Grade 8 yearbook. Three options: author, lawyer, or CSI.
I always knew one of them would stick.
I just didn’t know the book I’d publish first would be the one I never planned to write. The one that came from things I lived through, not things I imagined. Second Chances wasn’t the story I pictured when I was 13 writing in the margins, but it was the one that needed to exist.
And now there are more.
My work lives in the space most people don’t talk about out loud. The love that saved you and the kind that didn’t. The versions of yourself you had to leave behind. The slow, quiet process of becoming someone you actually recognize again.
I write poetry and prose. Some of it is dark. Some of it is the kind of honest that makes people uncomfortable. All of it is true.
Second Chances
My first published book — poetry that moves through all of it. The relationships that broke you, the moments you almost didn’t make it, and the love, for others and eventually for yourself, that kept you going anyway.
It’s not just dark. It’s the whole arc. The fall and the fight and the quiet decision to not give up. Being relaunched under Raven Publishing, the version coming is leaner, sharper, and closer to what it was always meant to be.
Coming soon — Raven Publishing
From Grey To Blue
Second Chances ended where survival did. GTB started the morning I woke up and realized I wasn’t living. I was still fighting a past that was already over. Still carrying habits that got me through, but didn’t need to come with me anymore.
It pulls from the poetry of Second Chances and expands it — into full stories, real pages, the unwritten parts. The anxiety work. The panic attacks and finally asking why instead of just accepting them. Traveling again. Slowly putting down the version of myself I’d built to survive and starting to move toward the person I was actually meant to be.
Second Chances was the poetry. GTB is everything that came after it.
Coming soon under Raven Publishing.
O.L.S
There’s another book. It’s been written for years. It’s waiting for the right moment. It’ll find its way out when it’s ready.
She could arrive before GTB but patiently waiting her turn
Raven Publishing
The home for everything I write. Independent. Intentional. Built from scratch.
For rights, press, or publishing inquiries: ravenpublishing91@gmail.com
Follow the writing: @jsaunders.co
THOS 