Staring at the flyer for her upcoming coffee-store book signing, Danielle Braiding can hardly believe what she sees.

Braiding said she had no idea she could create a book, and she is even more boggled that God has allowed her to complete it.

Braiding, 46, published a book of poetry and prose titled “The Eye of You, of Me: An A to Z Journey” last November. The cover art is Braiding’s own painting.

And though the stories inside are her own, Braiding said the attention should go to her inspiration: her class of 27 fifth-grade students, strangers she has met and a life of experiences.

Braiding is hesitant to even call herself a writer.

“I don’t claim to be a writer,” she said. “I am an experience needing to write. That’s it.”

Braiding will be reading excerpts from her book from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Jackson Avenue Coffee.

Although, she couldn’t say the book is about exactly one thing.

“It’s really an accumulation—heartfelt—of interactions between this human being and other human beings,” she said.

But sharing her writing has not always been easy.

In fact, the first time she shared her poetry at a domestic violence awareness night, Braiding became so emotional she had to ask the owner of the JAC to help her finish reading, she said.

“I had written and I had written and I had written, and something came over me and I decided I was going to walk downstairs to the coffee shop and read what I had written for my mom,” Braiding said.

Braiding also couldn’t say exactly when she started writing.

“I didn’t ever start writing poetry,” she said. “I never started writing prose. I just started writing.”

For Braiding, writing was “a continuum;” she said if she didn’t write—she would have died.

“It’s my medicine,” she said. “I mean it’s selfish; it’s completely selfish, but my writing is my medicine.”

Recalling what motivated her to begin writing a book, Braiding cited one major inspiration—a breakdown.

“(It was) a complete, absolute breakdown, a lose-your-head, go-crazy breakdown,” she said. “And that encouraged my writing because I was long, long, long a writer before that, but when I lost my head, I lost my senses.”

However, Braiding said she has found hope in certain people along the way, such as her students, her children, a professor in college, Mrs. Yorkel, and a colleague at work, Anne Sanner.

“My favorite word is perseverance,” she said. “You don’t ever give up, and you have these beautiful little people along enduring. And they’re all rare, extremely rare.”

Braiding said that although her mother and grandmother may not physically be with her, she still believes they are encouraging her to share her experiences.

“I want (readers) to connect,” she said. “I want them to see that they are no different than me, that we are the same. Not with an ego, I want them to be able to open up the book and say, ‘Oh my God, she’s speaking what I have walked.’”

She said one thing people will take away from attending her reading is that she is a good listener, evident from her writings about encounters with “five-minute strangers,” or people whom she winds up talking to who do not stay strangers for longer than that.

“I want to get beyond myself,” she said. “It’s a hard road and it’s been a long walk, but I have never been one to just be of myself, ever. I love listening.”

If Braiding could have readers take away one thing from her book, she said it would be to realize their own potential, whether they have a college degree or not.

“I want people to recognize that whatever they have in their hearts, whatever they have in their souls, they have every right to write it down, and no one has the right to stop them,” she said.

Stephanie Markham can be reached at 581-2812 or DENverge@gmail.com.