I wrote a book!

Well, well—this is way more nerve-wracking than I expected it to be, given that I so regularly write and expel my compost-related thoughts into the universe, but… I wrote a book. It’s available for pre-order starting today.

“Compost This Book” is a ~60-ish page primer on compost for the very, very beginner. (Something a lot of you have requested over the years I’ve been writing this Substack.) Ideally, my book will teach you how to teach yourself. It’s an intuitive, relationally-based embrace of the mechanics of decomposition versus institutionally-endorsed, memorization-based learning. Hence, why you can compost1 it when you’re finished—you won’t need it anymore! You’ll be equipped with the tools and the mindset to learn for yourself by doing.

I hope.

Ultimately, I made this book for all the people out there like me, who don’t do well with spreadsheets or on tests, and who have been typically alienated from things like “science” and “chemistry” in traditional school settings. “Compost This Book” focuses on learning through action, practice, observation, and—most importantly—making huge mistakes. Lots and lots of huge mistakes. I want people who read it to feel empowered to mess up, and I also want them to feel invited into deeper learning on their own terms.

There are so many people I want to thank from the bottom of my heart for helping make this book happen.

I want to thank my friend Larry, who generously sat down with me over hours and across weekends to teach me InDesign and help me create an initial copy of this book when it was just a silly idea and my plan was to self-print and distribute on my own. He was endlessly patient and gave so much time to the effort. It’s because of him that I was able to print a single copy at ER Copies in Echo Park and then happened to have it folded up in my back pocket when I bumped into the Apogee Graphics folks at a local bookstore. I mean that literally, by the way. I was paging through volumes of indie-press-printed poetry, looking for design inspiration, and backed directly into Apogee’s co-owner, Asha. Two days later, he invited me to Apogee’s offices to meet the team and talk about publishing “Compost This Book” for real.

I owe such an incredible debt to Asha and Krum and Connie, who really, really sought to understand what I wanted to make—and then actually went and made it happen. The hours-long phone calls, the research into materials, the curiosity and understanding around how I wanted the project to look and feel. I just feel so incredibly lucky.

I also owe an incredible debt to all my friends and readers and teachers. Everybody who engaged with me on this strange journey, who supported me, and particularly those that were willing to get down on the ground with me and teach me things. Thank you to the BuildSoil guy, who was always so generous with stupid questions from a stranger. Thanks to my friend Aaron, who was one of the first people who took me seriously as a composter and who’s spiritual relationship to the land and decay helped show me the way. Thanks to my friend Colin, who was the person who first invited me to write about compost and kind of started all of this, as a result. Before all of them, though, thanks to my Mom. She kept a gigantic compost pile in our backyard for most of my childhood and was fanatical about environmentally-responsible waste management. She inspired me and many, many others.

Anyway,

I will leave you with this big pile of mush for now. Once again, if you would like a copy of my book, you can pre-order it here. But please let it be known that, if for any reason it’s a stretch for you to pay for this, I am happy to distribute digital copies for free. Just reply to this email and let me know.

Love,

Cass