Welcome back to Letters from the Creative Life. These occasional essays explore the quieter corners of living: small reflections on art, ambition, and the tender balancing act of building a meaningful life in a noisy world.

In this post, you’ll find:

💧 What’s Filling My Creative Well—a book and an movie that I adored

✨My Letter from the Creative Life—Go Away! Find Yourself Somewhere Else

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-creators of this beautiful life.

💕, Joanna

💧 What’s Filling My Creative Well

📖 Current book: Into the Blue by Emma Brodie — The novel is labeled as a love story rather than a romance, which initially made me nervous —was I going to get attached to these characters only for them to be tragically not together?! I won’t give anything away, but I adored the ending. I turned around and reread the book; I enjoyed it that much. It’s teaching me something about love in my own life that I hadn’t fully felt before.

🎥 Current film: I love birds, so when a friend told me about the quirky documentary, Listers, I immediately got popcorn. Now, this isn’t a normal nature documentary. It’s a film made by two brothers who are amateur birdwatchers and excellent storytellers. They filmed their experience as they joined extreme birdwatchers for the challenge of finding as many bird species as possible in the continental US in one calendar year. The film showcases artistic endurance, very quirky characters, and amazing bird footage. It’s fringe, so I know it won’t be for everyone, but it’s in my top ten.

Go Away!

Find Your Creative Self Somewhere Else

I’m writing this from a cozy little beach town on the California coast, listening to the ocean, feeling the fog, and settling into a new rhythm for the next week. Did it take a lot of energy and effort to plan and execute this moment? Yes. Is it worth it? Well, let me take you back…

At the start of this year, I led my coaching clients (and myself) on a reflection. I asked: What experiences moved you forward this past year? And what moments did you cherish? Within my own answers, I found an interesting thread–many of these moments occurred during two trips. One very far away, to Morocco, and another much closer to home, to the California coast.

Now, I need to disclose that I am a homebody. Working in my garden, brainstorming at my desk, curling up in my bed, and gathering around my kitchen table are my favorite things to do. I’m terrible at booking trips. I panic over packing. And all means of transport make me motion sick. So, I was truly shocked that some of my most transformative moments had anything to do with travel.

Naturally, I wanted to understand why. (And if I could find similar moments without taking Dramamine.) However, my answers had me loading up my suitcase again.

What I Leave Behind

I realized that one of the most important parts of travel is what I leave behind. Setting aside my routines, responsibilities, and roles allowed me to find new ways of being. Ironically, the very thing that makes leaving hard also makes travel transformative.

In 2025, I went to Morocco sans kids. It took a lot of planning to leave them, but it was a tremendous gift to myself. I got to feel life as a woman with motherhood set gently aside for a week. I realized that I wasn’t even sure what I wanted, separate from everyone and everything else that surrounded me. Away from my usual social and environmental triggers, I got to feel what it was like to move with my desires as the primary driver. My creative energy surged.

I set my work aside too, allowing whatever wanted to arise instead of what needed to arise due to those responsibilities. Again, it took planning to do this, but what I got was space to experience myself without those layers of identity. I could be anyone in this new place.

That said, I learned something by bringing along pieces of my life to see how they felt in an entirely different context. On the plane ride across the ocean, I wanted to revise a draft of my novel. Without the distractions of home, I immersed myself in my work in a new way. I experienced a level of focus that I forgot I was capable of in my usual multitasking existence. I remembered the deep level of work I sustained during my PhD program and saw that with the right support, I could do this again.

My trip to the California coast was a family affair. But I had learned something in Morocco. I signed my kids up for a special half-day camp in order to have space for my creative explorations in a new place. With that time, I dreaming up my first coaching circle and my kids fell in love with goats and chickens. In the afternoons, we all converged on the beach and I got to see new facets of my motherhood as well.

These trips allowed me to suspend parts of my identity and see new sides of myself. I was free of who people think I should be, which helped me free myself from who I think I should be. Sometimes the entrenchment of our routine tricks us into thinking that there is only one way to live, and in leaving the familiar furrow, we see that there are countless.

The annoying fact is that the unease that makes me resist travel, giving up my comfortable roles and routines, is required for the transformation that travel gives me. While stability and structure help me create in an everyday way, I see the deep importance of disruption to support my creative life. Making my homebody uncomfortable is a worthy investment.

What I Discover

In stepping outside the expected, I can then find the unexpected. Each trip exposed me to new people, new experiences, and new ideas, filling me with creative inspiration.

On my trip to Morocco, I traveled with women from around the world who imposed fewer limitations on their desires. They went for what they wanted. They prioritized their health and their experience, and I got to witness it. I saw the possibility and then tried it on.

I signed myself up for a hammam, an ancient steam bath ritual centered on deep physical cleansing and community connection. After sitting in a thick steam until I could only see a foot in front of me, I laid down on a stone table and was bathed and scrubbed like an infant. Tears filled my eyes, as line after line of a poem filled my mind. I never felt called to poetry, but this experience sparked it. It felt like I made space within myself, and fresh creative energy rushed right in.

Neuroscience can help explain the power of travel. Studies show that novel experiences trigger dopamine release, activating the brain’s reward systems, and enhance neuroplasticity, or our brain’s ability to form new connections and pathways. In new environments, our brains are more open to new ideas and more readily interrupt old patterns. I cannot think of a more potent combination for creativity.

After learning this, I asked myself what new ideas or patterns I want to try on my current trip. Over the past several months, I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing my fiction every day, and my recent conversation with Amie McNee on the podcast brought this desire roaring back. I want to restart a ridiculously small daily word count goal, and I thought what better way to use my brain’s plasticity on this trip than to give it a go. So, after sharing this with all of you, I will pull out my journal and build some new patterns.

Take It With You

Understanding the power of travel, I started prioritizing these opportunities and paying closer attention to the gifts I get along the way. Reflecting after a trip is a great way to do this.

I find myself asking these questions on my way home:

• What did I cherish most on my trip?

• What new beliefs or ideas did I discover?

• What aspects of myself did I experience on this trip that I want to take home?

These questions allow the learnings and changes I discovered to extend into my return. On the flights home from Morocco, I made a big list of all the things I desired. And when I got home, I started checking things off. I hung glowy peach curtains in my living room. I started lifting heavy weights. I bought a book of poetry.

Go Away in Small Ways

While booking the flight, packing the bags, and taking the Dramamine are worth all the effort, I think these lessons can help me in smaller ways, too. I wonder how I can lean into the potency of novelty and disruption in my everyday life. Maybe writing in a new cafe. Visiting a friend in a nearby town. Hiking a new trail. Shopping in a different bookstore. All these can help me set aside the expected, experience new provovations, and feel inspired.

Off to my journal!

Share Your Travel Experience in the Comments

🪞If you’ve gone on a trip this summer, what did you notice about yourself?

🌎 What places have inspired your creative work?

✈️ What is your dream travel destination?

Leave a comment

Welcome to another episode of the Creative, Inspired, ALIVE podcast—where we go behind the scenes with the storytellers shaping our culture.

Our next guest, Amie McNee, is a writer, teacher, speaker, and incredible advocate for creativity. Her mission is to dismantle the limiting narrative surrounding creatives so that we may each become the Artists the world needs us to be. She has published three works of historical fiction, and her non-fiction, We Need Your Art, is our September book club pick.

Today, we talk about:

• the insidious problem of perfectionism,

• the abundance of small goals,

• the infinite appetite for art, and

• the glorious importance of choosing yourself, among other delights!

💕, Joanna

🎥 Watch the Conversation

You can watch the full video on:
→ Our Website | Youtube | Substack app

Captions and full transcripts are always available on the website version (just click the “CC” button or the transcript tab below the video).

🎧 Prefer to Listen?

Stream the episode wherever you get your podcasts:
→ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible | or your favorite platform

🎙️ Browse all past episodes HERE

📝 Want to Ask a Future Guest a Question?

We invite the community to submit questions via our community chat—available in your browser or in the Substack app. We love including your curiosities in the conversation!

