Reading · Grieve Fully, Live Fully

January is often talked about as a month of fresh starts — a time for looking ahead and turning the page. For me, though, the last seven years have complicated that narrative. It also carries the anniversary of my dad’s death, which means this time of year arrives with sorrow and a good deal of reflection, too.

Losing him didn’t end with his death. The years since have been about learning how to live with grief alongside everyday life — parenting, work, relationships, and all the ordinary moments that still carry so much weight. Writing is one of the ways I’ve tried to make sense of that terrain, and it’s something I explore in a piece I’ve been working on behind the scenes over the past several months, something very close to my heart.

I’m so excited to share that I am a contributing author in a collaborative anthology, Deserts to Mountaintops: Out of the Ashes, which will be launching with Soul Speak Press on Sunday 25 January 2026 — just three days before the anniversary of my dad’s death. The timing is a coincidence, but it feels especially meaningful to me.

This book brings together twenty women from around the world who write with honesty and heart about the moments that broke them, and the strength it took to begin again. These are stories of loss, resilience, and meaning-making. Stories that don’t rush to tidy endings, but stay with the complexity of what it means to live through hard seasons and keep going.

My contribution is a chapter called Lit by Fire. It begins with the moment I said goodbye to my dad and follows the years shaped by that loss. In many ways, it has become a companion piece to my memoir-in-progress. The memoir itself sits inside the years of illness and anticipatory grief — walking alongside my father as his world closed in, and mine did too, and reckoning with what it means to love deeply when the outcome is already known. The anthology chapter picks up where the memoir leaves off. It explores what came after — the impact of grief on my inner landscape, the ways loss reshaped my sense of self, and the ongoing work of learning how to live fully again after life has been irrevocably altered.

At its core, it’s about grief, love, identity, and transformation.

If this book resonates with you, there are a few ways you might choose to support it.

My name, bottom left. I’m soon-to-be a published author! 🎉

Books like this tend to reach their readers through word of mouth. Reviews and recommendations, especially in the early days after release, play a big role in helping people find stories that speak to what they’re going through.

If you’d like to support the anthology, you can do so by:

Buying the ebook on Amazon on launch day (it will be 99c USD on Sun 25th Jan!) — note: pre-orders are not required. Just purchase HERE on launch day 🙏🏼
Sharing a brief reflection or review of your reading experience.

Also, if someone comes to mind who might benefit from reading these stories, passing the book along can make a real difference too.

Writing about what stood out to you, how it made you feel, or who you think might appreciate the book is incredibly helpful to potential readers. Many people connect with just one chapter, one voice, or one story that stays with them. It doesn’t need to be long — even a couple of thoughtful sentences is more than enough.

And if this isn’t the right season for you to engage with a book launch, that’s completely okay as well 🫶🏽

As January unfolds, and as this labour of love comes into the world, I wanted to share that I’ll be stepping back a little from Substack. I’d like to create more space for my family and my clinical work, and to continue working steadily on my memoir without the pressure of regular posting. I’m not exactly sure what this will look like going forward — just that I’m shifting rhythm for a while and I wanted to let you know.

Thank you for being here, for reading, and for being part of this community. Thank you for holding space for my dad and our story, and for sharing parts of yours too. Your presence and support have mattered more than you know.

Until next time,

Thank you for being here and supporting my work. I am truly grateful!

If you got value from this and you think others might too, please:

1️⃣ Click the HEART button 💟 to like this post and leave me a COMMENT 💬 — it means we can connect on a deeper level and allows my writing to reach more people who need it

A new year, a book launch & a small ask

Comments