All fair in Love and Coffee
An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance set around North Star Coffee, seen through both sides of the slow burn. Bickering, heart, and love scenes that steam up the windows.
Kerith E.J. Collins
Love, longing, and the tender resilience of the human heart.
Kerith writes romance novels, poetry, and essays about the things that hold us — from a Minnesota house loud with four kids, two cats, and one very well-used coffee maker.
Books on the horizon
What’s in the drawer and what’s nearly ready to meet the world — a debut romance, a part-memoir practical guide, and two poetry collections taking shape.
From Hoard to Home
Growing up the daughter of hoarders shapes how you feel about stuff. Part memoir, part practical guide — on trauma-informed decluttering, building a home that holds your life, and preparing without hoarding.
Annals of Momdum
One poem for each year from 2002 to 2026 — twenty-five years of raising four kids, distilled into verse. Every poem dated, most of them slightly chaotic, all of them true.
Mother and Me
Gentle, unflinching poems on mothers and daughters — grief, grace, and the long reckoning with the past that keeps showing up in the present.
Covers shown are concept art — final designs are on their way. Subscribe to the newsletter below for launch news when each one lands.
Poems & pieces out in the world
A few of the places her work has landed so far.
- Remember to Feed the Dog Poetry, 2026 Frazzled Lit, Issue 4
- Midnight Mythology Poetry, 2025 Silly Goose Press
- The Perfect Storm Poetry, 2025 Half and One
- Into the Deep, Dark Woods Anthology, 2026 Poetry in the WordFire Press anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson
- Anxiety Is My Nervous System’s Way of Saying “I Love You” Essay, 2025 Medium
Her poems have also appeared with Wingless Dreamer and Querencia Press.
The blog lives on Substack
Writing; Inspired is where the work-in-progress goes: short stories finding their shape, lessons from the writing desk, and what it actually feels like to build a literary life from scratch — front-row seat included, from zero readers onward.
Recent posts:
- Remember to Feed the Dog Aug 2026
- A Little Bit of a Career Update 2025
About Kerith
The short version, with the good parts kept in.
Kerith E.J. Collins writes romance novels, poetry, and essays about the things that hold us — love, longing, and the stubborn, tender resilience of the human heart.
A small-town Iowa girl who put down roots in Minnesota, she writes from the Twin Cities in the middle of a full and noisy life: four kids, two cats, and a coffee cup that never stays empty for long.
Before the writing desk, Kerith worked her way through sales, construction inside sales, insurance, recruiting, and retail — whatever kept the bills paid while the books waited. Every one of those jobs left characters behind.
“Turning ordinary life into poetry.”
Her poems have appeared in Frazzled Lit and Silly Goose Press, among others, and her work is in the WordFire Press anthology Into the Deep, Dark Woods. She’s currently finishing her debut romance novel while two poetry collections and a memoir-turned- practical-guide take shape on the desk beside it.
She’s building the whole literary life in public on Writing; Inspired — starting, as her tagline puts it, from zero readers, on the way to somewhere worth the coffee.
Say hello
Questions about the books, poetry talk, or just a friendly hello — reach Kerith by email, on socials, or through Substack.