Publications

Moments

By Agnes Bourne, 2020 | Contributed Poem “I Sit, I Wait,” By Laura E. Garrard

“Moments is a Commonplace Book dedicated and intended to provide time out for rejuvenation and play with images and phrases that delight. It is meant to satisfy the sudden need to take a moment off from the task or duty that might be feeling burdensome. Blank pages are provided for additions to be made by hand, transforming this collection into a personal Commonplace Book. Just take a moment with images and sayings that have come from other people who took the time to capture an everyday revelation or discovery. Add your own favorite phrases and drawings.

Like the Commons in England that were pastures for grazing the cows and sheep of the town’s residents, the printed Commons provides nourishment for the imagination and entertainment for anyone who might open to a random page. Instant refreshment.”

Quoted from author Agnes Bourne’s Website, www.AgnesBourneBooks.com.

Potpourri: Poetry . Prose . Pictures

By Agnes Bourne and Laura E. Garrard, 2023

Potpourri: Poetry, Prose, and Pictures is a high-quality inspirational gift, art, and creative writing compilation that compels readers to co-create with the imaginations of its notable 22 contributors, which include award-winning artists, renowned interior designer Agnes Bourne, and featured poet Laura E. Garrard. This book follows Bourne’s sold-out first compilation through Commonplace Group, Moments. In an electronic, fast-paced society, readers crave an organic, contemplative experience that connects them to nature, clear thought, and their emotions, and inspires their individual and collaborative creativity.

This 200-page book captures attention through its stunning design, showcasing over 80 four-color photographs and fine artwork alongside its over 90 Haiku, contemporary free-verse, and prose poems; short essays; and short stories. These are organized into themed chapters—such as Kindness, Authenticity, Beauty, and Optimism—and touch on the modern realities we face in order to extrapolate the nature within us, humility, love, art, relationship, and the selves we want to share.

Handsome hardcover spiral-bound and sewn-cloth formats (10W×8H) allow readers to open the book flat while designated “How Might We” blank pages encourage them to record their responses and images. Bright white, matte-coated paper and vibrant printing provide a table favorite and shelf keepsake. With every fresh read, its contents cleanse the mind and celebrate universal enthusiasm for a life worth honoring.

To inquire about obtaining or selling copies, contact contributor Laura E. Garrard.

Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death

By Laura E. Garrard

Forthcoming March 2026 from Finishing Line Press, a poetry chapbook about the trauma of cancer diagnosis, grief, self-advocacy and recovery – a book about nature- and art-inspired healing. Presales begin Nov. 24!

Laura E. Garrard received a call that many of us fear. She thought she was a healthy person with an injury, and instead she harbored a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma. In her poetry chapbook, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, Garrard’s lyricism and vivid narratives illuminate living in the “narrow exception of movement” during a time of acute uncertainty. Readers journey with the author and her body through grief, surrender and recovery to plant their hands in earth, swim with dolphins, and run with the salmon. Garrard’s free-spoken style and vulnerable honesty invite readers into her desperation, determination, entreaty and joy. She asks, “What is a human without honor?” Her poignant observations demonstrate how we live and die, simultaneously, and that the present moment is the sweet spot of survival. Garrard’s poetry asks us to destigmatize death and disease in a culture that reveres youth and health, so that we all may live fully. As cancer permeates our communities like never before, this collection is a gift of renewal.

“In her chapbook poetry collection, Paddling the Sweet Spot Between Life and Death, the first line of Laura E. Garrard’s poem, “Humbled,” reads I am cleaved by lightning. Garrard navigates a world of illness, the inherent fears of death that are overcome by an instinct for survival, the gripping complexities within the process of healing. The experiences of these poems by Laura E. Garrard reveal that for every corridor of grief there are as many rooms of sustaining light, and that is very human, that’s being much alive.”

—Gary Copeland Lilley, poet and author of Raven on the Moaners’ Bench and The Bushman’s Medicine Show

For more information, visit my dedicated author website, LauraEGarrard.com.