance. Growth follows, step by step. Young readers are invited to engage without being overwhelmed. The book also raises awareness of CTE and other disabilities, introducing new vocabulary and ideas in a respectful, age-appropriate way. It trusts children to learn and reflect. It does not flinch, and it does not preach. Adults reading alongside them may find themselves learning too, about invisible challenges, and about the lasting impact of a teacher who chooses patience over judgment.
Docker’s illustrations bring the classroom to life on nearly every page. Each character looks distinct. Each expression feels intentional. Frustration shows up clearly. Uncertainty lingers in posture and eyes. Then, gradually, confidence arrives. The artwork captures these emotional turns with warmth and clarity, strengthening the reader’s connection to the students’ journey. For children who lean on visuals to process feeling and change, the illustrations add real accessibility.
What makes this book linger is its quiet reminder that confidence often grows in tiny increments. Mr. Murant never sells instant transformation. He offers belief. He offers structure. He offers time. In doing so, he shows his students they are capable of far more than they have been told. Line ’Em Up! is an inspiring, meaningful read for slightly older children, one that encourages empathy, self-belief, and a deeper understanding of difference, while delivering a story that stays with you long after the final page.
Pages: 45 | ISBN : 978-1-7345743-0-2
Unnecessary Hurt and Confusion
Faithless Friends and Replacement Lovers is a collection of short stories about the messy, complicated, and sometimes sweet intersections of love, loss, loyalty, and self-discovery. The title is striking. What does “faithless” mean to you in the context of these stories?
To me, being faithful means you’re devoted and true to another person, despite the obstacles that inevitably arise, and you learn how to communicate and work those things out. By contrast, faithless means you give priority to your inner confusion, uncertainty, or misguided desires, which means you stop acting and communicating in honesty and goodness where the other person is concerned.
For example, in the story Faithless Friends and Replacement Lovers, Tracy was faithless in the way she suddenly checked out instead of communicating why she no longer intended to be friends with Connie. A lot of people do that today, never giving a friendship or relationship another chance, but just “ghosting” and moving on. It creates a lot of unnecessary hurt and confusion. How can friendships and relationships continue unless each person is willing to be honest and challenge themselves to grow in love?
Several characters mistake loyalty for obligation or desire for love. Why do you think that confusion is so common?
Broadly speaking, who can truly know the human heart except for its Maker? At the same time, I’ve found that my understanding of my own motives has grown and matured over the years, so I imagine that is true for everyone, whether for good or for bad.
For example, in Sweet Vengeance, the main character thinks she has loved a certain rich fellow since high school, when she actually lusts after his lavish lifestyle and cares nothing for the man himself. Unless she comes to an awakening of what true love is, it’s doubtful that she will ever have his best interests in mind.
The reality is that all of us come to the table with our own experiences and expectations about love and loss, which makes communication often confusing and challenging. The best thing we can do is acknowledge the differences and constantly seek to learn how to be our best selves to the people around us.
Are there particular stories you feel change meaning depending on a reader’s life experience?
Of course, and the stories have even changed for me over the past decade since I wrote them. Since I often write to process my own experiences or what I see in other people’s lives, I look back at the majority of my stories with a better understanding. I expect others to view them differently as well, based on where they are in life. My favorite part is that readers often bring a completely new understanding, teaching me additional things that I never would have recognized without their fresh perspective.
What did writing this collection teach you about relationships?
Writing these stories taught me a lot of things over the years, and still gives me new insight to this day. For example, I have learned a lot about the diversity of human experiences and the necessity to both be more strict in some things (like setting personal boundaries) and also be a lot more relaxed in other areas (like not needing to explain myself or be fully understood by others). Looking back, the biggest lesson I see is how time truly does change perspectives and experiences. I wouldn’t say it heals all things, but it helps us handle the pain of love and loss.
For example, Silvia and Jed no longer come to mind, but losing Tracy occasionally still brings me grief. Meanwhile, Luigi did not turn out to be who I expected, but then again, I am a completely different person today as well. As long as each of us remains humble and teachable, love and loss will only shape us into better people who are more capable of loving others who join us on the journey of life.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
From the multi-award-winning fiction author Elizabeth Horst, this collection of short stories is meant to inspire you and provoke you to think about the different kinds of relationships and friendships that we all face.A fanciful knight acts upon his romantic notions when journeying to battle.
