PHOTO BY LEA THOMAS
Yesterday, Kate and I had a 2-hour meeting with our book editor at Heyday for our expanded edition of Compassion In Crisis: Learning to Live in an Age of Disaster (CIC). Since the call, I’ve been reflecting on how we’ve been downplaying what it has meant to put together this body of work. On a personal level, it feels deeply vulnerable to be in this process with an outside publishing house and editor for the first time. And, as we round up on it becoming a physical book in our hands, it seems like a good time to start sharing and talking about the process of it to give some context about how things have been moving in the backend here at Loam.
I know we’ve been a bit slower over the last year than we have been in previous years. We keep writing little notes sharing about how we’re slowly emerging from sabbatical, which has some truth to it. We’ve been working at finding our feet within the Weaving Earth ecosystem and untangling how we want to do slow media at Loam. AND we’ve been writing and editing a book.
For many reasons, I’ve barely allowed myself to admit this. A lot of it has to do with the weird experience that when something really good happens, something you’ve prayed for and worked hard towards, actually happens, it can be hard to speak about it. Getting published is kind of a big deal. It’s funny to write this considering we do publishing here at Loam, but we are a micro indie-house, and have always had to contend with very real financial limitations. Our margins are slim. The opportunity to get picked up by a traditional publisher is a huge opportunity for CIC. It means that we don’t have to carry the full cost of production, and CIC will be on shelves that have been out of reach for us because of how tiny we are. To state it plainly, we got a break.
Over this last year, I felt like if I talked too much about CIC being published with Heyday, something bad would happen. There have been layers to this for me. First, I thought, what if they change their minds? This, despite having a signed contract. As we began the process of assembling and inviting contributors into the project, I thought, what if the idea behind this doesn’t resonate? This, despite already having sold thousands of copies of our first edition. In January, in which I worked every day of the month between my full-time job and the book, I thought, Will we get this done? I went to bed every night with a pit in my stomach, panicked that we wouldn’t meet the deadline. We met the deadline.
And last Friday, when our editor got back to us after reading the first draft, I received her email and meeting invite like how you do when you’ve been called to the principal’s office. I told my husband, I’m pretty sure she hates it, and we will have to rewrite it. Alas, this is after three positive reviews from early readers. In short, I’ve hardly been able to receive this blessing of an opportunity because the immensity of what it means to me has filled me with a kind of insecure dread. It’s been a process. I’ve been in a process, screamed every writer everywhere throughout time.
Something fundamentally shifted for me as soon as our conversation with our editor began yesterday. As I sat staring into the video conference, it suddenly occurred to me that we have not been on sabbatical. Far from it, in fact. I am reading the Little House on the Prairie series to my son right now, and we just finished a chapter where Laura and her sister Carrie get lost wandering in marshy grass. (More on using colonial narrative for decolonial education at another time). The grass is taller than both of them, despite Laura being 14 years old, and so dense that no sound can penetrate it. They have no orientation other than the sky and what is in front of them, and their only choice is to keep on walking and pray they will find their way out. I feel this is the best metaphor for where Kate and I have been.
Throughout yesterday’s call, I kept exclaiming to the editor, “I’ve been so head down, in the weeds, I couldn’t see that.” And, “I got totally lost in how to organize that chapter,” and “thank you. Just thank you.”
And I want to extend my gratitude to you now as well. As a reader of Loam, thank you so much for your patience with us. Thank you for your loyalty and support and for continuing to reach out and ask us for copies of this book. It has been sustaining, because we have in fact been very busy, and a little lost in writing this book.
Since yesterday, I feel lifted for the first time in a long time. I’ve finally been able to fully receive the profound gift of Heyday, saying yes to this project ironically through receiving feedback. Throughout those 2 hours, I kept thinking, I can hardly believe how lucky we are that someone has taken time out of their life to read this material and then provide insightful and detail-oriented ideas on how to make it better. Not only that, but sitting on a few pages of feedback from her and our other early readers has helped me gain a bird's eye view again. All good things take work and concerted effort, and I am so glad that Kate and I took the last year to commit to this effort together. We grew stronger walking through those weeds. But god, does it feel good to experience levity again.
We have one more round of writing to do over this next month to incorporate all of the generous wisdom from our editor and early readers, and before the end of May, the content of the book should be proofed and final. From there, we will enter into design, and by September, we should have a final cover. This fall, it will have been two years since we opened a conversation with Heyday. When the book hits shelves in the spring of 2026, it will have been two and a half years. Again, all good things take work and time.
This year will be different for Loam, though. Now that we are not wandering around in the grassy field of this book, we are able to extend our capacity outward again. We have multiple print projects planned to arrive in mailboxes before the cover of CIC is finalized, including a magazine.
Considering that we have had a three-year stint since the last issue went out, we are having a lot of fun outlining this issue. Because we live in accelerated times, it’s hard for me to relate back to the version of myself in 2022 when our last magazine came out. I still lived in California, was working full time as an organizer, had a four-year-old, and was quite literally hospicing my grandmother when my box of magazines arrived at the post office.
I now live in a small northern town in Canada, work for myself, have a first grader, and am still processing my grandmother’s death. Just like at Loam, so much has changed, yet I also know there are core aspects to my personhood that will forever remain the same. Kate and I have been teasing out what wants to change at Loam and also trying to grasp at what Loam will always fundamentally be, regardless of who is stewarding Loam and what is happening in the world.
So far, we have arrived at the fact that who, how, and what we produce at Loam will always remain accountable to a values-driven framework. And so, I leave you now with these last words of this meandering letter. The times will continue to change, but words are enduring. We will continue to create and endure alongside you.
More to come,
Kailea