Emily Carter’s A Spork in the Road arrives in April, and I can’t wait for you to take in this wonderful collection of essays. I felt like a better person for having read it, and you will, too.

This book goes down like Southern comfort food, warm and cozy and filling. But even for someone like me who has wandered into this land known as “The South” after being raised elsewhere, Emily’s welcoming prose crosses those imaginary boundaries between the regions of this vast country to touch on subjects to which everyone can relate. To read Emily’s book is to get to know places you’ve never been and to be kin with Emily within the pages.

It’s not just that Emily writes about subjects we’ve all read about: life, death, family, friendship, the human condition. It’s that she writes about them in a way that weaves together everyday sights and sounds with the personal and builds a relatable experience to enlighten you with a higher revelation.

You are Emily as you read her essays. Her perspective is North Carolina barbecue with a side of tater tots; it’s biscuits and gravy alongside her Smokin’ Hot Love Biscuit.

She sees through the stealing of a hat to what it means to be the second youngest sibling. She takes in everyone from a flight attendant tapped out on tourists to a psychic in a trailer to a kind soul named Pearl, working the Walmart check out, and picks up what each is sending into the world, turning it with her carefully shaped sentences into a message for you, the reader, to consider.

Emily confronts the wondrous and the bilious in the world around her and the sometimes sinuous rainbows of hope between people, whether they are sharing the grief of losing a pet or stinging from the caustic scraping of an angry retort to a joke that landed askew.

In this mission, Emily has succeeded in contributing to the world. She has made it personal, she has spoken from her heart, and her essays will touch yours in ways you wouldn’t imagine possible.

What comes through is a deep appreciation for the world around her, the people that she loves and love her back, and for having traveled a path in life that meandered through many experiences, both good and bad. She recognizes that the sweet tea tastes better for having nothing but water from a garden hose prior.

We learn alongside Emily how to treat ourselves and others better, how to navigate all those tough things that we face on the regular.

You should get Emily’s book, listen to her whisper wisdom and sing out affirmations. You’ll better understand that we are all human together and know that you go forth with another friend by your side with the words she gives you.