Adaptive Strategies for a Sensitive System
Publication date - 5th May 26
Adaptive Strategies for a Sensitive System is a lovingly disordered field guide for surviving a world that keeps turning up the brightness. Disguised in the respectable badge of a diagnostic title, this is in contrast a poetic log of being too sensitive in a society built for the perpetually unbothered.
From violent mornings to dreich late nights, Kate sifts through bedrooms, public transport, supermarkets, her Gran’s house, the surveillance-era optimism of mindfulness apps, and the wild terrain of her own mind- gathering softness, silliness, and unexpected wisdom along the way.
With raw energy, wry humour and the stubborn softness of someone who has spent a lifetime feeling like a faulty blue tooth speaker trying to connect, she questions what’s innate, what’s inherited, and why everything seems to be “improving” faster than any of us can adapt. Connection, dislocation, loneliness, identity, social failure, and the strange hope that still glimmers beneath it all; this is a companion for anyone who has ever felt out of alignment with the world’s settings, and is still learning how to stay tender without falling apart.
‘‘Preludes for a hypervigilant generation, Adaptive Strategies is the zen to your zeitgeist. Kate Ireland’s energy is immaculate.’
Graeme Armstrong
Author of The Young Team & Raveheart,
“A raw, relatable, and snappy song sheet for modern living. Sensitive and searingly honest, Kate deftly explores the juxtaposition of navigating life in your twenties, through her distinctive sharp and lyrical word choice. So much so, you can hear her voice in your head as you read. Laced with a wry fiery passion and honest vulnerability, this first collection from Glasgow’s shooting star delivers everything you could hope and more.”
Cat Hepburn
‘I love everything Kate Ireland writes. I have been a fan since I first saw her perform - I am so excited to finally be able to hold her brilliant words in my hands, and you should be too.’
Harry Baker
A mirror for a generation that is anxious, over stimulated, over explaining itself and somehow still managing to be generous, funny and deeply human. Few writers can capture the zeitgeist the way Kate Ireland can, a punch in the gut that makes you laugh out loud”
Paul Black
‘Hijacks your internal monologue and places a comforting conspiratorial hand on your shoulder, musical, transcendent and gut wrenching all at once”
Antony Szmierek
“Kate Ireland’s Adaptive Strategies For A Sensitive System is a witty, gut-punch of poetry that is as playful as it is purposeful.”
Michael Mullen