COMPOST AFTER READING is officially OUT!

Yes, it's pub day for my brand new book. She's here!

My book is here!

Hello,

I am so pleased and honored to announce that my book COMPOST AFTER READING is now alive, published, and officially available in the world for actual purchase. Hallelujah.

You can order a copy here. Or at your local bookstore!

Getting this book published has been an unbelievable journey across the last four (!!) years, something that I never could have guessed would happen when I first sat down and stitched together the original “Compost This Book,” across a span of two weeks, as a take-home resource for students of my composting workshops. My friend Larry helped me use InDesign to format it for printing, and I made copies at my local copy shop.

There were no pictures.

The original copy of "Compost This Book."

At some point after I had printed this original version, I wandered into a local bookshop, seeking design inspiration to elevate its aesthetic. (LOL, in retrospect I never would have gotten anywhere with that alone.)

While I was there, I bumped into somebody I had met at a party a few months prior, who happened to run an art book press called Apogee Graphics. He loved the idea of my booklet, and brought me in for a meeting with his team.

A few months later, a designed and properly-compostable version of “Compost This Book” arrived.

The Apogee Graphics version of "Compost This Book."

“Compost This Book” was a miniature hit for me, granting me a tiny amount of press, and selling well for Apogee Graphics. People responded well to the idea of a book you could compost, even if it was a little tongue-in-cheek, and I heard from people all over the world who had gotten their hands on a copy and used it to start composting. It was an incredible thrill.

So thrilling, in fact, that I decided to go out on a limb and cold email a literary agent to ask if we could turn the small art chapbook into a proper and actual book. The answer I got was “yes.” A few months after that, and thanks in every way to that incredible agent, I had a book deal signed with Timber Press.

Today, the fruit of all these iterations and efforts arrives as COMPOST AFTER READING.

This new-and-expanded edition of my “how to” compost compendium features 150 new pages, complete illustrations by Sludge Thunder, and—as ever—comes directly from my heart, and the heart of the girl who was me six years ago, who wanted a book like this, when she first got started learning all this stuff.

I wrote this book to empower the reader to teach themselves how to compost, to learn-by-doing, to get their hands properly in the EARTH, and to develop a newfound relationship to what it means to care …for oneself, one’s community of humans and non-humans alike, for earth, for all. (Truthfully, this feels much more urgent of a need today than it did when I started.)

Illustrations in COMPOST AFTER READING by the wonderful Sludge Thunder!

I know that I’ve told this story again-and-again, but it remains significant to me that I illustrate how much of a cumulative effort this book really was. How long it took, and how many people were involved. I never would have gotten here without multiple friends willing to lend a hand, from early design iterations and feedback on drafts, to literally teaching me things I didn’t know before, or just championing my Substack and being so lovingly enthusiastic about my work.

Everybody I know was part of this.

I hope you read and love this book. I loved making it.

Love,
Cass