Connect with Amie McNee:

You can find Amie McNee on Instagram, Substack, and her website. Her book on creativity, We Need Your Art, is available in bookstores everywhere!

It’s almost August, which means it’s time for a favorite ritual: previewing some of the upcoming book releases we’re excited about—the ones that we’ve been waiting for, tugged at our bookish hearts, or whispered “Just one more chapter.”

💕, Joanna & Evelyn

Note: We don’t receive affiliate commissions or payment for these mentions. We haven’t read all of these yet. They are genuine picks based on love of the author, intriguing premises, or early buzz that feels promising.

📚 August’s Most Anticipated New Releases

Kitten by Stacey Yu (August 4th release)

Fresh out of college and adrift, Katie is happy to let her generous boyfriend James make the decisions until a vacation at his family's seaside house introduces her to Silver, his childhood cat, and a giddy new obsession begins to crack something open inside her. Darkly playful and unexpectedly heartfelt, Kitten is Stacey Yu's debut about a young woman who finds in a cat the life she secretly longs for, and what she might have to risk to become a person of her own.

Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour (August 4th release)

In New Orleans in 1944, Odette Honore shares her deepest secrets with her cousin Delphine in a hidden garden where they dream of lives full of art, passion, and freedom, but five years later, Odette is a widowed mother in Los Angeles, and Delphine, now passing as white, has spiraled away from her. Inspired by Nina LaCour's own Creole roots, Meet Me in the Garden is a decades-spanning story of love and longing, art and motherhood, and the shattering choice one woman must make to hold her family together.

A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett (August 11th release)

When the heir to one of the Empire's most powerful families is jailed for a murder he can neither deny nor explain, detective Ana Dolabra and her assistant Din must prove his innocence before the canton of Sapirdad erupts into a war that could starve the whole Empire. We cannot wait for this book in the Shadow of the Leviathan Series from Hugo and World Fantasy award winner Robert Jackson Bennett.

Ideal Life by Evelyn Skye (August 18th release)

When a glitch in Talia Morgan's neuroscience app destroys everything she has built on the eve of her startup's acquisition, she wakes to find a mysterious watch that lets her rewind the last twenty-four hours and perfect every messy moment, including her Sundays with Sam, the best friend who has quietly loved her for decades. Warmhearted and lightly magical, Ideal Life is our very own Evelyn Skye's story about a woman optimizing her way toward flawless, until one rewind goes too far and she begins to wonder whether the imperfect version was the only one worth living.

Full Throttle J.K. MacLearn (August 18th release)

When Juliette Marchmont becomes the first female driver in Formula 1, she has skeptics, rivals, and the worst car on the grid to contend with, then add to that…her new teammate: Dominic Hastings, the Prince of F1 and the man who broke her heart back in their academy days. Sizzling and fast-paced, Full Throttle is an enemies-to-lovers romance about two drivers forced into close quarters, wondering whether a bruised love can be repaired when only one of them can cross the finish line first.

That Night by Gillian McAllister (August 18th release)

When Frannie calls her sister and brother from a family vacation in Italy, they find her kneeling over an unmoving body, and the three of them make a promise that night to bury what happened and never tell a soul. From Gillian McAllister, author of Wrong Place Wrong Time, That Night is an electrifying thriller about how quickly a family's lies begin to spiral once the police come calling, and which sibling will crack first.

Love Me Like a Rock Song by Shelly Jay Shore (August 25th release)

Left at the altar by her much more famous fiancée right before recording her first solo album, singer-songwriter Delilah Cohen turns her honeymoon road trip into a desperate search for inspiration, and finds it in Emmett, the mysterious passenger she picks up two hours in, who happens to be a golem bound for one final, fatal task. From the bestselling author of Rules for Ghosting, Love Me Like a Rock Song is a soul-stirring romance about a woman chasing an unforgettable album down the California coast and the love she never expected to find waiting at the end of it.

Our Indie Author of Interest for August….

A Betrothed’s Betrayal by Deb Marlowe (August 11th release)

After ending her betrothal and losing her brother, the Duke of Winbury, Lady Lisette Birtwhistle inherits the leases to the Cotswold village of Lockstone Hollow and travels there hoping for a fresh start, only to have her former fiancé turn up dead soon after she arrives. Aided by new friends, a reserved carpenter, a suspicious constable, and a baby goat or two, she must untangle the village’s secrets to find the killer and clear her own name.

🥰 Your Turn: What Are You Looking Forward To?

What’s been your favorite read so far this summer?

What new releases have you been looking forward to?

Leave a comment below — it’s fun to get excited together.

Leave a comment

📚 Your invitation to the Ideal Life Virtual Book Launch Party + discussion questions

💛 Free RSVP & Zoom link

✍🏼 Autographed Copies + Special Gift: where to get them

💕 Evelyn

📚 You’re Invited: Ideal Life Virtual Book Launch Party!

We are so excited to invite everyone to the Virtual Launch Party for IDEAL LIFE in August!

Usually, our “Reading with Wonder” Book Club is for paid subscribers, but we’re flinging open the doors on August 23rd for everyone, for free.

JOIN US ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 23rd:

• If you’ve ever wondered what our Book Club is like

• Or you just want to celebrate with Evelyn!

Free RSVP + Zoom link

Ideal Life by Evelyn Skye
In New York Times bestselling author Evelyn Skye’s warmhearted and lightly magical novel, an opportunity to turn back time gives a scientist the chance to pursue her ideal life, only to realize it might keep her from truly living. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Virtual Party Date:

Sunday, August 23, 2026
8pm ET / 5pm PT

Free RSVP + Zoom link

💬 During the book talk, we’ll chat about:

• Ideal Life opens with a watch that can turn back 24 hours, allowing Talia to redo anything, as many times as she wants.

  • If you could redo something in the past 24 hours, what would it be?

  • How does a literary device like the rewindable watch shape a story’s plot and deepen the characters?

• Where do authors get ideas? Evelyn first thought of Ideal Life when she looked at all her friends and saw how they were stuck in never-ending cycles of self-improvement and life optimization.

  • But how do you know when an idea is big enough to support an entire book (vs a Substack essay, for example)?

  • Also: the inspiration behind Sam’s lighthouse that he converts into a bookstore

• Traditionally published books usually take 2 years from book deal to publication. That means authors must finish the final draft long before it’s released into the world.

  • How can authors stay ahead of pop culture—or in the case of Ideal Life, rapidly evolving technology—when they don’t know what will be relevant two years in the future?

  • If you could have an Ideal Life “Friend” like Queen Elizabeth, what or who would yours be and why?

• In Ideal Life, Talia invents an AI-related technology to help people but then faces a dilemma on how to bring it into a world where profits sometimes override other human priorities.

  • Why did Evelyn choose to write about startups and Silicon Valley?

  • How can authors ask big questions and investigate different perspectives while also letting readers come to their own conclusions? Does this conflict with market demands for closure in stories?

• Character cameos

  • Evelyn loves to drop in character cameos from her past novels into her latest book as Easter eggs to delight her most loyal readers. Which past character has a cameo in Ideal Life? Why does this work as a gift for fans of a writer’s work?

• Audience Q&A

  • Since this book club meeting is also a virtual launch party, we will have time for questions from you!

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

• Optimization is the act of adjusting a system or decision to make it as effective, functional, and efficient as possible. What areas of life do we optimize?

• Ironically, over-optimization makes things less functional and efficient. How do we notice this tendency to over-optimize in our lives? How can we increase our awareness and acceptance of good enough in these situations?

• How does effective and efficient fit in with the rest of our values?

We think this is going to be a wonderful conversation!

✨ Introverts welcome: Cameras on or off. Your presence is enough.

Free RSVP + Zoom link

Handmade Bookmarks + Autographed Copies of Ideal Life

Available for pre-order now at Fireside Books in Redwood City, CA. (Ideal Life releases on August 18th). Bookmarks are limited edition pre-order gifts and only available at Fireside Books until they run out.

