Give the Sparrow Wings

+ something I've never shared before.

Today, my first book as the Sparrow flies launches into the world.

I remember once in fourth grade, the special education teacher who helped me with my truly atrocious handwriting, helped me to make a book. We folded fabric over cardboard for the cover, and we sewed the pages together before gluing them in to the binding, and it felt like the real thing. I don’t remember much of the story, except that it was about my rabbit Thumper and his grand adventures in our backyard.

I still remember how it felt to clutch that book in my hands—that was the moment I realized that making books was what I wanted to do with my life.

Of course I veered left and right over the years (as kids and teens do). When I started off at CSU I was actually there for English Education for a year because I believed it was the only “practical” way to get an English degree, which my love of writing essays had taught me I desperately wanted. But when I realized there wasn’t going to be any time to take a single creative writing class I despaired to my mother-in-law as we sat i the shade one labor day weekend.

“Why don’t you just change to creative writing then?” She said, like it was simple.

And it was. If there was any first step on my journey back to my fourth grade self, it was this one—forgetting what everyone who asked me “what are you going to school for?” would say about my “impractical” choice to get a degree in creative writing—I switched my emphasis to creative writing with a double emphasis in poetry and creative non-fiction that very next week.

But even still, these past 11ish years since I’ve graduated, I’ve gone back and forth about what to actually do with my life. The “practical” me has a very loud voice sometimes and among other insidious voices I won’t go into right now, this voice was a significant factor in the fact that I didn’t really share much of my poetry publicly until about five years ago

“There’s no way your vulnerable works would mean anything more than humiliation for you when someone reads them,” that know-it-all voice said. “Besides, no one will ever buy it, so you’ll just be dumping money and time in a hole if you make a book of poetry.”

When I decided to stop listening to that voice and make something beautiful and true anyways, no matter the cost, things changed. Not only around me, but within me.

And then as I began to announce the preorders for the book, you changed it for me too because you actually bought the book.

We’re sitting pretty at 162 preorders the day before the launch, and I cannot tell you what it means to have so many of you supporting the work in this way. So much of writing happens in a vacuum, and the angst of the social media age makes many of us who create words for a living feel like we are shouting into the void. Your support of this work, and excitement about it, makes me feel like all this time that I’ve scribbling my way through the darkness was not only for myself, and that’s an amazing feeling.

So without further ado, I’d like to show you something I’ve never shared publicly before—a poem I wrote in the early stages of the book, that has been my guiding light as I worked through this project. It’s a poem, and a prayer for my words, and for you.

The Reader & the Way 


Words don’t go void
don’t return empty
handed—
but go
& find the reader—
the one sitting 
in the dark.

She’s shaking
& the dirt around 
her ankles, the blood
between her toes 
shows you
just how far she’s been—
how far she still has 
to go.

Don’t return void 
words—but find her. 
Find her like a strong
unseen hand beneath
her chin
& point her eyes
to heaven. 

Find her on the path
of her greatest weariness—
in the midst of waves
crashing overhead.

Find her in the deepest
pit of darkness—
when despair 
has already set in. 

Find her in the moment 
when she’s weakest—
when she’s forgotten how to pray.

Find her when she’s stumbled 
off the path altogether—

hold her hand &
lead her back
to the Way. 

Today, as my book releases into the world, the constant prayer in my mind is this: Lord, help this book find the readers who need it.

And I trust that He will—a perhaps, he’ll even use you to help!

Give the Sparrow Wings

Here are two super easy and practical things YOU can do to help support as the Sparrow flies as she launches into the world.

1. Tell your friends. If you loved the book, talk about it! Show it to someone else. Let a friend or family member borrow it. Buy an extra copy and give it to someone. Grassroots is the way this book is really going to get some traction, so if you loved it, sharing is caring.

2. Leave a review. (Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, all the places!) Reviews are HUGE for helping the book get boosted in search algorithms, and therefore it’s hugely helpful for helping other readers looking for a book along a similar topic.

Thank you Dear Readers for being here—I hope that you enjoy the book. I hope it meets you, wherever you are on your journey today, and points you home.

with much love and joy,

Grace E. Kelley

**Haven’t gotten your copy yet? Click here to check out a list of online retailers you can order it from, or get an autographed copy directly from me in my online store!**