A successful career woman fears bumping into her long-lost best friend at their college reunion.
A young man seeks his own way where life, women, and religion intersect.
An Italian maiden considers giving up love forever by devoting herself to the convent.
And more!
Hovering between whimsical and philosophical, these fourteen tales feature realistic characters who face varied challenges with love and relationships while deciding for themselves whether to be fleeting and false or faithful and true. For all of us who wish for our own happily ever after, it’s a wonderful and timeless collection that will touch your heart and soul.
Line ‘Em Up!
Line ’Em Up!, by Oscar Avery, follows a class of kids who feel written off by everyone until a new teacher, Mr. Murant, walks in and completely changes their world. He teaches them pride and discipline and shows them how greatness starts inside. The class learns about science, math, football, and life, all while building confidence through something as simple as forming a straight line. Then the story shifts as the group discovers their beloved Mr. Murant has been struggling with CTE.
Reading this children’s book honestly resonated with me more than I expected. I went in thinking it would be a light little school story, and instead found myself caught up in the way Mr. Murant pushes his students to believe in themselves. The writing feels warm and punchy and a little chaotic in a fun way. It mirrors a real classroom where jokes fly, and kids interrupt, and learning happens sideways. I kept smiling at the little back-and-forth moments, especially when Savannah had something sharp to say. The pacing jumps fast from day to day, and that gives the whole thing a breathless energy that makes you want to keep reading.
The author doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff, and I really appreciated that. I felt the kids’ confusion and frustration, and that slow sinking feeling when they wonder whether they were truly cared for. The story handles disability and illness in a way that feels simple but sincere. It made me think about how much one adult can change a child’s whole view of themselves. The illustrations have such a warm, authentic classroom vibe that really draws you in. I love the soft, painterly texture. It gives each scene a gentle feel. Mr. Murant’s expressions are clear, and small details add a fun touch to the scenes.
I’d recommend Line ‘Em Up! to kids who enjoy stories about school life and friendship and to adults who love picture books with heart and a message that sticks. It’s great for classrooms, families, and anyone who wants a story that lifts you up while lovingly addressing coping with loss.
Seasons of Life and Love
Seasons of Life and Love is a wide-ranging collection of poems that moves through weather, memory, loss, longing, regret, and joy as if each emotion were its own season. The book ties nature to human feeling in simple, steady language. Storms mimic sorrow. Sunlight lifts the spirit. Quiet evenings bring reflection. The poet uses these images to guide the reader through moments of love, heartbreak, aging, family, and the slow unraveling and rebuilding that we all face. It is a gentle collection, and it lingers on the enduring hope that tomorrow may feel lighter than today.
I found myself pulled in by how honest the poems felt. The writing is plain and open. I kept thinking how the poet reaches for everyday scenes and somehow makes them feel personal. A shift in weather becomes a shift in the heart. A walk at dusk feels like a confession. Sometimes the rhymes tighten the lines in a way that made me smile. Other times they made the sadness feel sharper. I liked that the book never hid from pain. It met it head-on, almost with a kind of calm acceptance. I felt the weight of past loves, old mistakes, and long memories, and I found myself slowing down to take it in.
I also enjoyed the way the poet moves from the small to the big and back again. One poem sits quietly with a single moment. Another sweeps across years in only a few lines. The tone stays warm even when the subject turns dark. There were points where the sentiment leaned a bit heavy, but I could tell it came from a real place. The emotional sincerity is the glue of the book. I liked how the speaker often steps back to reflect on the choices they made. Those moments felt tender, sometimes even vulnerable. I could feel the author trying to make sense of life as it rushes by.
I feel that Seasons of Life and Love is written for readers who want poetry that speaks plainly yet feels deeply. It will appeal to anyone who loves nature imagery, reflections on love and time, or poems that read like diary entries set to rhythm. If you want something gentle, emotional, and rooted in real human experience, this poetry collection will be a good fit for you.
Pages: 126 | ASIN : B0DXR4YLLT
