The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From The Best & Worst Year Of My Life

* * * Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) BRONZE MEDAL in LGBT Non-Fiction! * * *

The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons from the Best and Worst Year of My Life is the new collection of essays from award-winning writer Kate Carroll de Gutes.

In 2012, Kate Carroll de Gutes found herself at a rest stop “ruined with anxiety. And when I say ruined, I mean in a car, in hundred-degree weather, with all the windows rolled up, sobbing and crouched in the passenger’s seat rocking and waiting for the Ativan to take effect. I posted on Facebook, ‘Hello, Redding. Dear gods yer hot.’ A funny post that let my family and friends know where I was, but not how I was.”

De Gutes didn’t yet understand how insidious social media had become—all of it curated to show a wonderful life, regardless of what was really occurring. But when her editor, her best friend, and her mother all died within ten months of each other, de Gutes could no longer keep up the charade.

She began The Authenticity Experiment as a 30-day challenge, wondering if she could be more honest about her days. She used social media as her new back fence, a place where she could stand and talk to her “neighbors” about the good and bad. The essays resonated with a wide audience, so de Gutes kept writing, chronicling the dark and the light, and putting it out there for everyone to see.

Praise for The Authenticity Experiment :

With The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From The Best & Worst Year Of My Life, Kate Carroll de Gutes has written a masterful navigation of the human soul in both crisis and wonder. This collection of essays, written as an exercise of introspection and transparency in an era of cosmetic sincerity, combine to illuminate the complex landscape of a true artist’s mind through tragedy and fleeting completion. De Gutes’ pilgrimage in the process of grief attempts to either make desperate sense of the chaos in the vacuum of loss, or cling to those transient moments when things are, unexpectedly, crystallized — albeit briefly — in perfection, or the memory of perfection. Kate’s care for both language and craft, along with her gifts for insight, profound observation and wit, will resonate in the heart and mind of the reader for days afterward. It’s an incredible work worthy of sharing a book shelf with Joan Didion. Kate’s voice and heart will resonate among the best memoirists of our age. — Domingo Martinez, author of The Boy Kings of Texas

Kate Carroll de Gutes decided to spend a while doing what most of us don't do: tell the truth. Tell the truth to herself and then to everyone else, and the truth turns out to be funny, hard, sad, sweet, tough, confusing, tender and sharp. It's your truth, too. —Sallie Tisdale, author of eight books, including Violation, Talk Dirty to Me, and Stepping Westward

Kate Carroll de Gutes is the Annie Leibovitz of short essays. Most blog posts last as long as Snapchats, but The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From The Best & Worst Year Of My Life—like stylized portraits—renders what can’t be seen, only felt. They offer readers a way to see, really see, and to love. With images like a scowling baby hawk and the ever-present Cannondale bike, she works through grief and marvels at its grit. — Kate Gray, author of Carry The Sky

Kate Carroll de Gutes' extraordinary The Authenticity Experiment demands an authentic quote. Reading it, which I did very slowly so as to savor each tiny, beautiful chapter, I thought: "Oh, oh, oh, this is so good. Oh! I love this! This woman can WRITE. How on earth has she composed a book about dying and grieving that radiates with so much joy, life, and humor? Okay, I'm buying a copy for everyone I know." You should too. — Karen Karbo, author of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

Kate Carroll de Gutes’ debut book, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, won the 2016 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, a 2016 Lambda Literary Award in Memoir, and First Place in the 2016 New Generation Indie Book Awards for LGBT Writing. Kate has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center, Artsmith, and Centrum, An authentic and humorous teacher, Kate has taught at Pacific Lutheran University, University of Idaho, University of Puget Sound, and Willamette University, as well as the Attic Institute in Portland, Oregon. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing from the University of Puget Sound and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Learn more about Kate: www.katecarrolldegutes.com