To the Moon and Back
About the book
Grief, you see, is a heavy thing. It is heavier than dragging a whale's body up onto the ice, heavier than enduring a winter that lingers past all hope, heavier even than feeling the sky itself pressing down, as if full of words you cannot speak. Most people know how to carry it. They strap it to their backs like a pack of furs. They walk, bent double, until the load lightens. They share the weight with their Neighbours. They cry. Then, eventually, they stand up straight again. They look at the sun. They say, Life is for the living. But Kissimi was not like most people. Kissimi's heart was not made of muscle and blood, but instead felt like fragile glass and empty echoes. For Selene, safety is a small, quiet place where the door is triple-locked, and the curtains are drawn. Reeling from a traumatic past, she lives in a carefully constructed sanctuary of silence. But the silence is broken each night by the muffled, terrifying arguments coming from the outside... To the Moon and Back is a heart-wrenching and hopeful story about bereavement, grief and finding your way back home.
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About the author
I’m Katie-jo—though most people call me KJ. I’m an autistic, ADHD Christian, writer, musician, wife and mum, trying to make sense of the beautiful, complicated tangle of faith, family, disability and everyday life. I write about the places where these things meet: in churches, classrooms, homes and communities, and in the quiet moments when we are learning how to love one another better. For many years I worked in schools and alternative provisions, supporting young people with additional needs and helping educators create spaces where nobody has to hide who they are in order to belong. I’ve taught, trained, guest lectured and contributed to NHS materials on making healthcare more accessible for autistic people. I also work alongside families navigating the often bewildering world of disability support, including through my role as a parent representative for the Bedford Borough Parent Carer Forum. Much of my life has been shaped by home education. I’ve educated my own children, helped run large online communities and supported local cooperatives, discovering along the way that learning rarely follows a straight line—and that the best classrooms often begin with curiosity, trust and a willingness to listen. I care deeply about disability inclusion in churches, and about the work of making room at the table not as a gesture of kindness, but because everybody belongs there. Through fiction, music, advocacy and the occasional stubborn conversation, I’m trying to help the Church listen more carefully, love more bravely and become a place where people can arrive exactly as they are.
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