MIAMI HERALD – one year ago!
October 26, 2014
Author interview: Kim Weiss on ‘Sunrise Sunset’
Local author’s book pairs inspirational quotes with gorgeous photos.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
By Connie Ogle cogle@MiamiHerald.com
Gratitude is popular these days. Scroll through your Facebook feed, and chances are you’ll see some friend listing things for which they’re grateful (family, friends and chocolate tend to rank high on many lists).
“Gratitude is a hot topic,” says Kim Weiss, director of public relations for local publisher Health Communications, which specializes in self-help titles. “It’s been selling well in self-help for a while. … I think people need little reminders that kind of break them out of their busy day. Unless you’re already involved in some kind of practice that allows you to stop and smell the roses, not everybody does.”
Weiss admits that like most of us, she’s not always in a sunny mood (“I’m not exactly Pollyanna”). But she definitely has something to be grateful for these days: the publication of her book Sunrise Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude (HCI, $10.95), which she’ll discuss Thursday at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
The book is a collection of her photos of sunrises and sunsets — all shot from her home in Boynton Beach; fortunately she can see east and west from her terrace. Each photo is paired with an inspirational quote.
Weiss first started taking pictures with her iPhone, then graduated to “a real camera,” she says.
Publishing a book with the company where she’s worked for 20 years has been a treat.
“I actually wrote a book that never came about, about relationships and finding love in midlife,” she says. “It just didn’t happen. But my theory is you push over here, and something pops up over there. I’m not a visual artist, and here I am doing this visual book. It’s all funny and ironic to me.”
Weiss has built a following on Facebook; others are starting to post their own sunrise and sunset photos on her page. Seeing the day begin or end isn’t something she takes for granted.
“Even if I’m in a crappy mood — which I am a lot — that moment when I go outside … how could you not be amazed?” she says. “I think, ‘How lucky am I to look at this?’”
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitide 