Today is October 15, 2025, and that means my new book of poems, SURVIVING IMMORTALITY AGAIN, has been released by Alien Buddha Press and is available for purchase in print paperback from Amazon and it’s also now listed on Goodreads. This is exciting to me for many reasons, one of which is this is the first poetry book I’ve had published in virtually 20 years! Stunning. When you consider this is my 20-something poetry collection — and yes, I actually don’t know for so many bizarre reasons and there are stories there — and it’s something like my 30th book, not counting about probably well over 40 anthologies and textbooks I’ve been a contributor to as well as other books where I served in editorial or production capacities … nor the various projects I took on when younger where I was a ghostwriter or a collaborator or a co-author of specialized books for companies never meant for retail (mostly tech), nor the many dozens of manuals and books I wrote for various companies as both an employee of some and in a consulting role, but again, mostly technology, while there’s also been scientific, medical, security, management theory, reference books and so on. I literally have no idea how many books I’ve written or been involved with but I’ve been able to go past 125 on the way toward 150 with the knowledge there are many others out there I don’t know about and never will — mostly literature textbooks with essays of mine included on writers like Yeats, Smiley, Kosinski, etc.

But I started in poetry and that’s where my creative efforts have always lingered, so whether it’s my 21st or 25th poetry collection, it’s exciting and since it’s my first in two decades, it was important to me to try and put together a cohesive collection of material largely ungathered in previous books of mine, so while some of the poems are older, they generally are appearing in book format for the first time, and more important, I wanted to get some of my newer stuff from the past two-three years out there in a collection, because I’ve actually been fairly prolific these past two few years, as over 55 publications credited in the Acknowledgments section for the 90 poems within testify.

I’ve written elsewhere I tried to loosely make this a dark “concept” book of poems and I won’t go further into that now, but I encourage any and all to check the book out — you can read samples on its Amazon page — and think about buying it. At 132 pages and at only $12.99, it’s a pretty good deal for a contemporary poetry book of that size and the production value is outstanding. Naturally I’d value as many ratings and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads as possible and encourage any questions or comments. Additionally, I’ve been increasingly active elsewhere (read: Social Media!) to write about it and other aspects of my writing and most recently, doing some short and longer videos of me reading poems and stories, not necessarily only from this book, but one of the videos is exactly that. I’ve posted updated links to some of these resources on my Profiles tab and I encourage engagement with anyone wishing it.

Finally, I am expecting a couple or so “professional” reviews at some point in the next month or so but there’s no guarantee they’ll like it, but that’s always the chance one takes when obtaining reviews, yes? Additionally, for those who question or wonder, there are no illusions of any substantial sales, nor should there be unless you’re the US Poet Laureate. Few Americans read poetry, fewer buy poetry (very few), and think of it — those that do buy a book of poetry in a year typically pick up a book by one of the “Masters,” such as Frost, Plath, Yeats, etc., — not by many contemporary and largely unknown poets. It’s very simple. So I appreciate what publicity can be obtained, any interest and support, but like I’ve been saying for years, if I’d gone into writing to get rich, I would have followed a King or Grisham, or gone into kiddie’s lit or certain types of porn, but never poetry. Eyes open going in.

Still, hell of a day and very excited and thanks to anyone who may take a look or better yet, get a copy. Every little bit helps and is appreciated.

Cheers!

Scott C. Holstad