LOST THINGS (paperback)

Lauren Theresa is a queer divergent writer, plant witch, and Archetypal Psychotherapist living in a NYC-ish corner of NJ with her tiny family and menagerie of plants. She holds a BA in Art Therapy and MA in Social Work from NYU, and is formally trained in Dream Tending, Shadow Work, EMDR, and Western Herbalism. She’s currently working as a nurturing-their-inner-weird full-time Mom, and Poetry Editor for Olney Magazine. She’s happiest listening to tiny giggles, whispering with her plant friends, and inking moonlit pages in the dusk-dawn-nothingness.

"In a microburst micro-memoir, segmented like a snake’s spine, sliding backward through time, Lauren Theresa voices and thereby repossesses the lost things of her own life, from English muffin pizzas to addiction, from Flintstone vitamins to lost loves. Like a blowtorch formed from hairspray and a lighter, she burns through the bullshit and gets to the heart of who she is, reclaiming her own essential radiance." 

— Diane Seuss, author of “frank: sonnets”

"Lauren Theresa's 'Lost Things' is an homage to both the past self that eventually becomes you, and those other selves that we let go along the way. Lauren pulls slices of life out of linear time and describes them in such visceral detail that you find yourself there, dancing or running or just cheering her on as she describes both herself and all of us. She writes, 'I was everybody, and everything that was exploding within me was shoved to the back corner of my mind...' This intertwining of the authorial voice and the relatable nature of the content carries us along in support of her emergence from that corner and the power she finds herself possessing in adulthood. Playful in places, evocative and challenging, 'Lost Things' will remind you of where you've been, where you are, and celebrate that you'll carry the hard-won lessons you've learned with you, as Lauren Theresa carries herself." 

— Arden Hunter, EIC, Cutbow Quarterly 

"'Lost Things' by Lauren Theresa tumbles backwards in time—flashes of memory in crystalline prose are strung like rosary beads, lovingly considered. Her unflinching lyricism invites us to participate in this prayer that conveys the joys and sorrows, the new addictions and new loves, the faiths and betrayals that form her experience. By guiding us in reverse, she inverts traditional chronicity and bypasses normative Christian eschatology. In this looking to the past for traces of the future, each memory becomes a prodigal opportunity to (re)discover love. This opens space for a kind of queer grace: one outside of time that forgives past selves and their decisions; one that converts loss from catastrophe to hope. In this way, 'Lost Things' truly works miracles." 

— Adrian Dallas Frandle, poet