I’m so pleased to share that Awaken by Jade Driscoll is And Then Publishing’s first-ever book project!

This poetry chapbook is dreamlike and playful, yet harrowing and devastatingly sincere. Grief, anxiety, and depression appear as various characters that haunt the speaker even in dreams. Though the speaker is often disembodied by trauma, wonderment and imagination manage to peek through like sun through clouds to transform her. If learning to build a house is to first learn how to tear one down, our speaker applies the same concept to the self—Driscoll writes “maybe I could find myself / by tearing myself apart.” Just before all hope is lost, the self is reclaimed and righteously declared. This is a chapbook readers will tear through but not soon forget. 

Awaken will be available for purchase via the soon-to-be-opened And Then Shop on June 28, 2023. Mark your calendars!

Jade Driscoll (she/her) is a Michigan poet with a master’s degree in creative writing from Central Michigan University. Her work has previously appeared in Ponder Review, Plainsongs, Remington Review, Livina Press, Atlas and Alice, The Elevation Review, and others, and she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net Awards, and the AWP Intro Awards. Many of her poems focus on destigmatizing conversations surrounding mental health and/or sharing her personal experiences with mental illness. When she’s not writing, Jade enjoys reading, listening to music, learning Korean, and walking in local parks. You can find her online @thepoetjade.

& please enjoy an exclusive first look at the chapbook’s cover image:

xoxo,
&tp