Paths Through the Year: one writer’s exploration into place, creativity and self

I'm Corinne Cunningham, a writer living in rural Maine with my husband and two teenage children on 30+ acres of fields and woodlands. My parents live on the property in a house a stone's throw away from ours. Our property holds the entire Maine experience: fields, woods, a winding river, hills, an off-grid cabin, trails to explore, and wildlife to observe. 

In 2023 I'm writing a collection of monthly essays and seasonal works that will culminate in a book titled Paths Through the Year about how the natural world and rhythms inspire and impact my creative life, what living in the woods of Maine is like, and how nature and creativity work hand in hand. If you’ve read my monthly newsletter, you’ll be familiar with the seasonality of my writing, and the themes that tug at my heart and run through my work: home, cycles, nature, and self-discovery. Paths Through the Year will be reminiscent of my previous monthly offerings, but with more depth and a more dynamic focus. 

And I’m inviting you along for the journey!

By joining a membership at any tier level through my Patreon page - Chickadee, Meadow, and King Pine - at the end of each month you’ll receive an early draft of a chapter that will end up in the book. You’ll also have access to weekly behind-the-scenes posts in the form of videos, audio recordings, photos, or quick journal/blog post-type writings about what inspires the monthly essay and my writing process. Each tier holds the same attributes but differs in price as a sliding scale model. 

I’m excited for you - the supporters - to see the inner workings of writing and publishing this book. I often wish I could see the process of a book come to life, the messy first drafts and all. There is magic in the transformation from initial inspiration to first draft to polished work. While I have a general idea of what the book will be, the true beauty of this project lies in its - and perhaps my - becoming. I’m so grateful and encouraged to have you along through this journey. 

After the year ends, I’ll take the collection of work written here and morph it into a self-published book that will be available by June 2024. Anyone who has contributed as a monthly subscription or even a one-time donation during 2023 will receive an electronic copy of the book by June 30th, 2024. Paperback copies will be available to purchase widely. And lastly, monthly contributors will be mentioned with gratitude in the book's acknowledgments.

Your contributions will serve as accountability and encouragement for me and help fund the editing and publishing part of this endeavor. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here and supporting my writing. 

This project will live over on Patreon for 2023. You can head over to my Patreon page to join a membership level and subscribe to the project. Please contact me with questions through Patreon, or submit a question here.