Please email your pre-order request to:

orders@firesideRWC.com

• I will personalize the book if you like, just include the name I should write in the book (e.g., “To Andrew”)

• Fireside Books will ship to you or you can pick up from the store if you’re local!

  • (note: Fireside Books is a small husband-wife run store, so they’re taking orders by email. They don’t have a website that takes orders—ordering from their Bookshop.org page will not ship an autographed copy or bookmark, since those orders go through Bookshop’s centralized distribution.)

My Upcoming Book Launch Parties for Ideal Life:

• Saturday, August 22 at 6:30pm: Launch Party at Fireside Books in Redwood City, CA - FREE RSVP

• Sunday, August 23 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET: Virtual launch party - FREE RSVP

• Monday, August 24 at 11:30am: Read It and Eat (lunch and book talk) at Towne Center Books in Livermore, CA

In this post, you’ll find:

🎥 The video replay of our July meeting about Yesteryear

🗓️ Upcoming Book Club Picks

🎉 A sneak peak of next month’s book launch party!

💕, Joanna & Evelyn

🎥 Replay: Yesteryear

If you missed our last Book Club meeting, you can now watch the full replay above.

We had a lively discussion of Yesteryear, talking about:

• Unlikeable Characters

  • Natalie as “the angry woman” - The group agreed that Nathalie embodied the very archetype she condemned, projecting outward what she cannot accept internally. Many readers appreciated this dramatic irony, seeing what the protagonist could not, while also feeling challenged by the questions she raised.

  • Sympathy for the character was earned for different readers with the severe patriarchal system of her family and the slippery slope of social media.

  • We talked about how t…

Read more

Welcome to this month’s edition of Happiness Sprinkles—a soft, joyful roundup of small things worth smiling about and a few wonderful things you in this community have been reading and writing.

In this post, you’ll find:

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight - The amazing things our community is creating!

📖 Book Club Details + Zoom Link

• Reminder! Our “Reading with Wonder” Book Club meeting is this Sunday, July 26th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT

• Zoom Link at the bottom of this post

💕, Joanna & Evelyn

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

A few quiet delights we’ve loved this month—and hope you will, too. (Links included if you want to learn more).

• Podcasting Nuns. Have you ever heard nuns discuss Ultimate Frisbee or Saturday Night Live? If not, you’re in for a delight. A group of Dominican Sisters shares thoughts on faith, their personal journeys, and modern convent life, which includes surprising humor and joy on their Open Mic podcast.

• Pop-up Embroidery! Two friends, Earl and Nico, started a sustainable upcycling brand called Forever Soup, and added these amazing embroidery pop-ups to their venture. Imagine stopping by and having an artist add some embroidery art to your clothes at a farmers’ market. Making an old piece new again, creating a connection with an artist, and adding whimsy to the world, all with one stitched flower.

• Rent a Shelf! An innovative bookstore in Japan rents out shelf space for customers to fill with their favorite books. To keep bookstores from disappearing from Japanese villages, Honmaru Jinbocho, a samurai novelist, reinvented the bookshop by having people attract a community with their own book-loving curations. Would you rent a shelf?

• What beautiful snacks! Good Things Vending is a joyful, collaborative automation experience dispensing local art and vintage items from rehabbed snack vending machines in Chicago, Illinois. In 2018, Steph left her job in hospitality to explore what kind of work might make her life as playful as her heart. She now makes art accessible to everyone and shares how to make creative vending businesses with the world.

  

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight

Every month, we love highlighting what you are creating. Here are a few wonderful projects from our community:

🍰 Sarah Frison completed her book Belgian Summer Baking! And it’s available to buy now. Everything looks absolutely delicious, Sarah. Thank you for sharing your beautiful gifts with the world.

😈 Sophia Dunkin-Hubby made ARCs available for her debut novel, In Between Death and the Devil, and preorders are up on Amazon. Huge milestones Sophia!!

🙌 Karabi George had her debut novel, Not a Good Mother, cover reveal this month, and Debutiful did an exclusive of her first chapter! Congratulations Karabi!

🎥 Bill Hiatt just wrapped on the movie adaptation of his novella, The Devil Hath the Power, and novel, Haunted by the Devil. What a huge project! We can’t wait to watch, Bill.

Want to be featured in a future post?

Just reply to this email or leave a comment with a 1–2 sentence description of what you’ve been working on. Or, hang out in our community chat, where we share our recent smiles and successes.

📖 “Reading with Wonder” Book Club — This Sunday!

You’re invited (even if you haven’t read the book):

🗓️ Sunday, July 26th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT - ZOOM link below

📚 Book: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

💬 During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:

• Character - the balance of crafting unlikable characters.

  • What was your first impression of Natalie’s public persona, and how did that impression shift as you read?

  • How does the book handle sympathy? Did you find yourself judging Natalie, understanding her, resisting her, or all three?

  • What makes an “unlikable” or difficult protagonist compelling enough to keep reading?

  • What does the book suggest about character desire? What does Natalie think she wants, and what deeper need might be underneath that?

• Authenticity and Creativity - What is the boundary between art and truth?

  • Natalie’s life is, in many ways, an aesthetic project. What does the book suggest about the difference between making a life beautiful and making a life true?

  • For artists, writers, designers, or content creators: where is the line between cultivating a recognizable style and becoming trapped by it?

  • Which scenes made you most aware of the gap between fantasy and lived reality?

• Craft - What skills did you learn from this book?

  • What do you think about the way Burke builds tension out of contradiction rather than only external danger?

  • How does the novel use irony? Are readers usually ahead of Natalie, behind her, or uncomfortably aligned with her?

  • How does Burke balance critique with entertainment? Did one ever overpower the other?

• Staying Power - What will you take away from Yesteryear?

  • Where did you feel the book was funniest, sharpest, or most uncomfortable?

  • What is one image, phrase, scene, or idea from the book that you think will stay with you?

  • What conversation did the book start in your head that you didn’t expect?

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

• Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a past period, place, or person. What are you nostalgic for? What time in your life do you long for?

• What elements from that period, place, or person do you miss, and how can we find or create them in our present?

We think this is going to be a wonderful conversation!

Zoom link is posted below the paywall to keep our gathering cozy and private.

(This also prevents any non-book-loving Zoom crashers!)

If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:

Subscribe now

or:

Refer friends to receive complimentary months:

• 1 referral = 1 month free

• 2 referrals = 3 months free

• 3 referrals = 1 year free

Refer a friend

✨ Note for fellow introverts:
You are welcome to come as you are—cameras on or off, display names changed or unchanged. No pressure, just presence.

📹 This session will be recorded for those who can’t attend live.

💛 Join the Book Club:

Read more

Welcome to another episode of the Creative, Inspired, ALIVE podcast—where we go behind the scenes with the storytellers shaping our culture.

Our next guest, Catherine Cho, is the acclaimed author of The Devoted and the memoir Inferno. She was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Catherine also runs her own literary agency, Paper Literary. Originally from the United States, she now lives with her family in London.

Today, we talk about:

• the dual life of an agent and writer,

• researching the underbelly of society,

• the future of literary fiction,

• finding the beginning of a story,

• and so much more.

💕, Joanna & Evelyn

🎥 Watch the Conversation

You can watch the full video on:
→ Our Website | Youtube | Substack app

Captions and full transcripts are always available on the website version (just click the “CC” button or the transcript tab below the video).

🎧 Prefer to Listen?

Stream the episode wherever you get your podcasts:
→ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible | or your favorite platform

🎙️ Browse all past episodes HERE

📝 Want to Ask a Future Guest a Question?

We invite the community to submit questions via our community chat—available in your browser or in the Substack app. We love including your curiosities in the conversation!

Connect with Catherine Cho:

You can find Catherine Cho on her website. Her newest novel, The Devoted, is available in bookstores everywhere or from your favorite online retailer!

Welcome to another entry in Author Diaries—where we take you behind the scenes of publishing—querying, book auctions, cover design, how authors make money, book publicity, and more.

