Book Title + Cover Reveal!

Plus an invitation to join the Book Tour!

Last week I got to share the lovely update that we’re sending a book out into the world on February 21!

Today, it’s all about the title, description & the cover! Plus, an invite to join a very special book tour!

Side note: I just need to name how bizarre it is to mix a terribly hard thing like grief with one of my most favorite things — writing & publishing books. It feels weird to use all those exclamation points at the top. But I trust what we trust around here. All of life is both/and. We don’t get the joy without the grief. We don’t get life without death. So we’ll practice that awkward incongruence in this season. We can be deeply excited to spread the word about a book on grief.

Life is weird.

Well, friends. Here we go. Drumroll, please!

Our Cover

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Book Description

When faced with unexpected loss, pain and grief set up camp in our bodies and we don’t always know how to talk about what we’re experiencing, especially in the first year of loss. Still Here is a collection of poems for those trying to make sense of the fragility and terror of losing a loved one. We name the shock, wade into the everyday nuances of grief, and eventually take tentative steps into the land of the living again, only to discover love never dies. Somehow their love is still here, dancing with our every breath. Still Here is an honest reckoning with the pain and frustration of grief while journeying toward surprising healing.

Written by a poet and pastor who unexpectedly lost her youngest brother, she captures the ache of loss and the complexity of healing as her family travels the first year together. As she braves the unbearable with curiosity and trust, we’re invited to unravel the grief that awaits each of us, in the hope that love never dies.

They’re still here.
And so are we.

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Book Tour

Let’s be honest. We could all use some practice navigating our grief. Feeling it. Talking about it. Believing it’s even there in the first place.

We’re going to add our voices to the growing chorus that gently and bravely invites courageous humans to reflect a bit more deeply on the grief we carry.

Whether it’s grief from the loss of a loved one, challenging relationships, or what it means to figure out life after a pandemic, we could use a few more spaces to engage these important conversations. So let’s take this book on a tour!

Here’s how it works

I’ve set aside time this spring to host conversations on grief. Virtually or in-person, we’ll gather to engage this crucial work for our well-being. I’ll share from the book and facilitate space to reflect together on our grief journeys.

These are free gatherings to put together. Getting to share the book with new friends is the kind of love we want to share.

Become a tour stop!

Do you have a group of people who’d like to engage a conversation around grief? Maybe it’s a group of students, leaders, members of a faith community, a staff team, or a group of friends. We’ve got 5-6 tour stops finalized already and have room for more. Message hello@jennysmithwrites.com and let’s put something together!

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Gratitude for our review team

A big shout out today to our review team! These sixty-five individuals have received a PDF copy of the manuscript to read and write a review. These reviews are super helpful to authors during launch week and in the weeks leading up to publication.

I told a friend that it’s one thing to tap out poems on your phone in the school pick up line and it’s an entirely different thing to get texts like this as readers dig into the book. (Texts shared with permission).

Thank you to these readers for jumping into a topic that’s not the easiest to navigate sometimes. Thank you for bringing words to what this project could mean to others. Your reviews will open a door for a healing next step to humans you’ll never meet.

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A final note to you

Thank you for being a part of The Thread. As people who value showing up to the one life we’ve got, grief is going to be a non-negotiable. And it’s such a difficult place to visit. But maybe doing this work together is what makes it a bit more beautiful.

I’m wildly curious to see how this all unfolds next. The work of going into our pain, expressing it with creativity, and letting it go is holy.

Let’s keep pulling those threads.