Book release update - 'Learning Environment' coming Fall '25
AKA the answer to an oft-asked question.
“So, when is your book coming out?” is a common question I receive now that my network is aware that I am a soon-to-be-published author.
I love getting this question because it tells me that a) my goal of growing an author platform (at least in my immediate locus of control) is working, b) it gives me hope that someone might actually read my book, and c) it allows me to vent on what feels like - to me- the relatively slow speed of the book publishing process.
On that last note, if it were up to me, I would publish my book tomorrow. Indeed, I can’t wait to share the stories and strategies within Learning Environment with the world because I believe they can support and inspire educators to design engaging and meaningful learning experiences for their students.
However, as one would expect, my book’s release date is not (solely) up to me but is instead decided upon by my knowledgeable expert partners at Beacon Press, who, with authors like James Baldwin (Notes of a Native Son, 1955), Chris Emdin (For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too, 2017), and Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility, 2018) under their label are, let’s just say, not doing this for the first time.
So when my editor recently commented that Learning Environment’s release be targeted for the fall of 2025 to catch the back-to-school crowd, I couldn’t help but get excited. In truth, this release date for the primary readership (teachers) is better than the originally floated spring of ‘25, when, let’s be honest, educators are running on fumes and all but ready to collapse into what we can only hope is a comfortable reclining deck chair.
With all the above said, however, I still can’t help but wish that Learning Environment was out now.
Indeed, I often fantasize about the day I will open a box containing the first glossy copies of Learning Environment. In this fantasy, or manifestation as my daughter, Poppy, has taken to calling her dreams these days, I can see myself reaching into the shallow depths of a cardboard box, grabbing hold of a sleek and glossy text, pulling it out into the light and holding it aloft to the gods. In this manifestation, I am Lionel Messi - the greatest soccer player of all time - on the day he finally won his first World Cup in Qatar with Argentina in 2022.
But, like all good things in life, and perhaps something the great Messi would agree with himself, one must learn not to rush the process.
Releasing Learning Environment now, unpolished and without a strategic plan, would be foolhardy and akin to a teacher deciding what to teach the day before they have to teach it.
Would it be possible?
Yes.
Is it the ideal way to maximize impact?
Likely not.
So, as much as I’d like to see Learning Enviornment published yesterday, it is likely best to heed the words of the great Jedi Master Yoda of Star Wars fame, who in this circumstance might advise, “Patience you must have my [new Author].”
But what can we expect in the next phases of the book writing journey, you may wonder?
Well, as a first-time author who has done his best to learn about the publishing industry, thanks in part to
’s helpful guidebook, Before and After the Book Deal (Catapult, 2020), and a delightful email exchange with my editor, who actually wrote that she is “enjoying” my manuscript. I am expecting the following.June - September - Edits returned + Manuscript revisions
Fall ‘24 - book publishing process for fall line ‘25 begins at Beacon
2025 - Less certain, but likely (sales, marketing, title finalization, cover design, promotion, etc.) + copy editing, more revisions, and other book publishing adventures.
So, what are those who ask me when is my book coming out to do until 2025?
Well, for one, I hope that they will continue to show up right here on my Substack and follow along on my journey with me as a first-time author navigating this whole ocean of uncertainty.
Second, they might want to consider purchasing a copy of the soon-to-be-released From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Identity (Beacon, 8/6/2024), edited by Christopher Emdin and sam seidel.
Within this companion text to Emdin’s For White Folks, I and 19 other white educators, “representing different types of schools, different geographies, different durations of experience in the classroom, and different depths of experience in interrogating their whiteness,” share our experiences and reflections working within and alongside Black and Brown colleagues and students.
The powerful first-hand stories (I write about working as a white teacher alongside my Afro-Dominican colleague in service of our Black and Brown students in Washington Heights (see last post), “offers all readers a window into the essential work that must be done to transform our nation's schools from sites of harm to sites of healing.” And, as the author of a chapter where I had to deeply excavate and push myself to think critically about my privilege and whiteness in juxtaposition to my colleague and students, I can concur that this text will be an insightful read and have no hesitations encouraging you to pick up a copy for yourselves or the teacher in your life.
Thank you, as always, for reading my post.
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Jared