great callings

by Stephanie Fonseca   From Stephanie Fonseca — writer, poet, and self-described hopeless romantic who uses her own feelings and experiences as her guide, and who views optimism as a practice: "Despite the bad days I encounter, I choose to view life with optimism." "Anticipate Good Things Coming" is her second poetry collection. Her first collection began in heartbreak  — situationships, self-sabotage, temporary people, the specific grief of caring for someone who couldn't meet you there. This one is what comes after: the side of the story where you've done the work, survived the ending, and are learning to trust that something better is already on its way. Not naively. Not without remembering how the last one felt. But with the hard-earned, eyes-open optimism of someone who has chosen, deliberately, to keep hoping anyway. The voice moves between short lyric poems and "Little Miss" vignettes  — punchy, recognizable, shareable third-person portraits of the patterns hopeless romantics know from the inside: chasing, staying too long, hoping someone changes their mind, hurting your own feelings and blaming someone else. Self-awareness is part of the warmth. Fonseca doesn't write from a position of having it all figured out. She writes from the position of someone who sees herself clearly and is still choosing to believe in good things coming. Across 144 pages the book moves through self-love, romantic hope, the friendships and connections that hold you between love stories, and the particular season of life when you are no longer in crisis but not yet arrived — waiting, growing, trusting the timing. The cover, with its embossed gold foil, butterflies, and florals, announces the register before the first page: this is a book that believes in beauty. One reader's testimony: she first read Fonseca during heartbreak. She read "Anticipate Good Things Coming" with her now-boyfriend. "This book felt perfectly fit for this moment in my life." Perfect for readers who: -Finished Fonseca's debut, An Ending Is A New Beginning, and are ready for what comes next — this is the answer to that book -Are on the other side of heartbreak: past the acute grief, in the season of rebuilding optimism and learning to want love again without fear -Identify as hopeless romantics, chronic overthinkers, or people who care deeply and are sometimes too aware of it -Want a poetry collection that is short, readable, and emotionally precise — relatable without being shallow, hopeful without being saccharine -Are looking for a gift with genuine visual beauty and an unambiguously warm emotional register