Keep Moving

Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change by Maggie Smith

Nonfiction

2020

Finished on August 16, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

For fans of Anne Lamott and Cleo Wade, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life’s challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience.

When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem “Good Bones,” started writing daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?

Last winter I was introduced to Maggie Smith's writing when I encountered her outstanding memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. I was so captivated with her writing that I immediately ordered a copy of Keep Moving, Smith's earlier book of essays and quotations. Rather than read it cover-to-cover in a few days, I decided to devote several months to the book, reading two or three pages at a time. It's a wonderful book for anyone dealing with loss, whether that be due to divorce or the death of a loved one.