Instructions for Traveling West is finally here!

For those who go

Today is pub day and I can’t believe I finally get to share this book with you. Instructions for Traveling West took me ten years to complete and I couldn’t have guessed what a different person I’d be by the end of it.

This is a book of transition, exodus, and arrival. For those who forsake “paradise” for wilderness. For all those who feel the rush of reinvention and lean forward—I wrote this for you, for me, for us.

In the words of Katy Maxwell:

“You must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of ruthlessness.”

This is a book of gentle ruthlessness. A map of all the unknown places yet to be uncovered. A lantern in the strange and bellowing dark.

“Instructions for Traveling West is remarkable for how it captures this moment, the essence of this weird middle time—and for how thrilling it is to read someone who is noticing, who is saying despite every terrible thing, ‘This place is great, I want to be here, what a thing to be alive.’ Joy Sullivan will make you want to live the way that Mary Oliver makes you want to live. You read this to remember.”—Holly Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of Quit Like a Woman