I Write Books
ORDER TODAY
I was busy doing other things when cancer came, and my father, thirty years dead, returned to me as a raven.
EARLY PRAISE
A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens
"From the moment her dad flies from beyond death to land on her car as a raven, Laraine Herring’s beautiful memoir embodies her familial ghosts with voices that sing a lament for generational conflicts, departures, illness and death. A brilliant book that pushes the boundaries of form, truth and language to a place that is wholly magical and illuminating. From a scholar of grief, A Constellation of Ghosts is a beacon for navigating loss that is nuanced and empowering.”
— Rebecca Fish Ewan, author of the cartoon/poetry memoir, By the Forces of Gravity
“A Constellation of Ghosts is unlike any book you have read or will read again. This genre-bending, lyrically beautiful, mind-blowing memoir uses the imagined to make way for deeper, underlying truths of fear and family and love (and the absence of) in the face of illness, uncertainty, displacement, and death. Through scripting of multi-generational voices—particularly, her deceased father in the form of a raven—Laraine Herring confronts the commitments we make to each other and those that grief, betrayal, and forgiveness make to us.”
— Melissa Grunow, author of I Don’t Belong Here
New Release
from White River Press!
What if a gift lived inside grief?
When Bunny's father dies, she captures her grief in a bubble the color of his soul. She carries this grief with her, afraid that if she lets it go, she will lose her daddy. Bunny's grief leads her to The Grief Forest and Grandmother Bunny, who meets her at the Forest's edge. Bunny is afraid of all the grief she sees there, so she runs away and meets Death, who guides her deeper into the Forest. Each animal she meets expresses an aspect of grief. As Bunny's grief begins to take on a life of its own, she becomes desperate to hold onto it, afraid of who she would be without it. She falls deeper into the Forest, meeting creatures of the sea and creatures of the night. When she meets Cobra, everything she thought she knew about grief falls away and she has to make a choice: hold on to a life that has gone, or learn how to be alive in a new environment.
For all ages, The Grief Forest is a journey through complicated grieving-showing examples of delayed grief, absent grief, PTSD, attachment, disenfranchised grief and many more. Bereavement is a place. When we grieve, we enter this mysterious world and we do not leave it unchanged. And by meeting our grief, sitting quietly with it and listening to it, we can access its deeper wisdom, helping to heal not only the griever, but the whole world.
If you have already purchased The Grief Forest and would like a FREE signed bookplate and letter, please fill out this short form, and I will mail it out right away!
Praise for The Grief Forest: a book about what we don’t talk about
"Laraine's gifts are deep and rich and will reach more than she can imagine. The combination of connections and personalities in the forest and in her words are more than lighting in a bottle; they are enlightenment in the heart."
— Sally Downham Miller, PhD, author of, Mourning and Dancing: A Memoir of Grief and Recovery
“Laraine Herring is a gracious and powerful soul who has traveled the paths of the grief forest well. With her extraordinary powers of story-truth-telling, she guides us through the hidden forest of grief like no other can. Each sentence is a deep well of insight and healing. This is a book to ponder and savor and return to time and again.”
— Dalena Watson, LPC, FAMI, MT-BC
Writing & Craft Books
Start it.
In this distinctive guide to the craft of writing, author Laraine Herring shows us how to tune into our bodies and connect with our emotions so that our writing becomes an expression of our full beings, rather than just an intellectual exercise. With warmth and wisdom, Herring offers a path to discovering "deep writing"—prose that is unique, expressive, and profoundly authentic. Lessons and imaginative exercises show you how to: stay with your writing when your mind or body starts to pull you away; explore the five senses in your writing; and approach your writing without judgment.
Writing Begins with the Breath will open up a whole world of creativity for people who may not have considered themselves writers before, while also providing keen insights into the craft for seasoned writers.
Work it.
All writers are faced at some point with feelings of self-consciousness and self-doubt about their work. In this invaluable guide, Laraine Herring offers advice to writers who want to become more comfortable with their writing, face their inhibitions, and gain the confidence to release their true voice.
Utilizing the breath, a vigorous movement practice designed to break up stagnation with the body and the mind, and writing exercises aimed both at self-exploration and developing works-in-progress, Herring offers a clear path to writing through illusion. Learn how to remove obstacles in your writing and develop techniques to help you relax into your own voice; discover ways to enter into a compassionate, non-judgmental relationship with yourself so that you can write safely and authentically from a place of absolute vulnerability; and discover the interconnectedness of your personal writing process and the community as a whole.
The Writing Warrior will not only help you find ways to develop your writing, but also ways to develop yourself.
Embrace it.
What if writer's block became your most precious teacher?
Writer’s block. If you are a writer, you know it can be a haunting, terrifying force—a wolf at the door, a vast conspiracy, something that keeps you up at night, spinning your wheels, going nowhere. But what if we’ve been thinking about writer’s block all wrong? What if, by paying attention to its qualities and inquiring into its hidden gifts, we can release that power?
On Being Stuck is an empowering guide to working with your blocks and finding the friend within the beast. Using deep inquiry, writing prompts, body and breath exercises, and a range of interdisciplinary approaches, On Being Stuck will help you uncover the gifts hidden within your creative blocks, while also deepening your relationship to your work and reawakening your creative process.
“Practical, accessible, and motivational.”
— The Washington Post
“Laraine Herring takes you on a journey toward wholeness as a writer—she not only explores every aspect of the writing process; she also invites you to explore every aspect of your writing self—body, mind, and spirit. Anyone who writes—or wants to—will find this book as essential and inspiring as breath.”
— Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis
“A worthwhile and motivating read for all writers, whether or not they are familiar with yoga. Those who enjoy Julia Cameron's (The Artist's Way, etc.) holistic approach should similarly like Herring's work.
— Library Journal
“The practice is exquisitely clear; breathe and write. This book is an excellent guide and a catalyst for that deep work, and a wise companion for the writer's journey.”
— Sark, author of Succulent Wild Woman
Novels
How far would you go to protect someone you love?
Nothing is black or white in the murky town of Alderman, North Carolina, no matter how much the human and ghostly residents of Idyllic Grove Rice Plantation would like it to be. Weaving together the threads of three women rooted by life or death to this haunted Southern landscape, Ghost Swamp Blues pulls the reader into the layers of racism, family loyalties, and hidden relationships that intertwine as naturally as the kudzu that covers the trees where the Swamp Sirens sing.
Fourteen-year-old Lillian Green witnesses the unthinkable in 1949. Her choice to remain silent about what she saw ripples into the swamp water surrounding her family's home, awakening the ghost of Roberta du Bois, former rice plantation mistress, who drowned herself in the swamp in 1859. Roberta and Lillian forge a bond based on shame, silence, and an impenetrable loneliness. When Lillian's daughter Hannah is born into the maze of haunted hallways, Lillian has no interest in raising her. Hannah is left alone, with only Roberta and her own exceptional singing voice for company. When the truth about what Lillian saw surfaces, no one, living or dead, can prevent what must come next.
A novel of San Francisco.
On the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, Helen and Frank Connor arrive in San Francisco to determine the fate of their marriage. A series of unexplainable events sends the couple in separate directions deep into the ghosts of the City’s past, which include the fierce, fiddle-playing Elle, who accidentally jumped to her death in 1967 and is now back to reclaim her lost instrument, pulling along with her all the men who stopped their lives for her.
This ensemble novel is peppered with classic San Francisco characters like Remmy X, an old hippie poet who publishes a daily paper on his old Remington; Brian, haunter of the City Lights Bookstore, who fell in love with Elle in 1967; Penny Lane, the drag queen of North Beach; and Shep, Remmy’s faithful dog.
Gathering Lights is a ghost story of five souls suspended in the amber of their grief, and it will have you believing in the power of love and music to change both the past and the future.
Mrs. Abigail Fisher, the South’s Esteemed First Lady of Letters, is in a rut.
Her writing career has collapsed, and she has become an embittered old woman living alone in a dilapidated house in Georgia. Only she’s not as alone as she thinks. One of her characters, Pistachio Simmons, who had been cut from Mrs. Fisher’s best-selling novel, The Garden of Gethsemane, Georgia, has returned to demand she be given the storyline she deserves.
After Pistachio starts a fire in the kitchen, Mrs. Fisher is forced to summon her estranged daughter, Elise, back home. When Pistachio finds the deleted pages from her book, she begins to create her own chapters separate from the ones her author had given her. As Pistachio flourishes, Mrs. Abigail Fisher fades, and mother and daughter are forced to confront the failed plotlines of their own lives, including the one they’ve tried hardest to ignore—the story of the ghost-girl in the garden.
Part magical realism, part meditation on the creative process, part old-fashioned ghost story, Into the Garden of Gethsemane, Georgia opens up the reader to the intimate world of a writer and the characters, real and imagined, who haunt her in the night.
Book Trailers
“Herring is a surrealist Anne Rice.”
— China Martens, author of The Future Generation: The Zine-Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others
“The first line of Ghost Swamp Blues will suck you in like a swampland—and you’ll want to go into a dark water of a book that seems to have been written with ink that is equal parts honeysuckle nectar and cottonmouth venom. Laraine Herring is a consummate craftswoman and a down-home boogie beat storyteller. She is a credit to an old and demanding lineage.”
— Mary Sojourner, author of Going Through Ghosts
“Into the Garden of Gethsemane, Georgia is a mind-expanding meditation on what it means to be a writer and a reader and a character within a story. Ambitious, bravely imaginative, and full of heart.”
— Gayle Brandeis, author of Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak
“Gathering Lights casts its spell from the very first page. Laraine Herring’s stirring, exquisitely rendered novel explores those tender places where the borders blur—between present and past, love and friendship, this world and the next. Her heartbreaking tale of connectivity transported me to a world I didn’t want to leave.”
— Michaela Carter, author of Further Out Than You Thought
Grief, Loss & Story
A healing, insightful guide for adult women who, in adolescence, lost their fathers to death, divorce, abandonment or addiction.
With gentle expertise, Laraine Herring addresses how adult behaviors and relationships can be shaped when one loses her father at such a pivotal developmental stage. Particularly relevant are issues related to commitment, trust, intimacy, self-confidence, and independence. Features guided writing exercises.
“As a mentor and companion, Laraine Herring offers readers a ‘perfect pitch’ of personal memoir, the latest research on grief, and objective guidance on healing from the painful and complicated wounds of father loss.”
“This book is for all women who must courageously find their own paths without the wisdom, support, and love of their fathers.”
Distinguished Faculty Guest Lecturer Series
How We (Don’t) Talk About Grief and Why We Must
This is a talk I gave at Yavapai College in 2019.
All of us will experience the death of someone we love, and all of us will face our own mortality, yet conversations about grief and death remain taboo. Grief is as natural as loving, as powerful a teacher as joy. Learn ways of talking about our own grief, talking to grievers, and embracing loss and mortality as a way of living deeply.