"Boldly conceived, insightful... moments of startling, sage observation... this is a deeply introspective memoir that painstakingly explores the author's joys and tribulations... Kemp is a smart writer who explores emotions with poetic tenderness bolstered by psychological understanding." - Kirkus Review
"Kemp’s styling renders the beauty and harshness of significant moments in artful detail... Each of the stories opens with a simple black and white photo... each image renders a stark, yet ethereal quality... Across the Distance will appeal to those who seek to understand the connections and divisions we so often encounter in our lives. Highly Recommended!" - Chanticleer Reviews
"Christina Kemp has captured in these pages the nuance of human connection. Heartbreaking longing, enduring friendship, depth with and without emotional safety, and profoundly nurturing exchanges—these are only a few of the subtleties Kemp invites us to explore. With complexity and honesty, her beautiful prose and willingness to hold all relationships in the embrace of tenderness and respect reminds us that we are, above all else, vulnerable humans who only want to be seen and known." - Cami Ostman, Founder of The Narrative Project
"Across the Distance reveals in kaleidoscopic imagery the vast inner depths to which Kemp has traveled as she coheres the shards of loving, losing, reshaping, and creating her life anew. A meditation on memory, reverie, and the present, the author gifts this story of hope and possibility to her readers." - Jennifer J. Wilhoit, Ph.D., Author, Spiritual Ecologist, Mentor
"Christina Kemp has composed a remarkable book. Her second-person messages to her parents, her brother, friend, and lovers delve deeply into the essence of relationships with a voice that ranges from analytical to poetic. The missives are as unique as the recipients, yet threads of love, pain, and longing bind the essays together. Readers will find resonances of their own loves and losses in these pages, and the magic and music of her words will echo in their hearts." - Seán Dwyer, author of A Quest for Tears: Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury
"The depth of Kemp's well-earned psychological insights make it so deeply satisfying to inhabit her reflections. Across the Distance is honest, wrenchingly painful in its clarity, and rich in its expression of the simultaneity of the emotional life. The style of writing is also fascinating. Kemp presents an observing or spectating commentary in the intended segments, as though the therapeutic gaze is offered afterwards. A truly remarkable and profound expression. Kemp is a gifted writer and healer, and her memoir is an inspiring prospect for anyone who reads it. Across the Distance is an invitation to explore the complexity and nuance of our most sensitive and formative relationships and the courage to find access to the intelligence of our own suffering." - Claire Lebeau, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Psychologist
"Across the Distance reads like a series of love letters to the self: poignant, touching, and compelling in what is offered in between the lines, as much as in the written word. It works within the reader as a slow blossoming that happens when one begins to understand the whispers of the soul. Depth psychology—soul-centered psychology—focuses on the study of the unconscious: what lies beneath the surface of things in the invisible world. In this book, Kemp gives voice to what is often unspoken, but deeply felt in everytday life. Through a series of beautifully nuanced and archetype motifs and vignettes, the reader is tenderly directed toward the center of herself and invited to explore the inner landscapes of love and loss in order to make space for the unimaginable beautify of what is already here." - Bonnie Bright, Ph.D., Founder of Depth Insights, Depth Psychology Alliance, and the Institute for Soul-Centered Psychology and Coaching