Ethan Hawke’s Rules for a Knight to Hit Bookstores This Fall

Ethan Hawke, the author of two novels, is returning to bookshelves for the first time since 2002.

Rules for a Knight, due out this fall, will cap off a year that has included Hawke’s debut documentary (Seymour: An Introduction) and his fourth Oscar nomination (for Boyhood). Per Hawke’s publisher, Knopf—who shared details of the book exclusively with TIME—Hawke originally wrote Knight, a parable, as a gift to his four children. The publisher’s synopsis further reads:

In a recent interview with TIME, Hawke spoke about his evolution as an artist. “When I was young, I just had a tremendous amount of—joy is one word, hubris is another. I was just so excited to be a part of of anything creative,” he said. “‘I wrote 10 pages. Look! You should read it.’ And now as you get older, you’re like, ‘Okay, wait. There’s a lot of things you should read before I’ll waste your time with [my work].'”

That concern has evidently been overcome with a story that’s intended to speak to young people, and that’s explicitly intended as advice: Hawke’s publisher compares the book to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea. Like his character in Boyhood, Hawke, writing for his kids, is growing up.

After all, as the book instructs its reader: “A great knight uses his power to empower others.”