| THE EPISTOLARIAN |

Last year, at a moment when social media felt less social and more like weather, I found myself discussing it in a tarot reading with my friend Lieselle. I told her how hobbled I had begun to feel online, as if no matter how carefully I chose my words, someone would read them in the worst possible light. Most people understood my intent. Still, there was a steady undercurrent of criticism, particularly on Facebook, where everyone is shouting and nuance cannot compete with algorithmic outrage. I had started to second guess even the simplest statements, anticipating misinterpretation before I had finished typing. Lieselle suggested the metaphor of a lighthouse.

We like to imagine the lighthouse as a rescuer, alert and searching, sweeping the horizon for the stranded. Yet it never searches, nor does it leave its post. It remains fixed and keeps the light in order.

Lieselle shared a beautiful poem she had written:

The metaphor unsettled me in the right way. I had been censoring my voice, making small, anxious attempts to steer boats that were never mine to steer. A lighthouse offers orientation, not salvation. It does not negotiate with the sea or its pirates. It keeps its mechanism in order and lets the light do its work. What a vessel makes of that beam, whether it alters course or heads straight for the rocks, unfolds beyond the tower’s reach. Its work is singular: keep the light steady.

Of course, we needed a light house seal. When designing The Lighthouse, I modeled it after the Tourlitis Lighthouse, which rises from a narrow rock in the sea off Andros, Greece, improbable and self-contained, almost like an apparition. Water surrounds it on all sides. Stone anchors it beneath. A staircase coils around its base, exposed and precarious.

In designing the seal, I wanted both elements present: sea and rock. Guidance and danger. Illumination and consequence. The lighthouse gains meaning from the jagged edge it stands upon. I partially obscured the stairway in the design. I wanted this particular tower to feel protected, less accessible, as if the tending of its light required privacy. I softened the proportions and adjusted the windows so that it wouldn't read as a warning tower, but as a dwelling, something almost domestic. A lighthouse you could imagine inhabiting for months at a time, a house for the keeper of the flame.

A Letter From the Lighthouse

Ask yourself how you tend your own light. What rituals steady you. What habits clear the glass. What restores the flame.

Set aside a morning or afternoon for that work alone. Gather what you need. Silence what can wait. Make a proper meal. Read a few pages of a book that sharpens you. Step outside. Brew tea. Or simply sit by a garden window.

Afterward, write with the groundedness of the lighthouse keeper. Notice both the interior and the horizon. The condition of the room. The state of the weather. This letter does not rescue and does not seek rescue. It comes from someone who has tended the light and is now allowing it to do its work.

A 100th Birthday Present (in 60 years)

Just fifteen Fire Horse pennies remain. Once they are gone, they will never be remade.

I have felt a twinge of sadness today knowing I will not design another Fire Horse until the cycle returns, which, if I am still here, will be the year I turn one hundred. It is possible this is the last Fire Horse I will ever draw.

On the Heads, the horse runs forward, its mane breaking into flame, its tail lifted like a standard in wind. The composition refuses containment. It moves.

On the Tails, fire rises alone, vertical and spare. Around it, the inscription: Vitae plenus et purus. Full of life and pure.

New York City Salon

The NYC Retreat is just about a month away. Tickets will be available through March 11, provided spaces remain.

The gathering will take place Friday, March 20, and Saturday, March 21, 2026, coinciding with the spring equinox. The timing feels deliberate. We will lean into the season’s themes of renewal and floriography, considering what it means to write, create, and begin again.

I plan to host a salon in New York each spring. Even so, no two will be the same. Each will reflect its moment, its guests, and the particular light of that year.

The Novel Waitlist

What beauty and magic we will have in our hands come October.

If you would like to follow the book's progress throughout the year, and be the first to know when it is available for preorder, make sure you are on the waitlist.

To tending and radiating your unique light,

Kathryn