Constance Brewer

Astronomy Lessons – New Poetry Book

Constance November 18, 2025 November 18, 2025 Writing

My new poetry book is finally here! Introducing Astronomy Lessons, a book of poems exploring the relationships between myth, science, and creating meaning from the night sky.

Praise for Astronomy Lessons

Ever dreamed of becoming a constellation? It may not be what you imagine. In this collection, Constance Brewer takes on multiple personas, modern and mythological, all attempting to wrestle with “things (they) don’t understand—/ cosmology, evolution, personal relationships” through metaphors and motifs of astronomy. Using cosmic imagery and lyrical storytelling these poems take us through the trajectory of growing up, growing older, finding and losing love, and looking for it again, all against the backdrop of a cosmos that is comparatively vast and yet familiar. Though this collection seeks for wisdom, it often leaves us with the mystery of unanswerable questions, like “what should we think about before we drink from the river Lethe” and “what is love but a failed picture of the moon?”

—Tresha Faye Haefner, author of When the Moon Had Antlers (Pine Row Press, 2023, Finalist for the Glass Lyre Poetry Prize) and Founder of The Poetry Salon

Constance Brewer’s Astronomy Lessons scatters poems across the night sky of an emotional landscape we all know: love. Whether love’s objects are lovers, parents, children, or earth itself, these poems orbit around that which pulls us to reach farther, hold tighter, look deeper. The physics of love are everywhere. Brewer writes, It’s the passage of filament from one person / to another where theory goes astray….leaving us unable to explain the one thing / that would help us explain everything. Yet these poems somehow contain everything we might feel as we gaze upward, when we’re waiting / for science, having long given up on gods. That’s when we understand we are all made of star dust.

—Kathleen Cassen Mickelson, co-founding editor of Gyroscope Review, and co-author of Prayer Gardening.

Excerpt from Astronomy Lessons

Click HERE for PDF Excerpt

Astronomy Lessons is available on Amazon as a paperback and as a Kindle ebook

Copies are also available from the author.

On writing Astronomy Lessons

Myth and science both seek to explain the world. Myth is not failed science; it is the engine that drives the What If of a curious mind. What haunts the intersection of science and mythology? That’s what we’d love to discover. Just because the stars are impossibly far away doesn’t mean they don’t have stories to tell. Astronomy Lessons looks to the stars to help explain what it means to be human. We create meaning out of the night sky—part truth, part fiction, and common to us all. Poetry is a search for our own creation myth, and the ritual of examining the night sky is the path to discovering the mythic being inside us all. —Constance Brewer

Other Poetry Books by Constance Brewer

Prayer Gardening available on Amazon or from Kelsay Books. Also available from the Author.

Video excerpts of Prayer Gardening are available on the website.

Prayer Gardening was co-authored with poet Kathleen Cassen Mickelson. We’ve worked together for years, first as co-founders of Gyroscope Review poetry magazine, then exchanging poems for critiques. Our work covered similar interests and themes, and this collection grew organically out of our poetic conversations. Prayer Gardening speaks of the way we connect to each other, nature, and the world around us. It takes a deep dive into what makes us human, and how we forge relationships. The chapbook alternates between two voices that explore connections and discover our similarities more than our differences.

Piccola Poesie - poems by Constance Brewer

Piccola Poesie is available on Amazon at a special price for a limited time.

Piccola Poesie PDF excerpt

Piccola Poesie contains a variety of Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, and American Sentences that explore human relationships with nature, with other people, and with inanimate objects. The poems wheel through the seasons, dropping observations and commentary on life. In these short, easily digestible poems, the reader can find answers to questions like, What’s up with cats, anyhow? and why winter causes the poet to rush outside to witness the season. Like macarons, the reader can enjoy these poems as a day-by-day treat, or gobble them down by the handful. 100 small bite poems for a fast-moving world.

The Day the iWatch Died

Constance July 19, 2025 July 19, 2025 Essay

It didn’t really die, although it’s power was kaput. I set it on the recharger last night, and after an hour picked it up and put it on. Went to bed, and woke up to my phone alarm, instead of my watch alarm. My phone alarm is loud and obnoxious, my iWatch alarm is polite and chirpy. So, I checked it. As I looked, its low batter light flickered and went out. Dead, dead as fried chicken. I went to put it back on the charger and discovered the little plug that goes into the block had pulled out. No juice, no watch. I fixed it, put the watch on to charge, and went to breakfast.

Oops

Halfway to yoga class I noticed I’d forgotten to take the watch off the charger and strap it on. Since I wear it all the time, except when charging, I felt a bit naked. And peeved I forgot. I did have my phone with me, but now I wouldn’t be able to record my workout, couldn’t get a preview of messages and emails, and worst of all, couldn’t get live blood sugar readings to track.

I griped about not having my workout recorded and ruining my perfect week. Then I realized—when had I become so dependent on outside validation? Wasn’t the fact I went to yoga and had a workout good enough? Internal validation used to be the norm. Why am I looking to an inanimate object to tell me I did good? Has my brain’s dopamine reward system restructured itself to behaviors necessary to survival include watches, phones, computers, and Grammarly?

These things are giving me feelings of “pleasure and motivation” thanks to the dopamine. It’s not how I want my brain to work. So back to making art, cooking, hanging out in nature, creating things where my internal validation shines through. (We’ll talk about perfectionism another time.)

