Blending lyric prose, non-linear reflections, and original visual art, Words That Last is an intimate exploration of human connection, cultural heritage, and personal history. Drawing on traditional literary forms and visual storytelling, the memoir invites readers into the quiet, enduring moments that shape and define a life.

Releasing September 25, 2026, Words That Last will be available through local independent bookstores, major retailers, and online platforms. For review copies, media inquiries, or event bookings, please contact Caitlin Press.

https://caitlinpress.com/Books/W/Words-That-Last

“This is that rare book that reimagines what a book can offer. Through micro benevolences and ‘small, thoughtful details,’ Keiko Honda expands the tiniest moments of being into something vast, creating an intimate, inviting space in which to encounter our shifting selves. I drank this book like rain. I sat in it. I carried its quiet, profound wisdom with me. What lingers is the exquisite way Honda models an open hand and an ungrasping heart.”

—Kyo Maclear, author of Birds Art Life (2017), winner of the Trillium Book Award, and Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets (2023), winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction

“From the opening pages of Keiko Honda’s latest book, it is clear there is a fine intelligence at work. An intelligence that holds delicacy at the same time it carries the brilliant glimmer of something honed in darkness. Accompanied by Japanese Masters, each page of Words That Last becomes a place where emptiness grows into potential and the ephemeral reveals itself in the beauty of the ordinary. To read this book is to feel quieted, gentled. It is, in the truest sense of the word, a blessing.”

—Eve Joseph, author of In the Slender Margin

“When I looked up from reading Keiko Honda’s Words That Last, I felt what she describes so well as yoin, ‘the quality that lingers after the last note—what a bell holds after it has stopped ringing…’ This philosophical memoir explores, embodies, and rests upon Japanese concepts such as karumi (lightness) and yohaku (the active margin) not simply as literary devices but as profound instructions for living. Her lyric voice invites us to sit inside these fleeting moments with an old and trusted friend. One of the best lyric memoirs I’ve read in a long time.”

—Brenda Miller, author of Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems