Austin has, yet again, created a masterpiece. All the Beginnings of Everything is a sensational collection which spans what feels like a lifetime. Separated into seven parts, Austin explores more in this collection than I feel she ever has done before; without sacrificing her trademark style. Her words remain sharp, raw and honest.

Part one is succinct, fervent and reveals how our childhoods fall into our adult years, no matter how hard we try to leave the past in the past. This is followed by parts two and three: Austin’s ode to self and survival. She is the lioness empowered by her dismissal of those who tried to break her. She will not give thanks; she is the reason she is here today and she will continue to create her own light and legacy.

For me, part four was a departure for Austin. Although she explores grief as masterfully as she did in Constant Muses and TWELVE, here Austin also embraces hope. It is an honest account of how heartache demolished the walls of her heart in order to help rebuild them, stronger than before. This balance of loss and love is repeated in parts five and six as we journey through hurt, lust, unrequited love and goodbyes to find real love; love which feels like a Heaven-sent gift and the easiest thing in the world.

Finally, fittingly, part seven delivers the end of this collection and takes us back to the beginning. This part is Austin through and through; it holds some of the best pieces I believe she has ever written. The title poem is quite simply, a masterpiece.

With each new release, Austin’s craft continues to blossom and out-do what came before. I cannot describe her words and work in any other way than magic. Not because her words appear as if by magic but because she wields a power many would struggle to harness. She is true; and for that, in this day and age, she is otherworldly. -Kristiana Reed, Between the Trees

You couldn’t if you tried, categorize Austin’s ‘style.’ Not because she doesn’t have any, she almost gleams with it, but because she’s already danced away from the little box you were going to put her in before shocking you with another tongue. There’s something infinitely unpredictable and erotic about an unapologetic, hot-under-the-collar female writer who takes no prisoners; “I’ve defiled my own name.” (Slick).

Austin knows how much spice to add and swims between the blatantly sensual to the darkest coves, and then out into the light where she exposes her truths. Her voice doesn’t remain the same, there’s obvious influences, but she’s all things, the female Bukowski, the smart Joan Didion, then Tennyson takes over and gets epic. It never gets staid. Austin is a writer you want to befriend and talk to all night long over many drinks. You feel you’d find the riddle to the universe if you survived it. -Candice Louisa Daquin, author of Pinch the Lock.