Happiness is a Warm Book

I am so thrilled with what has appeared on my doorstep this morning! After years of writing, months of proofing and all the work, The Alchemist's Kitchen, is now out in the world. A real book in beautiful colors, font, and texture. I can't stop stroking it!

I realize it is an alchemical experience to create a book. How do images, ideas, and experiences accrue until they are pressurized into words, lines, stanza breaks? I've wanted to be an author since I first learned to read, before I learned to read, actually. On Monday I will bring something special to my writing students, probably chocolates, to share with them the experience of transformation. Words into poems. Poems into books. What magical work we all do.