In this post, you’ll find:

📚 Book Event Primer & Etiquette Guide: How to Be a Good Guest

🥳 You’re invited! My launch party and other upcoming events

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-dreamers of this beautiful, bookish life.

xo,

Evelyn

📚 Book Event Primer & Etiquette Guide: How to Be a Good Guest

We are at the one month countdown to the release of my next book, Ideal Life, so I’ve been thinking about book launch parties and the unspoken rules of attending one.

A Few Unspoken Rules of Book Events

If you’ve never been to a book launch party or a book tour event (or even if you’ve been to several), there are things you may not know about how they work behind the scenes. I’m going to explain those and share a few related etiquette tips so you can both have a great time and be a wonderful guest.

1. Buy the Author’s Book at the Host Store

The bookstore hosting the event is not being paid for the author using the space. The bookstore is also often a small local business.

For example, Fireside Books (where my launch party is) is owned by a husband-and-wife team. They host book events because they love supporting the local author community, and the only compensation they get is through purchases of books.

It’s tempting to buy the author’s book off Amazon, because Amazon discounts everything. Small independent bookstores must charge the actual list price to survive against big box stores.

But the best citizens (like you!) will support the bookstore hosting the event by buying the book there.

» Think of it like: you don’t bring your Costco sushi into Nobu. There’s nothing wrong with buying sushi at Costco. But if you’re going to Nobu that night, you buy your dinner that night from Nobu, right? Basically, it’s the “no outside food” rule.

Exceptions:

• The author’s other books: If you are a longtime fan and have some of the author’s previous books you’d like her to sign, it’s okay to bring those! You can buy the new book from the host store and then ask the author to sign that one and your other books that you’d previously bought. (note: some bookstores or authors will limit how many books they will sign per person if the signing line is very long).

• It’s not in your budget: If you cannot afford to buy the book but still want to come out to support the author, that’s okay! This is more a guideline for where you buy a book, if you buy a book.

  • psst… Authors are paid when libraries buy their books, so you’re also supporting the author if you check her book out at the library (in any format).

• What if you bought the audiobook or ebook? Or you pre-ordered the book from Amazon and already started reading it? Understandable, don’t worry. You can buy something else at the bookstore—maybe a copy of a different book by that author, or a greeting card for your mom, or a water bottle or cute tote bag… Just think of it as a thank you to the store for hosting the event.

Note: If you want an autographed book), you can pre-order from Fireside Books and get a special, exclusive gift—a pretty bookmark handmade by me!

Here’s the bookmark:

Pre-order by emailing orders@firesideRWC.com. I will personalize the book if you like, just include the name I should write in the book. Fireside Books will ship to you or you can pick up from the store if you’re local!

2. Buy the Author’s Book Even If It’s Not Your Vibe

If you want to support the author but don’t read the kinds of books they write, buy a copy for a friend or family member! Think how delighted they will be that you thought of them. And it’s the perfect buy-ahead gift if there is a birthday coming up or even Christmas—buy now, gift later.

Heck, you can even buy a copy of the book and then just drop it off at a Little Free Library down the street after the event. (I would not recommend you tell the author that’s what you’re doing, though. Just lie and say you’re buying it for your mom.) 😆

» Think of it like buying Girl Scout cookies from your friend’s kid. Even if you don’t like sweets, you still buy them and then give them away, because there is always someone who loves and appreciates Girl Scout cookies!

3. Signing Line or Skip It?

This tip is not really etiquette, I’m just giving you permission not to wait in the signing line if you don’t have the time or don’t need/want your book signed.

The signing line is your chance to have a couple minutes with the author to congratulate them, get your book autographed (for yourself or whoever you’re giving it to), and even snap a selfie if the author is the photo-taking type. (I am always game for selfies with my readers!)

However, it’s totally acceptable to skip this part of the night. The author saw you in the audience earlier and was already delighted and appreciative that you came. So now you can just leave. Really!

» Think of it like the VIP photo opp at a concert: You’re happy that you attended the concert but you do not want to wait in line to have your shirt autographed and to get your picture taken with Taylor Swift / Linkin Park / Beyonce / [fill in the blank of your favorite band here].

» clarification disclaimer: I am not trying to claim that I’m as talented or famous as Taylor Swift / Linkin Park / Beyonce / your favorite band 😬

4. Do Not Steal the Author’s Limelight

If you are also a writer, this is not the time for you to go around pitching your own book. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but a book launch party (or book tour event) is the headlining author’s moment in the spotlight. It is a selfish faux pas to use their event as a platform for your own book.

You might think no one would ever do this. But you would be wrong! I once attended a book launch where another writer showed up with a copy of their own latest book and spent the entire evening parading it around in their arms (like a cradled infant). When someone would ask politely, “Oh, are you also an author?”, they would laugh as if surprised and then launch into, “I am! In fact, this is my newest book…” 🤮

» Think about it like wedding dresses: You wouldn’t wear a white wedding gown to someone else’s wedding, right? “Oh, this little ol’ thing? Why yes, I did recently get married too! Wanna see my wedding album?”

Exceptions:

• Sometimes, the headlining author invites another author to join them on stage as a conversation partner. It is perfectly acceptable (and expected) for the conversation partner to mention their book and have their books for sale at the event.

• If you are part of a supportive local author community and you’re attending the event to support the headlining author, and then someone in the audience recognizes you and approaches you to talk about your book(s), that’s okay! There’s a difference between showing up with the intention of promoting your own work and the intention of cheering on your author friend, and you were the latter.

5. Miscellaneous Tips and Etiquette for Guests

• Get to the event on time. This allows you to pick up your preorder (or buy the book if you didn’t preorder) and snag a seat.

• At the start of the event, some authors like to take a commemorative photo of the audience holding up copies of their book. If you don’t want your picture on socials, feel free to hold the book up in front of your face when they take that picture.

• Do not spoil the plot during the Q&A session.

• Be polite to the bookstore staff.

• Make new friends in the signing line. Say hello and talk books!

• Don’t assume the author remembers you, even if you’ve been to several of their previous book events. (They see hundreds of readers (or more) over the years). The bookstore staff will often offer you a stickie note to write down your name, which makes it easy on the author to autograph your book.

• Consider carefully when bringing kids to adult book events that may deal with discussions/issues inappropriate for your child. Of course it’s up to you as a parent, but just something to think about.

6. Miscellaneous Tips and Etiquette for Authors

• Arrive a little early before your event to meet the bookstore staff and to talk through the event and expectations.

• Be polite to the bookstore staff. You won’t believe the horror stories I’ve heard about authors waltzing in like divas and treating the booksellers like their servants!

• Use a microphone (if available). Everyone thinks their voice is loud enough. It’s not. (Or there might be audience members who don’t hear well and would appreciate it).

• During Q&A, repeat the question into your microphone for the benefit of the rest of the audience.

• After the event, sign the store stock (the extra books they ordered to sell after the event).

• Autograph books for the staff (if they want them) because they will be the people hand-selling your books to shoppers who come into the store later.

I hope that was helpful!

🥳 You’re invited! My launch party and other upcoming events

Come celebrate Ideal Life with me!

• LAUNCH PARTY: Saturday, August 22 at 6:30pm at Fireside Books in Redwood City, CA

  • More launch party details below, including how to get an autographed book and that exclusive, handmade bookmark.

• Virtual Creative Inspired ALIVE event: Sunday, August 23 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET - Zoom Link to come

• Books & Lunch: Monday, August 24 at 11:30am at Towne Center Books in Livermore, CA

Ideal Life Book Launch Party:

Saturday, August 22, 2026 at 6:30pm

Fireside Books

2421 Broadway, Redwood City, CA 94063

(right next to the Redwood City Caltrain station; there are also plenty of parking lots)

Free RSVP here

What will happen at my launch party?

