Four books · Launching September 2026

Words for the life you are actually living.

Poems, prayers and questions from Dean Cothill — SOUL, Poems & Prayers, Between Arrivals and Departures, and The Five Questions.

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Which book meets you where you are?

My story

Why four books, all at once?

I did not plan to write four books. I wrote my way through seasons I could not talk my way through — small notes late at night after the children had fallen asleep, gates I did not feel ready to cross, the slow work of coming back to the person beneath the names. The pages sorted themselves into four small companions. Each one holds a different door into the same house.

These are not books to race through. They are books to sit with — a page in the early morning, a poem before sleep, a question carried into an ordinary Tuesday. My hope is simple: that somewhere in them you find words you did not know you were allowed to say out loud.

The first print run of these books was made possible by readers who gave through a BackaBuddy campaign. If you were one of them — thank you. These books exist because of you.
Dean Cothill Poems &
Prayers
September 2026
Book One · The Soft Rebellion

Poems & Prayers

Words for prayer and grief.

Fifty-three poems and prayers gathered into the four seasons of the soul — Winter, the Undoing; Spring, the Becoming; Summer, the Burning; Autumn, the Returning. Roughly one for every week of the year, though you are free to wander. Not polished sermons — field notes from the wilderness, for the days when your own words run out.

“The world does not need thicker skins. It needs softer hearts.”

Who it’s for

For the grieving, the tired, the waiting. For anyone whose prayers have gone quiet, who is carrying sorrow in the marrow of their bones, or who simply wants permission to be tender again.

Why I wrote it

Poems & Prayers began as small notes to myself, written late at night after the children had fallen asleep — reminders that tenderness still matters, and that meaning can still be found in ordinary days. What began as personal practice grew into a conviction: to stay soft in a hard world is not naïve, but necessary.

Whatever happens, stay alive.
Not just breathing, but awake.
Don’t vanish into the scroll,
don’t let the noise rewrite your worth.

You don’t have to be holy.
Just honest.

Even in the half-light,
you are still a constellation. From “Stay Alive” — Winter, the Undoing

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Dean Cothill Between Arrivals
and DeparturesA Companion for People in Transit
September 2026
Book Two

Between Arrivals and Departures

A Companion for People in Transit

For everyone standing between what was and what is not yet. Written in the language of airports and pilgrimage — gates, thresholds, crossings, the mountain — this is spiritual reflection and memoir for endings that have not quite ended and beginnings that have not quite begun.

“You are not behind. You are in transit. There is a difference.”

Who it’s for

For people in transition: after the move, the loss, the diagnosis, the retrenchment — the closing of a season that once defined them. For anyone tired of the lie that says one day you will finally, permanently arrive.

Why I wrote it

I did not write this book because I have arrived. I wrote it because I kept standing at gates I did not feel ready to cross — and crossing them anyway. This is not punishment. This is pilgrimage.

Gate change. Delayed flight. Final call for the version of you who cannot stay here anymore.

Every place I have arrived has asked me to leave something behind. Every place I have left has placed something holy in my hands. And every time I thought I was finished, a gate opened. From “In Transit”
Dean Cothill SOULA Small Book of Returning September 2026
Book Three

SOUL

A Small Book of Returning

When the titles fall away — parent, professional, provider, believer — someone remains. Through seven slow chapters — the hidden room, the names we wear, the child beneath the floorboards, the grieving field — SOUL is a book about coming back to that someone. It closes with reflection questions and a one-year listening practice. A book to be read slowly, the way you would walk down to the sea.

“Soul is the beloved life beneath the life I perform.”

Who it’s for

For readers who have done everything right and still feel unknown to themselves — the strong one holding it all together, the believer who can’t admit his questions, the doubter who still, quietly, longs for God.

Why I wrote it

Why are we here? We are here to come back — to the beloved life beneath the life we perform. This is not a book from an expert to a student. It is closer to one tired person lighting a small fire for another and saying: maybe we can sit here a while. Maybe we can tell the truth.

It doesn’t always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like competence. Like success. Like being admired and being useful and being available to everyone except yourself. It can look like doing everything right while something holy in you quietly stops singing. From the introduction, “Why Are We Here?”
Dean Cothill The Five
Questions
September 2026
Book Four

The Five Questions

An Inner Framework for Men Who Are Tired of Merely Surviving

Not a system, not a programme — a compass. Five questions strong enough to hold a man’s whole life, each with its own practice: the Devotion Audit, the Habit Mirror, the Presence Audit, the Avoidance Map, and the Legacy Letter.

  1. What am I giving my life to?
  2. What kind of man am I becoming through my habits?
  3. Who gets the best of me?
  4. What am I avoiding?
  5. If my children became exactly like me, would I be proud?

Who it’s for

For the man who looks fine — who still laughs at the right moments, still meets the deadline, still asks everyone else if they are okay — and who suspects he may be disappearing slowly. And for the friendships, fathers and men’s groups ready to ask these questions together.

Why I wrote it

This book is not another demand. It is an invitation — to stop and ask better questions. Not louder questions. Older ones. Human ones. These are not questions to answer once. They are questions to live with.

Most men do not collapse loudly. They collapse functionally.

Being needed is not the same as being known. Being responsible is not the same as being alive.

A man can be strong and lost. Responsible and exhausted. Loving and absent. Useful to everyone and unknown to himself. From the introduction, “The Quiet Collapse of Modern Men”
“Am I becoming the man I was meant to be, or am I merely surviving?”
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Longer pieces, published as they are ready