New book! Little Detours and Spiritual Adventures

The most important place to land as a writer isn’t on the New York Times bestseller list.

The most important place for a book to land is on your nightstand.

I hope you make room for my new one, Little Detours and Spiritual Adventures: Inspiration for Times When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned.

People are hungry for hope, for inspiration, for clarity to take the next right step especially when the road ahead is unclear. We all face detours -- a diagnosis, a divorce, the death of someone we love, plus every day we’re bombarded by news of war, poverty and political division. It feels endless.

My favorite poet, Ohio native Mary Oliver, once wrote this tiny poem packed with power:

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

All those sorrows, all that darkness, all those detours, they could be the best parts of our lives, once they’re in the rearview mirror.

But are they gifts? In time they are. Especially when you share them with others to bless their lives and ease their burdens.

I wrote Little Detours and Spiritual Adventures to help you find the awe in the awful, the mystery in the mistakes and the magic in the mess of it all.

It’s a book full of light for dark times.

We’ve all been wounded by life. Some of us bear physical scars the world can see, some of us keep our scars private. There are so many survivors among us, people recovering from cancer and addiction, depression and despair, loss and loneliness. At any given moment, we’re all going through our own version of awful.

Or maybe you’re just feeling lost and alone or stuck on a life detour you didn’t see coming.

I hope my new book helps turn them all into spiritual adventures.

A few chapters are about my journey with my mom, who had Alzheimer’s. I was blessed to get to know her better those last three years, to nurture her in every visit and to heal our relationship before she died.

I also wrote about my sister’s husband, Tom, who was paralyzed in a fall. He had slipped in a hotel shower, broke his neck and ended up a quadriplegic. But he never lost his faith or his gratitude for life. He savored every baseball game on TV, every phone call with his brothers, every tender moment with his wife.  

I got to visit him weekly, be his advocate at the nursing home and help edit his last book of poetry.

My book also includes stories of those who have faced greater detours than I have, people like Sophie Sureau, who was injured in a terrorist attack. Jon Sedor, a young artist who lost his hand in an accident and now paints huge murals. Katie Spotz, who rowed alone across the ocean at 19. Brave people who give you hope to jumpstart your life.

Other chapters offer tips, tools and take aways on how to be brave, how to always find something to celebrate and how to live the hell out of today, because today is all we really have.    

You’ll also find inspiration to go after what you love in life, find the magic in the mess and be prepared for anything so you can enjoy everything.

This is my fourth book and first one published by Gray & Company in Cleveland. When I learned the big publishers might take up to two years to get this book to print, David Gray said, “I can get it out in three months.” Boom!  It’s already for sale on ReginaBrett.Book.com and Amazon.com.

People are already asking, What’s your favorite chapter? That’s like asking my mom, “Which child is your favorite out of all 11?”

The first chapter feels like the most powerful: Life gave you a winning lottery ticket. Play it.

We’ve all been given a lottery ticket in life; we just need to play it. At first glance, a life lottery ticket looks like a losing ticket. But that shame or wound, that diagnosis or detour we want to wish or pray away could be the greatest gift we’ve been given, and is, once we share it with the world.

And the world sure could use every gift you’ve been given.