What about you, have you noticed this trend toward external validation? What are you doing to counter it? Or do we just live with it?

More Philosophical Ramblings

One Neat Trick

Backwards This Language Is

Is Writing Time Absolute?

Can You Hear Me Now?

For more essays on Reading, Writing, and Observations, check out my Non-Fiction pages

One Neat Trick

Constance April 19, 2025 April 19, 2025 Essay

I’ve been busy writing lately, working on outlining a novel while doing another comb through of one I thought was done. Writing new poems and editing older ones that sat a while to cool off. Submitting things looms on the horizon, but I’m quite happy just creating at the moment. Along with knitting, spinning yarn, and doing some printmaking. And baking, lots of baking. The usual ADHD life. I stumbled across an interesting video on YouTube that validated Doing All Things, as opposed to those that command ‘stick to one thing and one thing only’. What a dull life that would be. All my interests feed each other to some degree. I also found on YouTube a plethora of writing and art advice, which all seems to be titled with words and phrases like

Don’t! Bad! Worst! Forget about that! Stop Doing This! How to Draft/Edit/Write the Correct Way. The Only Whatever You’ll Ever Need. This One Thing Will Solve All Your Problems… etc.

No wonder writers are neurotic. They buy into the idea if you just watch the video, read the article, do all the things, your writing will miraculously become a best seller. Not that there isn’t some good advice sprinkled throughout. I know the titles are to grab attention and make you watch/read but boy can they make you feel called out. Am I doing this? Am I not doing that? Why did I ever decide to write in the first place? So I’ve become picky about which videos I watch, and fill my feed with art, fiber crafts, Corgi videos, and cooking videos, and pared down the writing ones to people I think offer good information without all the hype. Ones that say, You Can Do It!

Can you do it?

Maybe it has to do with all the negativity the country is going through. It’s much easier to be negative than positive it seems. It’s why I backed away from social media, it’s a cesspool of negativity. Making art, spinning/knitting/weaving, baking, feeding squirrels—all make me feel positive. Doing everything helps the positivity bleed over into my writing. It helps me adapt the mindset of “Hey, I like this. Let’s do more.” Heck it’s good for overall positivity also.

Then again, so is squirrel watching. Be more like the squirrels. Search through the dinner pan for your favorite nut. Call out to your friends that lunch is served. Tell off the dog from the top of a chain link fence. Scatter doves left and right as you race toward the food bowl. Above all, don’t let anyone tell you to stop being you. You’ll get where you are going, in your own way and in your own time. My ‘One Neat Trick’.

Links to More of My Essays on Writing

Is Writing Time Absolute?

Writing in Dual POVs (or more)

A Meditation on Walking and Writing

Using Weaving for Bursts of Writing Creativity

Figuring it Out as You Go

ADHD-ing My Way to Writing Success

Constance October 21, 2024 April 19, 2025 Essay / Writing

Working with the ADHD Brain

I have a blank space in my brain between the trip to London in the spring and OMG kids (not mine) are going back to school. I think it’s called summer-oh no-what happened-it’s-fall. It’s been hotter than ever in my corner of the U.S., highest temp on the back porch was 111—in the shade. Daily it was 90 to 100 with the 90s hitting about 9 a.m. Needless to say I didn’t get much done outside the house except scanning the horizon for wildfires. Now it’s almost November and I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Still scanning for wildfires.

Inside, however, is another story. Lots of writing going on. My ADHD brain decided to juggle the sequel to one contemporary fantasy novel, a second epic fantasy novel, and poems all at the same time. I’m holding multiple characters in my head, and you know what? It’s working. Such is the superpower of ADHD. Compartmentalizing and switching tracks on a moment’s notice. I wish I had seen it as a superpower long ago instead of a detriment as I was told.

It also holds the ability to hyper-focus, allowing me to actually do one paragraph and more outlines of chapters. Me, outlining more than a sentence. (Checks outside for flying pigs. Who would be crispy bacon in the heat.) It’s helped lock in that compartmentalizing part of my brain. If I got stuck on one story, I hopped to the other. Or poetry. Or some artwork. (Housecleaning, not so much.) Rinse, repeat.

I used Scrivener to do the outlining because I really like the corkboard function. It’s probably what trolled me over to the dark side. (Outlining). Then I slowly came around to other methods of outlining after a nifty fiction writers meeting. They helped explain what each part of the outlining method was supposed to do. And I understood it! Finally! I think combining the showing part of the presentation, examples, and hearing it aloud helped tremendously. I’But never fear, I still pants some of my chapters when the outline isn’t quite loosey goosey enough. So the best of both worlds, really.

I haven’t quite adapted to using Scrivener for the actual writing part. (Or Auto Crit) I think too many years of using Word makes it the more comfortable option. Technology—including air conditioning—has made this a season—or two seasons rather—to get serious writing done. I usually look forward to winter for writing, trapped in the house is prime time to let the percolating thoughts loose. But right now it falls to fall to be my vizualization time. The cool mornings, hot afternoons, and cool to cold nights fit my fickle brain perfectly. So I’ll stay in my bubble and crank out more words. Then we’ll see how ADHD brain handles editing this time around. Despite the flip-flopping thought process, perfectionism is still a thing. How do you multitask? Does perfectionism get in the way of your writing?