Book Birthdays celebrate one year of a book’s life in social media posts, reviews, and more. This month we’re saying Happy First Book Birthday to Thank You for Staying with Me: Essays (Nebraska, 2025) by Bailey Gaylin Moore.
About the Book:
Urgent, meditative, and searching, Thank You for Staying with Me is a collection of essays that navigates the complexities of home, the vulnerability of being a woman, mother-daughter relationships, and young motherhood in the conservative and religious landscape of the Ozarks.
Using cosmology as a foil to discuss human issues, Bailey Gaylin Moore describes praying to the sky during moments of despondency, observing a solar eclipse while reflecting on what it means to be in the penumbra of society, and using galaxy identification to understand herself. During a collision of women’s rights, gun policy, and racial tension, Thank You for Staying with Me is a frank and intimate rumination on how national policy and social attitudes affect both the individual and the public sphere, especially in such a conservative part of the United States.
Awards:
- Gold Medal for the 2025 IPPY Award
- Winner of the 2025 International Book Award in Best New Nonfiction
- Finalist for the 2025 International Book Award in Nonfiction: Creative
- Finalist for the 2025 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Essays category
Reviews:
“Moore invites us to stay—to bear witness not just to her story, but to the stories we’ve buried in ourselves. The title stands as both a request and a promise and reminds us that staying—with our pain, our questions, and each other—is a deeply courageous act.” —Elizabeth Austin, Hippocampus Magazine
“Her essays, which rawly address subjects like motherhood, assault, and sexism but also include reveries on the cosmos, vignettes on nature, and appreciative moments of common humanity, encourage readers to spend less time trying to bring everything to a center and pay attention instead to life’s continuous surprises.”—Nick Hilborn, Rain Taxi
“Given how often Moore feels that she must shrink to fit established norms, readers can’t help but delight in seeing her forge her own path.”—Arielle Kaplan, On the Seawall
UNP blog 