The Wind Before Release

June feels a little like holding my breath.

Not in a fearful way. In a full way. In that quiet, suspended moment before something leaves your hands and begins to belong to the world outside of you.

That’s what this month feels like for me.

On July 1, 2026, my poetry collection Raised by Wind will officially release, and June is my launch runway — the month where I gather the final pieces, take a deep breath, and begin sharing this book more intentionally with readers.

What Raised by Wind Is

At its heart, Raised by Wind is a collection about memory, place, and growth.

It is rooted in the prairie landscape that shaped me — the space between the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills, where weather was never just background and the land asked something of you. The poems move through seasons, childhood, work, womanhood, and the kind of remembering that only becomes clear with time.

But more than that, this book is about the thing that connected it all.

The wind.

The wind as weather.
The wind as memory.
The wind as movement.
The wind as the presence that touched every season of life, whether I understood it then or not.

This collection is not only about where I’m from. It’s about the invisible force that shaped how I remember it.

Behind the Scenes

The book itself is done.

Raised by Wind has moved from scattered memories, draft pages, revisions, and formatting decisions into something complete. That feels strange to say. For so long, this collection lived in pieces — a line here, a memory there, a season I was trying to understand on the page.

Now it has a shape.

It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has a cover. It has a release date. It is no longer just a project I am working on. It is a book prepared to meet readers.

There is a quiet kind of vulnerability in that. Finishing the poems was one part of the journey. Finishing the book was another. Now comes the part where I begin letting it go.

And maybe that is fitting for a collection about wind.

Raised by Wind was always about the things that move through us, shape us, and keep going. Now this book is getting ready to do the same.

A Small Excerpt

Here’s a short piece from one of the poems in Raised by Wind:

These lines feel like an opening not just to the collection, but to the world that raised me.

Looking Ahead

Raised by Wind releases July 1, 2026.

Throughout June, I’ll be sharing more of the story behind the collection — the inspiration, the themes, the memories, and the quiet threads that hold it all together.

You can follow along on social media for release updates, poem excerpts, and behind-the-scenes moments, or visit my blog for deeper reflections on the heart behind Raised by Wind.

Thank you for being here with me in this season before release.