How The House as Witness Came to Life

When I first began writing the poems that would become The House as Witness, I did not know I was building a book. I thought I was simply paying attention to the place where my life unfolds. The house had become a quiet partner in my days, a structure that absorbed every season of motherhood, every shift in routine, every joy and every sorrow. I began to realize that the house was not only where my life happened, but also a presence with its own memory. It seemed to listen. It seemed to collect what I could not hold alone.

The early poems grew out of small moments. The way light fell through a stairwell. The vibration of children’s voices through heating vents. The soft weight of my mother’s breath on the other side of a thin door. These were moments that had texture and quiet power, and I wrote them down before I knew what they were becoming. Over time, patterns started to form. The poems circled the same questions. What does a home carry. How do walls hold grief. How do rooms remember us when we are not paying attention.

I wrote into those questions slowly. I let the house guide me. It became a map of memory, a container for everything that does not always speak but still shapes us. Only after many months of writing did I step back and see the beginnings of a chapbook. A structure had formed on its own. Foundations. Rooms of becoming. The apartment that held my mother. The seasons that passed in the yard and across the roof. The long arc of inheritance. The poems were speaking to one another even before I realized it.

Once the collection had a clear shape, I spent time arranging it, listening for the movement from one section to the next. I wanted the book to feel like walking through a house. Each poem was a doorway, and each doorway revealed another part of a life. Some rooms were tender. Some were heavy. Some were filled with the noise of children or the quiet of illness. I tried to honor all of it. The celebrations. The daily work of care. The parts of family life that feel almost invisible until you look closely.

When the manuscript felt whole, I decided to enter the Spring 2026 Chapbook Competition with Quillkeepers Press. I had admired their work for a long time. They value intimate storytelling and careful craft. They champion writers who pay attention to the world in specific and meaningful ways. It felt like the right place to send this collection, even if I had no expectation beyond simply sharing it. As writers, we spend so much time creating in silence that submitting anything at all can feel like an act of courage.

The waiting period after I sent the manuscript was its own small lesson in trust. I reminded myself that the work was already complete regardless of the outcome. But when the acceptance letter arrived, I read it more than once before the news fully settled. Learning that The House as Witness had been chosen as a Spring 2026 Chapbook Competition Winner was a moment I will carry for a long time. Not only because of the opportunity to work with a thoughtful press, but because the book had grown from such a personal and domestic space. To have that work seen felt like a quiet affirmation that stories grounded in home and family have weight and meaning.

Since then, I have been reflecting on how a project that began in silence now has a place in the world. Writing is often solitary, but publishing creates connection. It allows something that once lived only in my hands to reach others. I hope readers find pieces of their own homes in these poems. I hope the collection encourages people to notice the rooms that have shaped them, the windows that held their seasons, and the walls that have listened without judgment.

As I move forward with edits, design, and all the richness of the publication process, I feel grateful. Grateful for the house that inspired the work. Grateful for the practice of writing that helps me understand myself and the world around me. Grateful for the team at Quillkeepers Press who believed in this project. And grateful for every reader who makes space for poetry in their lives.

The journey of this chapbook has reminded me that quiet stories can be powerful. Homes hold more than furniture and light. They hold our history. They hold our transformations. They hold the echoes of who we have been and who we are becoming.

I cannot wait to share this book with you.