…And Comes Back Out Again [Announcement]

May 25, 2026

Thanks to an overdeveloped inner critic, I have lived most of my life thinking that being good at something is wrong – or rather, letting people know that I’m good at something. In high school, I would sometimes pretend I didn’t know an answer even when someone asked me directly. The better I was at a particular subject, the greater the self-imposed pressure not to stick out or show off.

This contradiction made an appearance in my first post on this blog, from March 21st, 2020: “Knowing there’s someone on the other end waiting to receive a finished piece might help me set my thoughts down as text. It’s also very possible that I’m just fishing for praise.”

Once, some calculus classmates and I were working on a group test. I had been assigned to write our answers and had started putting down what I knew was the right approach. (Even now, my brain is questioning if I can really say I “knew” or if I was being overconfident.) The rest of the group began to disagree with me. Not having the words or the energy to argue my case, I crossed out my own work and wrote what they said to write. But I crossed it out lightly enough that our teacher could see I’d been on the right track. I could still get a nod from someone who understood. Indeed, I was later rewarded by a note in the margins to the effect of, This would have worked.

I had been taught never to show off, but I also refused to be erased.

This past winter brought some of these personal issues to a head. Our world is changing too quickly. Even this blog, which has captured some of the best and worst changes in my life, no longer seems to fit. Although I’m enjoying a more stable position in general, my sense of identity is struggling to keep up.

I’ve been looking for the little notes and nods from people who understand and coming up short. Not because the people weren’t there, but because I erased my work instead of sharing it freely.

This is why I’m happy to announce that, thanks to a generous grant from River Valley ARTS here in Spring Green, I am self-publishing a collection of these blog posts. Driftless Grace: Meditations on Place, Community, and the Pursuit of Coffee will be available in paperback later this year.

The book will be a tangible reminder of what I can do and have done. It will give my words a life beyond the Internet (a realm that still exists, if you know where to look). It will let me accomplish a long-held personal goal. It may even help me find a publisher for the capital-B Book that has been forming in my head for more than 15 years now.

Should you wish to support this process, you can share the DriftlessGrace.com link with others, let me know of your interest in a copy, chip in for the design and publishing costs, or just send positive thoughts from afar. I am thankful for your readership, which allowed me to transform from the author of a blog called Driftless Grace into the personage of Driftless Grace, a lover of place.

Just writing these words feels like showing off. Maybe what needs to change is my classification of showing who I am as a bad thing. To say I’m not looking for responses or readers would be a lie. I can’t wait to share my thoughts with a new audience.

A disclaimer to pacify the Inner Critic: Please do not send compliments or well wishes my way, provide any support that would lead to me getting a big head, or read my work for a single minute more than you would choose of your own volition.

Now – sshh! – enjoy my book.