“The grace, honesty, and bravery with which [Herman] addresses issues that many won’t touch with a ten-foot pole will shake you to the core.” – Lily Rex, Blotterature 

Fifteen-year-old Eleanor Fromme just chopped off all of her hair. How else should she cope after hearing that her bully, James, has committed suicide?

When Eleanor’s English teacher suggests students write letters they’ll never send, Eleanor writers to James. With each letter she writes, Eleanor discovers more about herself, even while trying to make sense of his death. And, with the help of a unique cast of characters, Eleanor not only learns what it means to be inside a body that does not quite match what she feels on the inside, but also comes to terms with her own mother’s mental illness.

Told through a series of letters and set against a 1993-era backdrop of grunge rock and riot grrl bands, EVERYTHING GROWS, by Aimee Herman, depicts Eleanor’s extraordinary journey to solve the mystery within her and feel complete. Along the way, she loses and gains friends, rebuilds relationships with her family, and develops a system of support to help figure out the language of her queer identity.

Through author Aimee Herman’s exceptional storytelling, EVERYTHING GROWS reveals the value of finding community or creating it when it falls apart, while exploring the importance of forgiveness, acceptance, and learning how to survive on your own terms.

EVERYTHING GROWS: A Novel, by Aimee Herman; Trade Paper; 300 pages; ISBN: 978-1-94110-68-3; $15.00; May 7, 2019

About the Author

AIMEE HERMAN is the author of two poetry collections, to go without blinking (BlazeOVX books) and meant to wake up feeling (great weather for MEDIA). As a poet, musician, and performance artist, Herman uses her work to disembowel the architecture of gender and what it means to queer the body. Nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize-nominated, Herman’s writing has been widely published in the U.S. and internationally in literary journals including Lavender Review, EDUCE, Sous Les Pave, and the Lambda Award-winning anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books). Aimee has taught at various universities and colleges included: CUNY Grad Center, St. John’s University (Queens), Malloy College (Long Island), Stoneybrook University (Long Island), City College of New York, and Metro State (CO). She lives in Brooklyn.