I'm publishing a book of poetry!

Happy Sunday, friends! Today I’m dedicating the newsletter to my poetry book — it comes out on Thursday in ebook! Let’s goooo.

All about JUVENILIA 📖

Let’s talk about JUVENILIA: POEMS OF A TWELFTH GRADE YEAR, shall we? I know I introduced this project in a newsletter last week, but I thought today I’d give you a whole host of details, like why I’m publishing it to begin with, and what you can expect if you preorder the ebook (out Feb. 13!) or order the paperback (available now!).

A few weeks ago, I was doing a cute lil emotional spiral about how I hadn’t had anything exciting to announce in almost a year. And the one thing that I did have last year, I only got because someone else was offered it first and backed out. So I was really down on myself! Feeling not just the sting of rejections, but also the boredom.

See, I’m someone who loves to have things to look forward to. It keeps me going, sometimes maybe in an unhealthy manner. I look forward to things, they happen, and then in the emotional downfall that follows their happening, I scramble to find something new to look forward to, to keep me going1.

In the depths of that moment of despair, I had an idea: what if I simply…created an opportunity for celebration? In the absence of joy coming to me, what if I sought it out?

I knew I didn’t want to self-publish any of my novels — the ones that I believe have promise are ones I’d like to attempt trad pub first, and the ones that don’t have promise … I’d rather no one see those ever. They’re in the drawer for a reason!

But poetry! I could publish some poetry. Except I haven’t written much poetry lately, and I didn’t want to wait for too long.

And then I remembered high school.

Senior year, 2010-2011. Everyone on Facebook, it seemed, was participating in a year-long photo-sharing challenge. They’d take at least one photo per day and post it. I wasn’t super into photography back then, but I was into writing poetry. It only seemed natural, then, to tweak the challenge and write one poem every day for 365 days.

I collected them all in a document that’s about 201 pages long — I definitely missed a lot of days, especially after May/June 2011, but I did a rather good job until graduation of writing a poem every day.

Not all of them were worth sharing. Some of them made it very obvious that I wrote them at the end of the day in a panic because nothing else had inspired me yet — these are the ones that are 3-4 lines of just…vibes.

Some of them I could tell I wrote during class — there was a pantoum, a sestina, a ghazal, and a few others that I distinctly remember writing for class.

And some of them were actually…kind of good?

Fast forward about three weeks, and here we are: the paperback is available and the ebook can be preordered and will be released on Thursday, Feb. 13. What was originally conceptualized as a silly goofy project to let me do some celebrating is now something I’ve put a lot of work and care into?

I curated the poems and wrote short present-day reflections for each. It’s got a dedication! It’s got an “about the author” page! I hired someone to design a genuinely gorgeous cover!

I wasn’t going to create a paperback, but then I wanted something to hold in my hands. Something to take photos of. Something to keep.

This silly goofy project of mine now holds a very special place in my heart. It’ll be the first time I’ll see creative words of mine in print. The first time that I’ll hold a book-shaped thing in my hands, in which my words — MY WORDS — are going to be bound.

All my life I’ve dreamed of putting out a book — many books, really. I never thought the first time I got to do this would be a self-published title, but…here we are. And I find that I’m kind of okay with it?

Listen. I will never stop dreaming of selling my novels to a publisher. I want all that comes with that — the Publishers Weekly/Marketplace announcement graphic; the lead-up to a cover reveal; the blurb reveals; the launch event at a local bookstore; the fun and the fear and the highs and the lows. I want an editor to fall in love with my book and advocate for it. I long for these things.

But there is power, too, in self-approval. In saying, “I know what this is worth,” and putting it out there for others2. There is power and strength in being your own advocate. It’s hard, but it’s making me stronger.

And you know what? I think this is a really fun project! It’s $1.99 for the ebook, $9.99 for the paperback, and it’s very pretty and the poems are illuminating — interesting, probably, only to people who know me or knew me then, but illuminating regardless!

All that to say — you can preorder the ebook or order the paperback today :D And if you do, thank you so much — I hope it brings you joy!

Alla prossima 👋

Hey. There may be a ceasefire in Gaza, but Palestine and Palestinians still deserve to be free. Not ethnically cleansed, not at the mercy of the American empire, nothing but pure, unequivocal FREEDOM.

— Karis xoxo