Littleton, Colorado — September, 2026 — Climbers know there are moments when holding on is the hardest thing you can do, and other moments when the only choice is to let go.
That tension is at the heart of The Art of Holding On and Letting Go by Kristin Bartley Lenz, an award-winning young adult novel returning October 20, 2026, in a 10th Anniversary Edition from Left Field Publishing.
Fifteen-year-old Cara Jenkins is a competitive climber who feels most at home high off the ground, clinging to a rock wall by her fingertips. Raised by mountaineering parents, she has grown up roaming the world, with the natural landscape as her playground and climbing at the center of her identity.
Then an expedition on an Ecuadorian mountaintop goes wrong.
Suddenly sent to live with grandparents she barely knows in suburban Detroit, Cara finds herself far from the mountains and the life that has always defined her. As she navigates competition, friendship, first love, grief, and an uncertain future, she has to confront something climbers understand particularly well: there are limits to how much we can control, no matter how strong our grip.
Author Kristin Bartley Lenz drew on her own rock climbing experiences in writing the novel.
“Many of the losses we experience in life do not have clear endings,” Lenz said. “Sometimes, we don’t even know to name this as loss. This story is about finding the balance of holding on and letting go, whether that’s on a rock wall or while navigating the losses that thread through our lives.”
First published in 2016, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Great Lakes Great Books Award honor title from the Michigan Reading Association. The new edition introduces Cara’s story to a new generation of young climbers and readers while bringing it back to adults who may have discovered it a decade ago.
A Book for the Climbing Community
Although published as young adult fiction, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go has crossover appeal for adult readers, particularly climbers who will recognize the physical and psychological demands of a sport built around risk, trust, control, fear, and perseverance.
For climbing gyms with retail areas, the novel also offers something different from the traditional climbing guidebook or instructional title: a work of fiction in which climbing culture and the identity of a climber are central to the story.
The 10th Anniversary Edition will be distributed nationally by Independent Publishers Group (IPG), making it available through standard book-industry wholesale channels for retailers interested in carrying the title, including Ingram.
Review Copies Available
Left Field Publishing would be happy to provide rock climbing gyms with an ebook review copy of this edition. We also have a limited number of advance print copies remaining and would be glad to send one if a digital review copy isn’t convenient.
Kristin Bartley Lenz is available for interviews about the novel, her own experiences with rock climbing, writing authentically about climbing for young readers, and the connections between climbing, risk, control, resilience, and letting go.
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ABOUT KRISTIN BARTLEY LENZ
Kristin Bartley Lenz is a writer and licensed clinical social worker whose rock climbing adventures inspired her debut young adult novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go. The novel was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Great Lakes Great Books Award honor title from the Michigan Reading Association.
Lenz graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in psychology and earned an MSW from Wayne State University in Detroit. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, literary journals, and anthologies. She teaches creative writing for teens and adults and lives in Michigan.
ABOUT LEFT FIELD PUBLISHING
Left Field Publishing is a small Colorado publisher dedicated to publishing bold, unexpected books while building communities around reading, writing, and storytelling. Through publishing, educational initiatives, reader programs, literary salons, and community partnerships, Left Field aims to create more opportunities for stories and the people who love them to thrive. For more information, visit www.left-field-publishing.com
CBJ press releases are written by the sponsor and do not represent the views of the Climbing Business Journal editorial team.
