Projects
A Memoir in Essays
Title TBD
“There’s a universe inside my head
of red galaxies…”
When the diagnosis changed, everything changed with it. My understanding of every event, every decision, every behavior in my life transformed. Nothing could ever be the same. And yet, my reality had not changed at all. The truth was, this was always me. It had always been this way. But this new lens would alter the course of my life. Suddenly, I was on a new path. Like the soul cat that wonders along a trail illuminated by the six of wands, I now knew where I had been, and I could finally choose where I was going.
Ten years ago, twenty years ago, I never could have imagined that healing would come in a drugged state of hallucination. Now I wish I had discovered it sooner. The day I asked my psychiatric nurse practitioner about Ketamine was the day a started a journey to rewire my brain. A journey to cure the damage that had been done when I was a young child still wearing pullups to bed.
Hope shattered my world view like a pick cracking a dark glass, crashing it to pieces, revealing a lighter view beyond. I did more than just get high on a troche, laying in a bed. I delved into the deepest recesses of my mind. I went to the bottom of the ocean. I opened chests that were locked away. I took a sledgehammer to the dam. I held the pieces of myself that were most vulnerable. I relived everything. I called out the shadows. I got lost in the void and died there. I dragged my soul to the shore of Styx and clawed my way out of the underworld, back into the light.
Then I wrote. I drew. I painted. I composed.
This is more than a memoir. It is a collection of the art created in healing. Poetry, journal entries, essays, meditations and letters about betrayal, deconstruction, trauma, literary theory, philosophy, neuroscience…and of course, the memories that hold it all together.
Available now!
How do you love when you can’t feel anything?
Rose’s identity has always been defined by what her family and Alabama society has imposed on her. When her sister’s death leaves behind two children who need a mother, can Rose forge her own path, or will depression and grief define her forever?
Lillian has been running to find something good. She doesn’t know there’s a name for the pain in her mind and the vices she can’t seem to shake. Can she break the cycle and finally find safety for her family?
Eleanor is not the same person she was. Unhealed wounds have stolen the joy she’d always expected to feel in motherhood. How can she love when she can’t feel anything?
These are the untold stories of mothers across generations. In The Weight of Gold, JS Gariety pulls back the curtain on mental health challenges and stigmas that many mothers have faced. Inspired by real stories.
Big thank you to my sponsers:
Tyler Cahoy
Lanae DHulst
Ali Hayton
Jon Hermsen
Cami Keyes
Brandy Pownell
Tara Sal
Amanda Skiles
Tammy Skiles
Marc Skylsen
Raven in the Mirror
JS Gariety’s thesis from her MFA program was a full-length novel manuscript. JS Gariety has chosen not to pursue publishing this project at this time.
When her people are threatened with complete destruction, Fey warrior Ri-en must venture into the human realm to investigate a mysterious power that could save her people—at the expense of her new human friends.
The Unseelie have resurrected an ancient monster that will doom the Seelie fey. If Ri-en is successful, the monster will be destroyed and its remains hidden in the human realm so it cannot be resurrected again. But plans change without Ri-en’s knowledge when the monster cannot be defeated.
Lennon, an MIT physicist secretly trying to prove the existence of magic with quantum physics, teams up with Ri-en to break the spell that divides the fey and human realms. Their friendship grows, and Ri-en feels acceptance among the humans like she never felt at home.
When she learns of the new plan to lure the monster alive across realms where it can devastate the human world instead of Faerie, Ri-en must decide if she can betray her people, and worst of all, if she can betray her lover and commander, Sive, who has always set the example that duty to the Seelie Court comes first.
Government spies, an anti-fey witch coven, and an ancient monster will force Ri-en to decide whether to betray her people to save the humans who have shown her unconditional love and friendship, or to sacrifice her new chosen family for her blood. No matter which side she chooses, there will be a cost.
