After 10 years, my shop is closing.

50% off all prints as a thanks and farewell :)

IN SUMMARY | 50% off all poetry prints ending July 14 | Last chance to purchase prints!

Auden and I outside my old family home.

Time is strange. Transitions, too.

Yesterday I was Up North with my family. We stayed in an Airbnb in my hometown—no one in my family lives there anymore. It was my first time staying out there since my parents moved away a decade ago. Strange how much changes. Stranger still what stays the same.

I decided to drive Auden past the home I grew up in. As we pulled up I saw it was, what are the chances, for sale. We took the winding driveway down through the woods. A deer ran through the trees below. It was startling, how quickly and completely my body felt I was home. Like I could just walk in and cook a meal and no one would bat an eye.

Time, as I see it, is an accordion. So much space between the Then and the Now… but then it gets all pinched together, like the Then was just this morning. This is one of those pinched-together days.

Ten years ago, I had just met Alex, my parents were just moving out of our family home, and I was just starting what would accidentally become my business. I had started posting my handwritten poetry artwork to social media, and friends were asking to purchase it. I started an Etsy shop. Shortly thereafter, the lovely, generous Brené Brown shared my art to her page. With that came a sudden influx of followers—many who also began requesting poems. One thing tumbled into another, and before I knew it I was running a little business making prints of my poetry and writing custom poems for strangers around the world. It has been a dream.

Ten years later, I’ve heard my poems become (award-winning) songs. I’ve published essays on Autistic Poetics in an academic journal. I’ve written for friends and strangers, organizations and short films. I wasn’t trying to write a resume. I was just… writing. But ten years later, it almost looks something like a career. To all of you who gave me a chance to build this thing: Thank you.

The End of an Era (and the middle of a sale)

All this said, and with all gratitude, I will be closing my shop permanently (at least as far as I can see) at the end of this month.

If you missed my last post, I’ve been accepted into the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the University of Guelph in Ontario. My family and I are moving out there next month, and with this (huge) transition comes a need to pivot toward what’s to come. My last ten years as a working poet have led me here, and I am looking ahead now to meaningful work as an educator, to research and advocacy, to explorations of autistic poetics and ecological ethics, and to further learning and embracing poetry as a language of its own.

As I wrap things up here, I’ve got y’all set up with 50% off all poetry prints—the discount applies automatically at checkout. This week is your last chance to purchase prints, period (ends July 14 at 11:59pm EDT). For the second half of the month I’ll be fulfilling your orders. Then, at the top of August, I’ll transition to my new website. The only thing from my current shop that I will continue to offer there are custom poems (digital delivery only).

I’m not done writing, so do stick around. I’ll be sharing poems and essays to this space. I hope that this transition will allow me to be more active, not less, and that the writing that comes of this time will make you glad you hung around. In the meantime, every one of you, thanks so much for being here. And for these many years.

With gratitude,
torri