• Ideal Life-themed treats (what will they be? You’ll have to come to find out 😉)

• Book talk:

  • the process of writing the book, including what inspired me

  • our society’s obsession with self-improvement and optimization

  • exploring parent-grown child relationships in immigrant families

• Q&A

• Quick trivia and prizes

• Book signing

Autographed Books with Exclusive Preorder Gift available only from Fireside Books!

• I will personalize the book if you like, just include (in your order) the name I should write in the book.

• Fireside Books will ship to you or you can pick up from the store if you’re local!

Please pre-order via email at orders@firesideRWC.com.

• (note: Fireside Books is a small husband-wife run store, so they’re taking orders by email. They don’t have a website that takes orders—ordering from their Bookshop.org page will not ship an autographed copy or bookmark, since those orders go through Bookshop’s centralized distribution.)

» This post is part of our Author Diary series. You can find past entries HERE.

Welcome back to Letters from the Creative Life. These occasional essays explore the quieter corners of being a creative: small reflections on art, ambition, and the tender balancing act of building a meaningful life in a noisy world. Think of them as letters from our lives to yours.

In this post you’ll find:

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well—a book and an article that are lighting me up

✨Writing a Recipe for Transformation for Our Characters and Ourselves

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-dreamers of this beautiful, bookish life.

💕, Joanna

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well

Current book: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke — This story is about a tradwife influencer who builds a five-million-follower Instagram empire by curating an illusion of domestic perfection. Her modern life shatters when she is inexplicably transported to 1855 and forced to live in the harsh pioneer world she had romanticized online.

This is our July Book Club Pick. I haven’t heard this many emotional reactions to a book since Miranda July’s All Fours, so obviously, we need to all talk about it.

• Reminder: Our Book Club meeting is on Sunday, July 26, 2026 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Discussion Qs and more info HERE.

Current article: 10 uses for a pocket notebook to keep you off your phone by Amy Catriona — I’ve been inspired to use my journal in new ways. To let my mind explore in small spurts on paper instead of scrolling. My particular favorites are capturing overheard conversations and favorite lists. I can only imagine how these might find their way into my fiction.

Writing a Recipe for Transformation

I am a writer and a coach, and the area where these two professions overlap happens to be at the very center of both–transformation.

As writers, we take our protagonists and profoundly change them. They often start at the effect of their life and the world around them. Then, after facing challenge after challenge, they begin to understand themselves, take responsibility, and make active choices that lead them to their ultimate transformation.

And when I coach real people, I help them do the same. I’ve learned to call this shift going from a “to me” to a “by me” way of being, or from a victim to a creator stance in the world.

As storytellers, we get this shift. It underlies the overarching story arc–going from a wallflower to a confident kid, from a rejected heir to the king, from a midlife crisis to a new calling. But how is this accomplished page by page for our characters and day by day for ourselves? From my experience, these big transformations are made up of many small shifts from “to me” to “by me” in the muddy middle of novels and life.

In fact, we can use the same tool to figure out our character’s transformation that we use to help shift our own lives.

“To Me” Way of Being

With a “to me“ perspective on the world, we adopt a victim stance to the circumstances around and within us. A “to me” mindset is expressed as: I can’t, I should, I have to, They won’t let me… We believe that the causes of our well-being are outside of our control, which in turn is horrible for our well-being.

Some “to me” outlooks I’ve had to challenge as a creator include: “No one wants to buy my art.” “I don’t have enough energy at the end of the day to write.” “The world is broken. What’s the point in making art anyway?”

There are real obstacles in the external world that make creating a fulfilling, creative life difficult. These circumstances deserve empathy, and believing that we have no agency to make our lives better creates even more suffering. We cede the role of protagonist in our own lives.

Just like the main characters in our novels, we can’t magically make the world just, fair, or easy. And if a character complained about their circumstances or blamed someone else for the entirety of 300 pages, we wouldn’t read the book. Our novels help us see that the challenges around us are what make us.

“By Me” Way of Being

With a “by me“ perspective on the world, we adopt a creator stance to our circumstances. Instead of believing that the cause of our experience lies outside of us, we come to see that we are the cause of our experience. We stop blaming and start taking responsibility.

And going one step further, looking at the problems and asking–What can I learn from this? How is this unfolding for me to grow? We don’t ignore or skip over hard things, but choose to see them as a call for our transformation.

We feel this on the page–the character waking up to their own agency–and it’s thrilling. And we can give ourselves the same gift. So, how do we shift?

Write a Recipe

Finding an extremely handsome demigod or duke isn’t the only way to shift. Sometimes, simply gaining awareness of our “to me” state can help us make different choices.

One of the tools I learned from my mentor is called “Writing a Recipe.” When I’m stuck in a “to me” way of being, instead of trying to escape it, I lean in and explore it. I begin by fully expressing my “to me” mindset. I flail and complain and growl about all that’s happening “to me” — what’s terrible about my situation, and who’s to blame. I let it be messy because to shift, I need to fully understand how I’m stuck.

The next part can be a little counterintuitive, but stay with me. I write a recipe for how someone else can find themselves in the same terrible predicament as me. I describe the choices and beliefs that led me to the specific problem I face. Note: this is not a recipe for the solution; we’ll come to that later.

Let’s play with one of my recent “to me” stories: “No one wants to read my 1940s women’s fiction novel with cozy romance elements.” Now, let me complain: “I wrote what I love, and it’s not what the market wants. My work falls into a gap between genres that doesn’t have enough comps to support it. Women’s fiction people won’t like the cozy romance, and the cozy romance readers don’t want historical unless it involves dukes or demigods. Grrr, waaaah, pout!”

Now, let me write a recipe so that if someone followed it step-by-step, they too would end up in my situation.

Ingredients: fear of rejection, pride, self-doubt, passion

1. Start by writing the story that moves you. Do some scant market research and be sure to ignore any red flags.

2. Once you’ve polished the novel, share it with a few beta-readers, then discount their positive feedback and imagine crushing criticisms instead.

3. Don’t you dare share your book with more people, even when some beg you to read it, out of fear that they won’t like it. Oh, and don’t acknowledge this fear – that would be pathetic.

4. Push aside your deeper knowing that all art is sacred and your words matter. Give that advice to others, but struggle to accept it yourself.

When I put all that down, I saw clearly that this was not the artist I wanted to be. I saw how I was choosing to be a victim of my mindset and the market. The “by me” action steps also felt obvious. I saw how my fear of rejection held me back. I saw how my inner critic was trying to keep me safe while my deepest wisdom knew courage was required to share my work with the world. My shift from victim to creator was at my fingertips. In fact, I saw that this circumstance was exactly what I needed to grow into the empowered creator I want to be.

Okay, now let’s see how this tool can help with the elusive problem of weaving the character and plot development together through a novel.

You’ve got your character, they’ve got a problem, and now you need to transform them. First, free write their “to me” way of being at the beginning of the novel. Let them really tell you how everything is terrible. Then, write a recipe for how someone else can find themselves in the same terrible predicament as the protagonist.

What’s Daphne Bridgerton’s recipe for ending up in a loveless marriage? It might look something like this:

Ingredients: trust, naivety, devotion, accommodation

1. Prioritize your family’s reputation above your happiness.

2. Be flawless at meeting the patriarchal standards of elite society and internalize them while you’re at it.

3. Become an expert at suppressing your personal needs and curiosities, especially about anything untoward.

4. Blindly trust the men in your life to act in your best interest despite clear evidence of their pride and misjudgment.

A character’s “to me” recipe provides a specific list of ways the character hampers themselves, and a list of beliefs and actions that need to be challenged in their growth. Syncing a character’s “to me” recipe and “by me” actions connects plot and character in that magical way we yearn for.

For Daphne Bridgerton to stop making the recipe that creates a loveless marriage, she needs to risk her family’s reputation, to find and prioritize her own needs and curiosities, and to question the men’s intentions in her life over and over again. Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes thought of the most fun ways to do this.

Shift by Shift

I went to lunch with some writer friends last month. One of them, a literary fiction lover, was wading into the world of romance. We talked about the genre’s requirements, of which the most sacred is an HEA- Happily Ever After. My friend wondered, “What’s the point if you know how it ends?” Another friend answered, “The pleasure is in seeing how they get there.”

Even if the bigger shift is known, the journey is not. As writers, we walk characters from being a victim to the creator of their lives by presenting them with many problems in which they have the opportunity to practice shifting from “to me” to “by me” over the course of the novel, until the climax presents them with the largest challenge and allows them to step firmly into an empowered stance in their lives.

It doesn’t happen in one big epiphany, no, that novel would be short and the transformation unearned. We feel it in little shifts scene after scene. And our own transformations don’t happen all at once either. They happen through practice and repetition. This is not a one-and-done deal.

Here’s how Daphne toggles between “to me” and “by me” throughout the novel. You can see that each problem requires Daphne to challenge her recipe.

Let Your Protagonist Loose!

At Creative, Inspired, ALIVE, we begin each newsletter, “Hello Protagonist!” to remind ourselves that we get to create our own story. We all fall into a “to me” way of living, and we can transform ourselves just as beautifully and persistently as our characters. It’s not easy, but we’re artists, we know, in the words of Georgia O’Keeffe, “To create one’s own world takes courage.”

We all toggle between these ways of being, and the more practice we get in recognizing where we are and shifting to where we want to be, the more agency we have in our lives to create amazing art.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

⚡️What transformation are you writing for your characters?

🦹 How might you lean into a “by me” way of being this week?

🥣 What recipe have you tried lately?

Leave a comment

Welcome to another episode of the Creative, Inspired, ALIVE podcast—where we go behind the scenes with the storytellers shaping our culture.

Our guest, Mara Brock Akil, is an award-winning writer, producer, director, and showrunner. At the age of 30, she became the youngest African American showrunner on broadcast network television with her sitcom Girlfriends. She created BET’s first drama series, Being Mary Jane, and co-created the romantic drama, Love Is, on OWN. She founded Story27 with Netflix and is currently creating her sixth series, the teen drama Forever. Her debut novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, was just published by Storehouse Voices.

Today, we talk about:

• the public and private lives of women,

• comparing screenwriting and crafting novels,

• the magic of female friendships,

• our collective healing through story,

• and so much more.

💕, Joanna

🎥 Watch the Conversation

You can watch the full video on:
→ Our Website | Youtube | Substack app

Captions and full transcripts are always available on the website version (just click the “CC” button or the transcript tab below the video).

🎧 Prefer to Listen?

Stream the episode wherever you get your podcasts:
→ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible | or your favorite platform

🎙️ Browse all past episodes HERE

📝 Want to Ask a Future Guest a Question?

We invite the community to submit questions via our community chat—available in your browser or in the Substack app. We love including your curiosities in the conversation!

Connect with Mara Brock Akil:

You can find Mara on Instagram or on her website. Her newest novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, is available in bookstores everywhere or from your favorite online retailer!

Welcome to July. Here are some of this month’s new releases we feel pretty excited about—the ones that we instantly added to our TBR, sent to our group chats, or did a happy dance about reading soon!

💕, Joanna & Evelyn

Note: We don’t receive affiliate commissions or payment for these mentions. We haven’t read these yet; these are genuine picks based on love of the author, intriguing premises, or early buzz that feels promising.

📚 July’s Most Anticipated New Releases

Love You More by Emily Griffin (July 7th release)

When Billie accepts a romantic marriage proposal from Dean, the partner she finally found after years of moving on, a sudden phone call from Mick, her high-school sweetheart, pulls her back to Wisconsin and the love she thought she'd left behind. Love You More is an emotionally powerful novel about the choices that shape us and the many forms love can take, perfect for readers who want a story that proves life's biggest plot twists can change everything.

Hustle, Baby by Priya Guns (July 14th release)

When teenage Dilo's family of Tamil refugees faces imminent eviction in turn-of-the-millennium America, a swaggering day-trader named Mark appears with promises of impossible returns, and the family becomes his most devoted recruiters, until they discover what really fuels his generosity. Hustle, Baby is a fearless and feral novel about one family's fight to survive a rigged system and what happens when people with nothing are pushed past their breaking point.

The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren (July 14th release)

When scientist Emery Finch loses her charming husband Luca in a tragic accident, she breaks every rule. She uses her own classified technology to bring him back, only to discover that the man she revived remembers nothing of their life together. From New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren, this is a speculative twist on romance about a woman given an extraordinary do-over and determined not to waste her one shot at reviving true love.

The Parisian Heist by Jo Piazza (July 14th release)

In present-day Paris, struggling artist Emma takes a cleaning job for the Swanson family and falls into their dazzling, dangerous world, eventually agreeing to mastermind a daring heist inside the Musée d'Orsay. At the same time, in the late 1800s, young widow Jo van Gogh stakes everything on proving the genius of the worthless paintings she inherited from her brother-in-law, Vincent. This propulsive dual-timeline mystery weaves together two women determined to refuse erasure in a story drenched in art-world intrigue, family secrets, and betrayal.

The Devoted by Catherine Cho (July 14th release)

When Eunha's young son is kidnapped, the carefully respectable life she built to escape her father's world as a Triad Dragon Head shatters, casting her into Hong Kong's criminal underground and back into the orbit of Kai, her childhood companion turned Dragon Head himself. The Devoted is a sweeping family drama and an account of forbidden love about a woman determined to choose her own destiny, even as she wonders whether her future was fated all along.

Stay tuned - Catherine Cho will be on our podcast this month!

The Masala Chai Mystery Club by MJ Soni (July 21st release)

When retired librarian Neeti Shah discovers her despised neighbor Rohit dead at the bottom of a staircase with an Agatha Christie novel nearby, she realizes the killer's MO eerily echoes her book club's latest read and resolves to catch the culprit herself. Perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club, this cozy mystery follows Neeti and her chai-loving Masala Chai Mystery Club as they race to unmask a killer before more bodies, and they themselves, end up in hot water.

Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst (July 28th release)

When supply runner Marin sails into the capital on a routine trip and finds a revolution underway with her friend Dax in the line of fire, a daring rescue turns into a fake-dating bargain: he joins her crew if he poses as her boyfriend at the End-of-Harvest Festival back home. Sea of Charms is a cozy fantasy romance about finding your crew, your family, and yourself, perfect for readers who love friends-to-lovers stories, magical creatures, and a charming sea serpent for a crewmate.

🥰 Your Turn: What Are You Looking Forward To?

What has been your favorite beach read so far?

What new releases are you most excited about this month?

Leave a comment below — we’d all love to grow our TBRs together.

Leave a comment

In this post, you’ll find:

🎥 The video replay of our June meeting

📚 Your invitation + discussion questions for Yesteryear, our next book pick

🗓️ Upcoming Book Club Picks

💛 RSVP & Zoom link (below the paywall)

💕 Joanna & Evelyn

🎥 Replay: These Summer Storms

If you missed our last Book Club meeting, you can now watch the full replay above.

We had such a wonderful discussion on These Summer Storms.

• We talked about how MacLean’s historical romance background came through in her women’s fiction, with its tightly paced plot, open-door intimate scenes, and direct prose style.

• We felt that the multiple constraints used to drive the plot forward, including the private island, one-week timeline, and inheritance game with per-character rules, drove tension without feeling heavy-handed.

• Everyone desired a greater understanding of Elisabeth and Franklin - wanting to know how their marriage unraveled and how they made parenting choices, but we ended up recognizing that this lack of clarity could have been intentional by MacLean because when a parent dies, countless things are left unanswered.

• We admired the level of planning it takes to reveal so many secrets in a progression to mirror character arcs and build emotional stakes.

• We touched on the sub-genre of books about rich people behaving badly and noticed that MacLean embedded wealth details (designer chairs, Picasso, antiques) subtly in scene-setting rather than making them a major focus, in contrast to Crazy Rich Asians or The Idea of You, which critiqued or celebrated luxury.

