The First Two Bookstore Stops are on the Map

After twenty-seven years, thirteen years of writing, and more than two hundred pages cut, the journey of 48 Days to Barbados is finally heading into the world.

There are moments in a writing life that feel almost impossible to imagine while you’re in the middle of them.

Today, I’m excited to share that the first two stops on my book tour are officially on the calendar.

On October 20, I’ll be celebrating the publication of 48 Days to Barbados, beginning with events at Barnes & Noble at the University of Washington on October 26 at 5pm and Eagle Harbor Book Company on Bainbridge Island on October 29 at 6:30pm. If you live in and around the Seattle area, I hope to see you there!

Typing those words feels surreal.

The story began in 1999 when I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean aboard a thirty-four-foot sailboat with two other women during hurricane season. Somewhere between Portugal and Barbados, I knew I wanted to write about the experience. I just had no idea how long that journey would take.

The voyage ended in Barbados, but the story came home with me.

Through motherhood, divorce, heartbreak, reinvention, multiple moves, and the ordinary passage of years, I found myself returning to that crossing again and again, trying to understand why it still occupied such a large place in my memory.

In 2013, I attended a writing workshop in Guatemala led by Joyce Maynard called Write by the Lake. That was where the book first began to take shape on paper outside of my Atlantic crossing journal.

For years, I had pages filled with observations from sea, weather, dolphins, fear, wonder, loneliness, mechanical failures, and the endless horizon. But a journal and a memoir are not the same thing.

What followed was thirteen years of starts and stops, rewrites and revisions, doubt and determination. Oceans of tears. Feelings of failure and frustration. More than two hundred pages were cut. Entire sections disappeared. The manuscript changed shape countless times.

In many ways, the journey of writing 48 Days to Barbados proved every bit as challenging as the ocean crossing itself.

The material was never the problem. What I struggled with was transforming those journal pages into something larger than an adventure at sea.

I wanted to understand why the voyage mattered.

Why had it stayed with me for so long?

Why did it continue to surface during entirely different chapters of my life?

Eventually, I realized the book wasn’t really about sailing.

It was about purpose.

It was about belonging.

It was about resilience.

It was about identity and the ways we navigate uncertainty when there are no obvious landmarks ahead.

It became a story I hoped might resonate even with readers who have never stepped foot on a sailboat.

And now, after all these years, the book is preparing to enter the world.

These are the first two stops on the tour, with more dates still taking shape. I’ll continue sharing bookstore events as they come together,

along with podcast interviews, conversations, and other milestones in the months ahead.

This entire experience has reinforced something I’ve long believed: it’s never too late.

Never too late to begin.

Never too late to start over.

Never too late to pursue a dream you’ve carried for decades.

I’m deeply grateful you’re here for this part of the journey.

On September 3, I’ll begin a forty-eight-day countdown to publication day on October 20. I can’t wait to start unfurling the odyssey of 48 Days to Barbados.

For now, I’m simply grateful.

Grateful to have arrived at this moment. Grateful for everyone who has followed along. Grateful that a story that began in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean twenty-seven years ago is finally finding its way into the world.

And grateful to share the first two bookstore stops on the map. I hope to see you somewhere along my book tour!

Xx,

Karson