Faherty Co-Founder Kerry Docherty Launches Memoir 'Selfish' at Explore Books

Aspen —Kerry Docherty thinks you’re being too nice. And that’s the problem.

The co-founder of Faherty clothing isn’t just selling a memoir. She’s selling a permission slip. The book is called “Selfish: Unlearning, Reclaiming, and Telling the Truth.” It drops at Explore Books on Thursday, Aug. 13. The event runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Docherty defines selfishness not as greed, but as “prioritizing your own aliveness.” It’s about moving out of the people-pleasing trap. It’s about reconciling what it means to actually have a self.

“Selfish” challenges readers to ask hard questions. What does it mean to be good? What happens when you do what you want? Who decides what counts as selfish?

Docherty faced these questions as a wife, mother of two, and business leader. She felt she was giving too much away. She wasn’t being seen as an artist, activist, or poet. She was just being useful.

The memoir documents her shift. She started stealing moments for herself. She drove the business toward things she cared about. She widened her circle to include creatives who inspired her.

The twist? Writing the book was the most selfish thing she did.

“The act of publishing it really put that word selfish to the extreme test,” Docherty said.

She realized this in the book’s last chapter. Her husband asked her to consider how she’d feel if he wrote a 300-plus-page book about what it meant to be married to him. They’re still together. But pursuing what you love has consequences.

Docherty’s journey began in 2020. She joined a writing collective. She heard other women put their stories on a page. They did it unabashedly. That’s when she started digging into her own.

“It’s about bravery around letting ourselves be messy,” she said. “Letting ourselves share the parts of ourselves that often remain in the shadow… There is real strength in owning the parts of ourselves that are so messy.”

The Aspen Times reported that Docherty will be in conversation with Lindsay Branham. Branham is an environmental psychologist, scholar, author, and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. The two met in their early 20s in Rwanda. Branham has watched Docherty build a sustainable clothing brand, raise children, and find her own creativity.

Branham witnessed the journey firsthand. She knows the cost of that focus.

The event is at Explore Books. It’s local. It’s specific. It’s for anyone who has given so much of themselves to other people. It’s for those hearing an inner call. It’s time to prioritize dreams. It’s time to navigate what that looks like.

Read that again. The act of writing the book was the plot twist. It tested the definition of selfish to the extreme.

Don’t expect a soft launch. Expect a reckoning.