• We felt MacLean did an incredible job of hopping from historical romance to book club fiction and discussed other author transitions, including Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emily Henry, Evelyn Skye, and Adrienne Young.

During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we explored:

• Inspired by MacLean’s celebration of pleasure and joy, we shared different pleasures in our creative lives. Some pleasures show up in what we write about, including food, animals, and cozy hobbies/settings (gardens, bookshops, and cottages).

• We also talked about leaning into pleasure during the act of writing by creating sensual tactile environments like velvet chairs, soft blankets, smooth notebooks, flowing pens, and tea. May we all enjoy the power of our own pleasure!

As always, the replay is available to paid subscribers to keep our discussions cozy and private.

📚 You’re Invited: Yesteryear

Whether you’re a curious reader or a fellow writer, we’d love to have you join us. No need to be “an expert”—just bring your thoughts and your love of books.

Our next Book Club pick is:

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
It seems that no book club would be complete this year without discussing this book! If you hate it, love it, love to hate it, or hate to love it, everyone will have something to say and something to learn. We can’t wait to discuss it from a craft perspective.

Meeting Date:

Sunday, July 26, 2026
8pm ET / 5pm PT
Zoom link below

💬 During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:

• Character - the balance of crafting unlikable characters.

  • What was your first impression of Natalie’s public persona, and how did that impression shift as you read?

  • How does the book handle sympathy? Did you find yourself judging Natalie, understanding her, resisting her, or all three?

  • What makes an “unlikable” or difficult protagonist compelling enough to keep reading?

  • What does the book suggest about character desire? What does Natalie think she wants, and what deeper need might be underneath that?

• Authenticity and Creativity - What is the boundary between art and truth?

  • Natalie’s life is, in many ways, an aesthetic project. What does the book suggest about the difference between making a life beautiful and making a life true?

  • For artists, writers, designers, or content creators: where is the line between cultivating a recognizable style and becoming trapped by it?

  • Which scenes made you most aware of the gap between fantasy and lived reality?

• Craft - What skills did you learn from this book?

  • What do you think about the way Burke builds tension out of contradiction rather than only external danger?

  • How does the novel use irony? Are readers usually ahead of Natalie, behind her, or uncomfortably aligned with her?

  • How does Burke balance critique with entertainment? Did one ever overpower the other?

• Staying Power - What will you take away from Yesteryear?

  • Where did you feel the book was funniest, sharpest, or most uncomfortable?

  • What is one image, phrase, scene, or idea from the book that you think will stay with you?

  • What conversation did the book start in your head that you didn’t expect?

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

• Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a past period, place, or person. What are you nostalgic for? What time in your life do you long for?

• What elements from that period, place, or person do you miss, and how can we find or create them in our present?

We think this is going to be a wonderful conversation!

Share

✨ Introverts welcome: Cameras on or off. Your presence is enough.

Upcoming Book Club Picks

In case you missed it, here are our book picks for the first quarter of 2026:

🔐 RSVP & Zoom Link

To protect the privacy of our discussion space and prevent Zoom-bombing, the RSVP and Zoom link are posted below the paywall.

If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:

Subscribe now

Or refer friends to receive complimentary months:

• 1 referral = 1 month free

• 2 referrals = 3 months free

• 3 referrals = 1 year free

Refer a friend

💛 💛 💛 💛 💛

Read more

Welcome to June’s edition of Happiness Sprinkles—a soft, joyful roundup of small things worth smiling about and a few wonderful things you in this community have been creating.

In this post, you’ll find:

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight - You’re the Hero of the Story

📖 Book Club Details + Zoom Link

• Reminder! Our “Reading with Wonder” Book Club meeting is this Sunday, June 28th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT

• Zoom Link at the bottom of this post

💕 Joanna

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

A few quiet delights we’ve loved this month—and hope you will, too.

• Music designed to slow down time: Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel is a masterclass in the neuroscience of musical stillness. Why Music Feels describes how: “The composition is built on a pristine geometric trap: the piano maintains an unhurried, looping triplet rhythm, providing a safe cognitive framework, while the cello performs slow, rising, and falling scales that inevitably resolve back to the same note.” I get chills every time I listen. My body loves this music.

• Summer Mocktails! I’m enjoying all the emerging mocktail accounts. It’s so fun to have such a variety of fun recipes that leave me feeling refreshed and alive. And they are just so beautiful! What has been your favorite drink this summer?

• Borrowing a Backyard: This Washington Post article describes how several urban flower farmers trade lawn care for space to grow beautiful blooms in their neighborhoods. I am so inspired by the courage to ask for collaboration and the community it created as a result. Neighbors are connected, and so much beauty is shared. Would you be willing to share your backyard?

• Summer Reading Parties: I just learned about Reading Rhythms, a group that organizes and hosts reading parties across the country, connecting passionate readers and redefining how we experience books together. I want one in Berkeley so bad! Has anyone been to one of their gatherings?

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight

Every month, we love highlighting what you are creating. Here are a few wonderful projects from our community:

🕵 Neal Lipschutz has a new mystery novel, Long Arm of the Past, due from publisher Tucker DS Press in August (available for pre-order now). It follows the July 2025 release of his debut, No Write Way to Die.

✍🏽 After almost three years of tireless writing, J.C. Ardent finished his debut novel! The dedication of writers is truly amazing. Go J.C.!

Want to be featured in a future post?

Just reply to this email or leave a comment with a 1–2 sentence description of what you’ve been working on. Or, hang out in our community chat, where we share our recent smiles and successes.

📖 “Reading with Wonder” Book Club — This Sunday!

You’re invited (even if you haven’t read the book):

🗓️ Sunday, June 28th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT - ZOOM link below

📚 Book: These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

💬 During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:

• Constraints - MacLean uses the “one week on an island” premise as a creative constraint. Did the bounded time and place make the story feel tighter, more theatrical, more artificial, or more emotionally pressurized? Is the container of the book the island, the will, the storm, the week, Alice’s return, or the family reckoning?

• Birth Order - In our podcast interview with MacLean, she talked about taking pleasure in turning birth order tropes on their heads. How well did she accomplish this? Which characters transformed and which characters failed to transform?

• Posthumous characters - MacLean also talked about her decision to never have Franklin alive on page, so the character is absent but still structurally powerful. How did she keep a dead character active in the plot?

• Reveals - Which secrets landed because they were carefully seeded, and which surprised you through timing or emotional context?

• Wealth - The Storm family’s wealth creates spectacle, but also emotional distortion. How did the book make you feel about family wealth?

• Career Transitions - This novel is a transition for MacLean, going from Historical Romance to Book Club Fiction. Did this feel like a debut? Where did you feel her romance-genre roots most strongly: banter, pacing, emotional legibility, sensuality, character arc, or payoff?

  • Do you perceive traditional publishing as supporting or inhibiting the creative evolution of authors?

  • What other authors have successfully transitioned to other arenas?

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

• MacLean stands for the power of pleasure and joy in our world. How does pleasure have power in your creative life? How can you invite more pleasure into each day?

• In our podcast interview with MacLean, she talked about her admiration of Jennifer Lynne Barnes (whose most popular series is called The Inheritance Games) and her advice to find your “id buttons,” which are the small and big things that you adore, and fill your book with them. We will take time to list our personal “id buttons” in writing and life.

We think this is going to be a super fun conversation!

Zoom link is posted below the paywall to keep our gathering cozy and private.

(This also prevents any non-book-loving Zoom crashers!)

If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:

Subscribe now

or:

Refer friends to receive complimentary months:

• 1 referral = 1 month free

• 2 referrals = 3 months free

• 3 referrals = 1 year free

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✨ Note for fellow introverts:
You are welcome to come as you are—cameras on or off, display names changed or unchanged. No pressure, just presence.

📹 This session will be recorded for those who can’t attend live.

💛 Join the Book Club:

Read more

Welcome to another episode of the Creative, Inspired, ALIVE podcast—where we go behind the scenes with the storytellers shaping our culture.

