becoming amber -
becoming amber -
I want you to meet my first book, Becoming Amber, which I have been working on since 2018. This is a poetry collection that traces the path through burnout and the grief that followed, toward solace in the healing rhythms of nature and its glimmers. It is a journey of healing and learning, while learning to embrace the beauty of the unpredictable.
The first poem I wrote, for this collection, was on the A82 in the Scottish Highlands, as I got close to Glen Coe, which inspired the cover. It felt as if the words were whispered to me by the wind, and I could do nothing more than to obey, by writing them down on the back of a receipt I had in my satchel. This was the drop, that became a stream, and then a flood. It became a practice that held solace, it has been my companion ever since.
The title came to me while I was thinking of our journey in life, from small beings into grown ones. As we grow from resin slowly and steadily become amber, we have the power to mould and shape ourselves. With this came the realisation that I didn’t need to be anything more than I already was, because I was already someone whole. We are always on the way, even though it doesn’t always feel like it. Even when steps are leading us backwards, we are still growing. We are still becoming.
The publication date for the Paperback + eBook is October 6th.
To read about the journey of my book, head over to my Substack.
Find my book on Goodreads here.
What People Are Saying
“Becoming Amber is a book to be read slowly, the way its poems arrived - on buses, in queues, in the quiet gaps of ordinary days. Nadja writes the long, unglamorous middle of healing with such honesty and grace. A generous companion for anyone learning that they're allowed to still be becoming. A gentle, wise collection.”
— Sarah Philp, Psychologist & coach“An extraordinarily honest collection of poems that captures how it feels to burn out, to lose ourselves in anxiety and to become invisible even to ourselves. Reading Nadja's words I felt a real sense of recognition, and relief, that here was someone who understood intimately what it's like to fall out of your own story and how it's words that can offer us the hope and possibility that that's not a forever place to be.”
— Claire Fitzsimmons, Author, podcaster & writer“Each poem was like a balm, bringing different parts of me to the surface, with so many of the words feeling like they were expressing my own feelings. I adored the story that the poetry told. A beautiful book I am so grateful to have read.”
— Lauren Barber, Writer, Creative & Soulful Business Mentor