This is Kerrtopia [soon].

Water, water, everywhere, and all of it to drink.

Joining this substack party in Fall 2023.

A little bit about the woman behind the words: I write and celebrate books for a living and because I love it. [That specifically means I’m a book marketer for an Indie nonfiction publisher by day, and by night likely have ten different personal writing projects going at any given time—joyfully, if not altogether ridiculously, too.]

I'm passionate about alpine lakes, clever turns of phrase, long swims in cold water, connecting artists to paychecks, learning something new every day, and helping writers dive for their stories. I also love whales, a good pun, talking to osprey, my amazing friends and inspiring partner in madness*, and my muppet adventure pup, Toya.

I lead a quarterly writing workshop called DIVE [you can learn all about it and sign up to join us over at Creative Fuel Collective, right here] and wanted a space to share more writing-specific thoughts and prompts more regularly.

• Right now I’m planning to use this space to share short posts peppered with a wide variety of writing-specific prompts once a week because “brevity is the soul of wit” [or so Polonious says in Hamlet], and brevity has long been a challenge for me [something I have in common with dear, rambling Polonious].

Why Kerrtopia? Well, it’s what I should have named my blog when I first started sharing my words online back in the early 2000s, which, as it turns out, was a long time ago. It’s also 100% what I would name a commune should I ever start one, alongside existing as a personal dreamscape where systemic injustice and climate grief don’t exist [because equality and freedom are actually real for everyone, and unfettered capitalism hasn’t been killing our planet since before I was born], water refills itself in your glass, everyone is comfortable in their own skin, most golf courses are community gardens and public parks, and no one gets to own two houses before everyone owns one. #HousingIsAHumanRight // #GolfCoursesArentGreenSpaces

I used to blog extensively at kerrianne.org, and since I moved on from there in 2013, you can find published writing of mine in New Plains Review, Hedgehog Poetry, THIS Literary Magazine, Keep Nature Wild, Fortunates, Drabble Rousers, and Kindling.

*His name is Matt, and by a stroke of my favorite sort of serendipity, he’s also the best editor and (ghost)writer I’ve ever met. Lucky for plenty of you, he has his own business, which means if you want to hire him to help you write your books, you totally can [and I would definitely recommend it, not that I’m biased at all].