Soft Hearted Stories: Seeking Saviors, Cowboy Stylists, and Other Fallacies of Authoritarianism

In poetic prose, Forrester navigates leaving a life in one state and picking up in another and repeating the process through various and vast personal, social, and political landscapes. It's a personal story and it's an investigation of change and how we tend to hide away the most valuable parts of ourselves, especially, paradoxically, the parts that help us survive change, the parts that make us Soft Hearted, and we need more soft-heartedness in all times and in all places.

"It’s an actual masterpiece." Ariel Gore, author of We Were Witches, Atlas of the Human Heart, and The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show and Hexing the Patriarchy: 26 Potions, Spells, and Magical Elixirs to Embolden the Resistance

"It’s magical. The sections are beautiful- the cohesion of the whole thing- the small chapters in the small book. It’s lovely as an artifact — lovely to hold and behold. Just, so complete and delightful, inside and out, as a work of art. Courageous, inspiring and original — and what a gift. This shiny little book has brought me hours of contemplation and pleasure." Joyanna E. Priest, author of The Agency of Vulnerability

"An absolutely gorgeous, heart-wrenching book. Forrester goes deep within to uncover her own soft-heart so she can help the rest of us find ours. Written with an unflinching eye toward herself and the world around her, Soft-Hearted Stories reminds us that there is tenderness in this world, and that it's worth fighting for. This book will haunt you (in a good way) and help you remember that kindness and compassion are powerful stances. Lest you think this is a sappy book, it is not. Not one drop of sap. Just the gorgeous razor's edge of life." Laraine Herring, author of Writing Begins With the Breath

Jenny Forrester’s work is published in Seattle’s City Arts Magazine, Nailed Magazine, PomPom Lit, The Literary Kitchen, Monkey Puzzle Press, Indiana Review, Gobshite Quarterly, Portland Review, SPARK, and Columbia Journal. She’s included in the Listen to Your Mother anthology published by Putnam. She curates the Unchaste Readers Series at www.unchastereaders.com. Hawthorne Books published her memoir, Narrow River, Wide Sky.