Meet The Author: A. H. Spadafora

Greetings new readers!

Being that this is my first post, I feel like this is the place to introduce myself. I may elaborate on this in future posts and other writings, but just to give you a general idea: I am a New York native, but I have lived in the Atlanta area since childhood—long enough to claim it as home. I am a queer, animal-loving introvert currently trying to cobble together a living as a writer, freelancer, and gig worker.

A lot of what I have been doing for the last two years has consisted of pet-sitting, professional writing, gig working, odd job fulfillment, and assisting in creative, analytic and planning tasks, while trying to get my personal writing/content creation goals completed and tossing my resume out for something more full time and consistent. Prior to this, I worked in teaching, non-profit assistance, corporate market research, and a variety of service sector jobs over the years.

One of the major tasks I’ve been tackling lately is this—trying to build my “author brand”, even though marketing doesn’t come naturally to me and feels a tad gimmicky at times. I am having more fun with it than expected, however, especially with being able to design my website, merchandise, book trailers, and other creative aspects of the process. I’ve loved writing forever, and as a child, I thought when I grew up, I would have so many books published by this age. I clearly underestimated the busy and difficult nature of life, however, but I am grateful to have had more time recently to devote to my favorite kind of work: that which gives life purpose.

So even though I’m very busy, in a very chaotic, fifty-rings going to fifty-different hats kinda-way, I am trying to begin the journey of finishing and publishing the near-dozen manuscripts that I have started to write over the last decade or so. I recently published Eightfold: Zen Poetry for Blindly Clasping Beings, and my goal is to follow it with many upcoming books. While the copyright technically falls into 2024 for initial publication, I'm announcing it nearly halfway through 2025 following multiple proof copy revisions, as I realized post publication that it was not quite the polished finish product I wanted to announce and showcase to the world. While I still have some anxiety over stylistic choices I've made (does this poem require commas, a period, here or there?), I realize I could debate punctuation and line flow until I'm blue in the face, and at some point you just have to dive. Eightfold was not my first book, but it is the first book that feels full length—not just a chapbook—and a product of my older, seasoned, and more skilled self.

As to my former books, the main prior work I put out that commemorates for posterity a record of my trajectory, is Moments of Peace. Last summer, I republished this earlier poetry e-book as a paperback edition. It was a loosely-spiritual collection of poems that I wrote when I was newly out of undergrad, and republishing such helped me get my head in the game for the task of assembling the array of secular-Zen themed poems that I’d been writing on and off for years into Eightfold.

The goal release date for my next book is ideally sometime in 2026, or latest 2027. It’s tentatively (probably officially) titled, How to Fail at Buddhism: A Cynic’s Guide to Navigating the Universe’s Bullshit. While my poetry tends to be more somber, and other works on the backlist likewise have a more serious bent, How to Fail at Buddhism is meant to be funny, and is a tad more down to earth—a no-nonsense account of my Zen, as I interpret and apply the path to life.

Behind that work, I have a more serious, heartfelt memoir-type book, tentatively titled Buddhist-ish. This focuses on my personal life journey and was originally integrated into How to Fail at Buddhism—until in the early review process, I realized I was approaching separate chapters with entirely different tones, and split it apart. (To be totally transparent, I have been debating how much I might want to adapt this back into HTFAB, or reserve some of the content to share here, on the blog, versus leaving them as separate artistic works, but as of right now, it's in the book category.)

I do find my tone divergence significant, however. In re-reading, I have realized that the split between these writings represents two sides of myself that arise and fall in waves: the sentimental and the comedic. I either take things super seriously, and care so much it hurts, or I make constant jokes to try to stave off the darkness. There is, alas, no seeming in-between, and instead of fighting either bit of myself, it seems easier to embrace the polarization and just express it in separate works.

The consistent parts I bring out in all my writing, however, tie back to this: No person is just one thing—we are all multifaceted, complex, and layered. This may make my disparate writings sometimes seem disjunctive, but my difficulty sticking to one voice connects to the fact that I am influenced by and hear the world around us in many different voices. Further, no one is perfect, and it is our struggles, not our pretense to be flawless, which make us human. This might not be as seductive as the many cult leaders out there telling their followers they know the solution to all the problems of the world, and that following them will lead to everlasting happiness, but it is real.

Moving from the real to the unreal, however, beyond these ‘probably done in the next 2 years’ serious non-fiction works, I have been slowly crafting an alternate reality via a fantasy/science fiction novel series for the better part of the last decade (tentative titles for the first two books in the series being The Experience Machine and The Academy of the Divine Garden.) This likewise was originally going to be one novel to start, but due to an intense amount of world-building that I can’t seem to stop adding to, has expanded out to likely be a trilogy or even a five-part series (to be determined!) I don’t want to spoil too much, but the story moves from a utopian island of magic to a high-tech dystopian mainland to outerlands that serve as an underground resistance. It also traces a family across generations who exist and move through these disparate settings, while trying to unravel mysteries connected to grief and power, as well as to stand against webs of injustice spun by a historical legacy of cover-ups and control that go beyond the family themselves to the founding of their societies.

Past all of this, I have an array of slightly started non-fiction works sitting on my computer. These feature initial research completed on musicians who use theatrics/spectacle in performance, the connection between work and purpose (previously dubbed "The Meaningful Work Project" in initial participant interviews), anthropological takes on suffering, visual anthropology assessments of performance and power, and feminist critical theory. I hope that eventually a few of these will grow into finished books—even as I am sure some will fall off the wayside or be incorporated into other shorter works. In particular, I think the writing on music performance as well as on work and purpose have the greatest hope of taking front and center—if I ever get done with the books I’m currently invested in. The future is unpredictable, however, and I do already feel like I’m being quite ambitious with the non-fiction works on Zen and the novel series, so I’m telling my attention span, as firmly as I can, that I need to put one foot in front of the next before I run to the next list of things.

Relevant to this, I wish I could say even book one of the novel series or these backburner books were going to be published soon, but as I cannot give every waking hour to writing in between wearing multiple hats for gig work, non-fiction book writing, author marketing, and full-time job seeking (not to mention, between dealing with some health conditions), I honestly am not sure an exact timeline. I can say, however, that I aim to keep readers subscribed to this blog updated on the journey!

Before this initial introduction gets too long, I will save additional content on my connections to writing, Zen, and related topics for future posts. Thank you again for joining my subscriber list, reading my books, and supporting my journey to becoming the full-fledged writer I aspire to be!

In peace,

A. H. Spadafora

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A. H. Spadafora is an author, freelancer, animal lover, and booknerd who lives in the Atlanta area with underused degrees and borrowed cats. She is currently working on multiple manuscripts and juggling gig work while seeking out the right full-time opportunity. With a strong background in the social sciences and humanities, she is particularly enthusiastic about research, creativity, and balancing career with personal well-being. ​Writing has remained the one constant throughout her journey—a passion that has shaped life alongside the search for survival, purpose, and the chance to do good in the world. ​

Eightfold: Zen Poetry for Blindly Clasping Beings is her second book of poetry published. Prior published works include her debut poetry collection, Moments of Peace (2013).​ Her affinity for Buddhism is evident in both of these collections, and likewise shines in her upcoming non-fiction, fantasy, and science fiction works-in-progress. 

Zen Chaos Writing is A. H. Spadafora's publication trade name.