Little by Little by Ann marie Houghtailing is now available as a paperback and a PDF (you can order multiple copies at a discount here). Little by Little explores the universality of human suffering and how we find our way to meaning and purpose.
yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/little-by-little-release-ann-marie-houghtailing
Houghtailing is a visual artist and cofounder of the firm Story Imprinting. She delivered a TEDx Talk entitled Raising Humans and performed her critically acclaimed one woman show, Renegade Princess, in New York, Chicago, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and San Diego. “Little by little” is the phrase that Houghtailing’s mother used to say when things were hard. Things were almost always hard. Houghtailing grew up in a culture of poverty and witnessed violence, struggle, and wild resilience every day. What she did not realize was that her mother’s phrase would become a life affirming strategy. It was a map that took her back to herself when life took so much from her.
From 2019–2020, four members of Houghtailing’s family died in rapid succession, including her mother. Their deaths were an extension of historic and epigenetic trauma that would require her to sit inside of suffering and paint, write, and garden her way through to transformation. Little by Little delves into how Houghtailing was able to find meaning in the suffering by examining the beauty of life itself. Every day we experience loss. The loss of innocence, youth, relationships, jobs, money, confidence, power, life, and hope are in constant play. Learning to sit inside of deep suffering can be intellectually, emotionally, and physically demanding territory that invites us to examine who we are and what we are made of. Little by Little is a way to see, a way to suffer, and ultimately, a way to live.
The cover and interior art were created by Houghtailing. According to her, “All my work is filled with color, which is very much rooted in my mom’s background from Hawai’i. . . . Color is joyful. It’s life affirming. The cross-section of painting and writing [are] the ways in which the intersection of life and death [come] together for me. The cover art is a collage piece of a woman with a typewriter on her head. It came from the same period as the poems, so it felt very right to pair these together.”
Learn more about Houghtailing in a conversation between the author and Melissa Nunez, Yellow Arrow interviewer.
yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/where-we-are-interview-ann-marie-houghtailing
Order your copy of Little by Little from Yellow Arrow Publishing at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/little-by-little-paperback and find out more about Houghtailing and her work at her website annmariehoughtailing.com and on Instagram @trailsnotpaths and Facebook @annmariehoughtailing Connect with Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram to share some love for this chapbook.
Thank you for supporting independent publishing.