The library

A life in books.

Stories, memoir, healing, and inner life—five published books, one forthcoming title, and a work in progress tracing the routes by which experience becomes story and attention becomes practice.

Literary work

Short stories · Tenacity Press · 2025

The Eleven Directions of Kansas

Fifteen imaginative stories moving from the Flint Hills to Costa Rica, Germany, and the Highlands of Scotland.

Enter the collection

The Eleven Directions of Kansas by Jim Gilkeson book cover

Memoir · Mammoth Publications · 2023

Three Lost Worlds

A memoir of life among mystics, healers, and life-artists; winner of the 2024 Coffin Memorial Award for Non-Fiction.

Explore the memoir

Three Lost Worlds by Jim Gilkeson book cover

Healing & inner life

Meditation · Energetic healing · 2025

When Energy Healing Meets Meditation

Meditation, energetic healing, and creative nonfiction.

About the book

Marlowe & Co. / Da Capo Lifelong Books · 1999

Energy Healing

A Pathway to Inner Growth. Translated into German and Portuguese.

About the book

Energy Healing: A Pathway to Inner Growth by Jim Gilkeson book cover

Self-published · 2009

A Pilgrim in Your Body

Energy Healing and Spiritual Process.

About the book

A Pilgrim in Your Body by Jim Gilkeson book cover

Forthcoming · Mammoth Publications · Late 2026

Upsurge of Light

A Reader for Healers. An advance-publication page for Jim’s forthcoming book.

Advance notice

Work in progress

Bonsai 100

A working-title collection of short auto-fiction currently in progress and under submission with Meadowlark Press.