my book now has some place in ordinary life
FOR THE YOUNG AND THE LONGING is out soon. Out, unhidden. Lately it’s been coming up in conversation in ordinary spaces: a cafe serving toast, little lines of whatsapp chats, the park I go looking for greyhounds. It is as if my book now has some place in ordinary life.
Whenever I begin to talk about it, I melt. How can I summarise it, wrap it pretty with a bow? Or say it unadorned—just accurately? What do I say about something that feels precious to me and insignificant to everybody else?
I am happy about it, just fear loves to spin. I don’t think I’m afraid because of bad opinions or shrugs from the outside. They come with the nature. I am afraid… . …because the more I mention it, the more it exists. The more a breath of me belongs somewhere, no matter how small a breath.
I hope that breath can make sense to someone.
This is what I’m beginning to say about FOR THE YOUNG AND THE LONGING, inspired by questions I’ve been asked this spring.
🪷 ———How did FOR THE YOUNG AND THE LONGING bud?
The book buds from my interest in the idea of finding yourself. Meeting yourself and reckoning with that self. Coming into your singular own. It’s a grand, almost mystic idea, which we hear talked about in lots of ways.
Growing up, I remember I’d sway between thinking that Finding Yourself is an inner knowing~a point in time~the sweetest resolution~a myth.
I was in my twenties when I started writing my way through it. I wrote about identity, image, love, dreams, work, meaning. I turned the writing into a book with a blue cover scribbled in pink, then I immediately got shy about how personal the writing was. I hid it.
About eight years later, something called. I found the writing, unearthed it, re-edited everything. The themes were the same but I was different. Closer.
So the book buds from the idea of finding yourself…and that idea has serendipitously ended up appearing in both the writing and the process. How do we meet ourselves?
🪷 ———Can you describe it?
FOR THE YOUNG AND THE LONGING is an invitation to get closer to yourself. Then settle into our world.
🪷 ———Can you be less abstract?
The book is almost everything I would whisper to my younger self. It’s a mix of old diary entries (mostly written in my twenties) and some fragments of advice (mostly written in my early thirties). The format is essays, poems, and lists of mantras.
🪷 ———A self-help book?
Except it gives less help, more exploration. That’s intentional.
My little theory is that self-help should invite readers into a state over a strategy. Here is a state of possibility, openness, wonder…as opposed to…here is a strategy to affix to your life.
Also, I think the idea of the self can be a flaming fire. I think self-help should rest under collectivism and belonging.
🪷 ———Why are you independently publishing?
I have to keep reminding myself of the truest answer to this. And that is, I imagine a world where everyone’s expressing themselves, without permission or approval.
FOR THE YOUNG AND THE LONGING is an example of that. It’s an example of making something without having a fine arts degree or an industry in. An example of not needing to convince legacy gatekeepers of my worth. To not pitch to agents or publishers, that’s a strange and fruitless decision to almost everyone. If I want this book to land in the soft hands of others, why go the hard way—the way that’s proven to almost always not work?
My answer is. For a book that seeds from otherness, from being an outsider grappling to get into all sorts of spaces, self-ownership makes sense.
Singing it again. I imagine a world where everyone’s expressing themselves, without permission or approval.
🪷 ———What are you longing for?
Simple sincerity. Regular romance.
very excited for this Genevieve :)