My author copies of The Grief Committee Minutes have arrived! I had a vision for how I wanted to capture the moment with an “unboxing” video, and amazingly, I was able to pull it off.

Below is the link on my YouTube channel.

Because so much of my work deals with loss of various kinds, including environmental loss, and so many of my poems are anchored in my own personal sense of place, including the climate and wildlife of Florida, I felt that Paynes Prairie was the perfect spot to do this. I wanted something I could keep and share with family and friends to remember the special moment of seeing my new book finally in the world. It was a way of kind of introducing the book to the world with a few of my thoughts about it, and about our precious state parks.

Paynes Prairie represents “Old Florida” to me, not just as a sense of place but as a kind of emotional center. Another reason doing the unboxing out there made sense was that the cover image of The Grief Committee Minutes shows sandhill cranes flying over the prairie at sunset. Sandhills make an appearance in the book, too, along with other Florida wildlife, so it just felt like the right spot. Here is the link on my YouTube

What I didn’t count on was how hot and humid it was at the Paynes Prairie Visitor’s Center when I was out there this past Monday! It created some challenges I didn’t expect on the technical end, but it was a beautiful morning and it all worked out in the end.

The official publication date for The Grief Committee Minutes is Sept. 14, but it’s available for pre-order now at Bookshop, Amazon and via Barnes & Noble or your favorite bookseller. Thanks to everyone who has ordered or reached out to me just to share your support. It means so much to me!