Words, tools,
& resources for being
with heartbreak

North Atlantic Books, above all else, seeks to make books that heal. The sense of healing that we move to embody stretches beyond the word’s one etymology—to return a body or being to health—to its other, older root: to make whole.

 

At NAB, we recognize that amid heartbreak—even especially so—our wholeness is maintained. And in times of unfathomable horror and loss, when we allow our hearts to break open over and over again, we’re called to root ourselves in a vision of humanity and justice that moves, always, toward collective liberation.

 

We believe strongly in the words of author Rev. angel Kyodo williams, which have been shared far and wide during these times, and indeed in many others when they’re needed:

 

Your liberation is on the line.

 

Your liberation is bound up in mine.

 

No one who has ever touched liberation could possibly want anything other than liberation for everyone.

 

As a publisher, we’ve asked ourselves many times: right now, what is our role? What is the power or point of our voice in meeting this moment, knowing that words—the thing we do—will never be enough? To meet this moment asks of us both the impossible and the uncomfortable: to hold what can’t be held, to reckon with what can’t be reckoned with, to keep moving forward—and to do so in radical care toward a decolonial future that lives and breathes that truth we hold close: all liberation is interdependent.

 

With the support and gracious blessing of NAB authors, we’ve assembled an array of resources from (and beyond) our books to help us be in these times. We offer them not to be prescriptive, but with the wish that one or more will speak to you. Some are for grounding; others are for energizing. Some will invite you to drop into the deep wisdom of your body; others are offered to welcome to the fore whatever might be fighting inside you. And others, we hope, will simply hold you, as you are, in this moment.

 

We’ll continue to add words and tools over the coming weeks. We at NAB often turn to our beloved community of writers and creators: they offer words to tend, practices to soften, roots to strengthen. May these excerpts and offerings hold you in love and care, hope and justice, as you trudge your own road toward an uncertain, but always possible, future.