The Music Was Just Getting Good - Paperback

by Alicia Cook (Author)

Some good things must come to an end for new things to begin. Poet Alicia Cook explores this grievous emotion in her latest and final mixtape collection, The Music Was Just Getting Good.

Alicia Cook is back with the highly anticipated final track list in her poetry collection of mixtapes, The Music Was Just Getting Good. Following in the footsteps of her first two installments, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately (2016) and Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back (2020), Cook is closing out her trilogy with a poignant and all too relatable look at the ebbs and flows of life and why, even during our most difficult seasons, a better day can appear just around the corner.

Spread across 184 tracks (92 poems and 92 blackout poems), each paired with an accompanying song, Cook returns to her evergreen themes of mental health, hope, and recovery, and reminds readers that grief is not reserved solely for death. We may grieve who we used to be, moments that never came to pass, physical places, and, of course, people; people who've died, but also those who left, and those we had to leave behind.

A stunning closing number in a timely and necessary collection of work, The Music Was Just Getting Goodis the balm your soul has been waiting for.

Author Biography

Alicia Cook is a multi-award-winning writer and mental health and addiction awareness advocate based in Newark, New Jersey. Her writing often focuses on addiction, mental health, and grief - sometimes all at once. She is the poet behind Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately, I Hope My Voice Doesn't Skip, Sorry I Haven't Texted You Back, and The Music Was Just Getting Good.

Cook's advocacy began years ago following the fatal overdose of her 19-year-old cousin. Through her writing, she started shedding light on how drug addiction impacts the mental health of families. An essayist and speaker, her activism to fight the opioid epidemic is far-reaching and has garnered a worldwide readership. She has her own episode on the Emmy-nominated American PBS series Here's the Story. She has since broadened the scope of her work to include other sensitive topics impacting our lives today.

She was the recipient of 2017's Everyday Hero award from NJTV and 2018's Women with Voices award from the Women with Voices Foundation. She was named a 2019 Healthcare Hero finalist by NJBiz. Her songwriting has been recognized by American Songwriter Magazine (4x honorable mention). Her alma mater, Georgian Court University, named her its 2020 Distinguished Alumni of the Year, and she was a Commencement Speaker at Georgian Court's 2021 commencement. She was awarded a "40 Under 40" award from the Irish Echo in 2023. That same year, she spoke on the topic of Mental Health at Oxford University.