Our guest, Jessica Goldstein, is a style, arts, and humor writer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, Vulture, and the humor site McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Her debut novel, Retro, published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is out now.

Today, we talk about:

• the ins and outs of time travel,

• crafting humor,

• books in pop culture,

• writing opinion pieces in major publications,

• and so much more.

💕 Joanna

🎥 Watch the Conversation

You can watch the full video on:
→ Our Website | Youtube | Substack app

Captions and full transcripts are always available on the website version (just click the “CC” button or the transcript tab below the video).

🎧 Prefer to Listen?

Stream the episode wherever you get your podcasts:
→ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible | or your favorite platform

🎙️ Browse all past episodes HERE

📝 Want to Ask a Future Guest a Question?

We invite the community to submit questions via our community chat—available in your browser or in the Substack app. We love including your curiosities in the conversation!

Connect with Jessica Goldstein:

You can find Jessica on X, Bluesky, and her website. Her newest novel, Retro, is available in bookstores everywhere!

Welcome back to Letters from the Creative Life. These occasional essays explore the quieter corners of living: small reflections on art, ambition, and the tender balancing act of building a meaningful life in a noisy world. Think of them as letters from our lives to yours. Enjoy!

💕 Joanna

The Green Eyed Goddess

Tapping the Power of Envy in My Creative Life

Envy has claws. She slinks around, and seemingly out of nowhere, she pounces. While visiting with a friend, scrolling the internet, or even walking through a crowd of strangers, I see something, I want it, and suddenly it hurts not to have it. The feeling is tight and sharp, and then, sometimes, it makes my own claws come out.

Cutting thoughts that diminish the person who has the thing I want or disparage the thing itself slice through me.

Look at her with all that time to create, she’s so selfish.

Look at him trying to create a brand on instagram, how cringe.

Look at their creative friendship, I bet it’s all fake.

Next would come the shame. What kind of person thinks such things when another finds success or lives their best life?! I’d chastise myself, “Bad Joanna,” and quickly push the ugly thoughts and feelings away.

Until one day, I didn’t. I gathered up my courage and curiosity and faced my envy. Within this ferocious cascade, I found two precious gifts. The first is often obvious, and the second is always surprising.

The First Gift

At the root of it, envy is about desire, and desire has been one of the most powerful forces in my life.

However, coming to know and allow my deepest desires hasn’t been easy. Growing up, I never got the message that my intrinsic wants were something to pay attention to, explore, and celebrate. I learned to look outward before I looked inward. And the world around me was happy to tell me what I should and should not want. Learning to hear my inner voice over the noise was difficult, but I found help in an unexpected place—envy.

Envy is a powerful spotlight on my wanting. And chances are, if that spotlight is green, then I might not have access to that desire, the desire might not be comfortable for me to own, or I might not understand what my desire is truly all about.

The Want Under the Want

After feeling envy, my first step is to understand what it is that I really want. It can seem like the object of my desire is straightforward. I want that book deal. But when I ask myself, “What’s the want under that want?,” I often find something deeper.

For example, I want that book deal so that my work can reach readers. I want that book deal so that I can feel like a legitimate writer. I want that book deal so others will respect and celebrate me.

Once I understand what is more deeply important to me, I’m able to entertain more ways to meet my needs. The solution space expands. Is traditional publishing the only way to be legitimate, respected, celebrated, and read by the world? Sharing my work on Wattpad or Substack would lead me to feel celebrated and enjoyed by others. Submitting short stories to contests might help me feel respected. Or even more amazing--I could come to believe that I don’t need anyone other than myself to make me a legitimate artist.

When I was a young mother, I envied my friends without children. I didn’t want to be childless, so I had to keep going—what did I really want? I paid attention. I lusted after their wide-open weekends, their carefree travel plans, and their ability to prioritize their own needs. I wanted to reclaim some individuality, freedom, and creative time for myself. Unlike childlessness, these things were within my reach. I could formulate a real plan—an independent writing retreat and more regular childcare to restart work on my novel. But, there was another catch…

Understanding my desires is the first gift of envy, but sometimes this isn’t enough because sometimes, I won’t allow myself to want what I want. And envy helps with this, too.

The Second Gift

Here’s where those nasty judgments come in.

It’s a lot easier to focus on the object of desire and push away those cruel thoughts or cutting resentments that can accompany it, but then you would be only getting half the answer. As ugly as they are, the judgments I have about others often show me why I won’t let myself have what I want. The judgement is often the quality I am scared of, disallow in myself, or make wrong. And exactly what I need to permit in myself to align with my desired life.

Let’s go back to the list at the beginning.

Look at her with all that time to create, she’s so selfish.

Look at him trying to create a brand on instagram, how cringe.

Look at their creative friendship, I bet it’s all fake.

In judging someone else as selfish for dedicating time to their art, the belief that needs to be challenged within me is: Creating art is selfish. If I view creating as indulgent yet want desperately to create, I’m stuck in a finger trap. In challenging my judgments that I project on someone else, I can find my own freedom. How is spending time creating incredibly generous and essential to all?

If I judge experimenting on social media as cringe, but desperately want to have a public voice, I’m stuck; and cringe is the key to my freedom. Cringe is not a problem for someone else, but in my own mind. I need to face my own fear of social embarrassment to get what I really want—a vibrant platform to share my ideas with an audience.

As for those creative friendships, by betting they’re fake, I save myself some pain from missing out, but I prevent myself from seeing that real, creative connections are possible, but only if I lean in with openness and curiosity. What can I do to genuinely reach out and get what I deeply desire?

Instead of thinking “Bad Joanna,” I use the critical thoughts that sometimes accompany my envy as a spotlight to understand my blocks. The critic in my mind that takes someone else down is the same one that’s keeping me from climbing up. It can be hard to see what we don’t allow ourselves, but seeing what we criticize others for is a sure-fire way to find our own limiting beliefs.

Going back to me as a young mother, I saw that I wanted time to myself, but I wouldn’t allow it. Prioritizing my art was selfish. Paying for time to create was indulgent. And challenging those judgments was the key to my freedom. I had to see how those beliefs were not only causing me harm, but were also untrue. And it wasn’t until I did this work that I allowed myself to write again.

Envy led me back to myself. First, by showing me what I wanted, and second, by showing me why I wouldn’t let myself have it.

Here, Kitty Kitty.

Every time I feel envy now, I get excited. I get to see something I want, but may not allow myself to have, and the beliefs I need to reexamine to feel more alive.

Envy gets me in trouble when I direct my discomfort outward. When I put down the object of my envy or pull away from the person, it creates more suffering and, ironically, moves me even further away from my desire. The important thing I need to remember is that when envy shows up, it has a lot to do with me and very little to do with the other person. It’s not comfortable, but I have to go inside myself to reach the wisdom.

So next time you feel envy, welcome her. Make psst pssst psst sounds. Look inside to understand what you really want, and look even deeper to understand why you might not let yourself have it. Let me know how it goes.

Share your creative desires with us.

What do you yearn for in your creative life? 🤩

What has envy taught you about yourself? 🪩

What’s your favorite shade of green? 💚

Leave a comment

Welcome to another entry in Author Diaries—where we take you behind the scenes of publishing—querying, book auctions, cover design, how authors make money, book publicity, and more.

In this post you’ll find:

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well—books or articles that are lighting up my brain

🕵🏻‍♀️ Deep Dive: a Closer Look at Hardcovers vs. Paperbacks

🎁 Exclusive Preorder Gift: Handmade Bookmarks by Me!

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-dreamers of this beautiful, bookish life.

xo,

Evelyn

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well

Currently reading:
These Summer Storms by Sarah McLean — This story is about estranged siblings who must go through a series of challenges in order to access their inheritance, only to discover that perhaps the greatest gift their father could have left them was forcing them together again.

This was one of my favorites last year, and I’m re-reading it because it’s our upcoming book club pick!

• We just had Sarah McLean on our podcast!

• Reminder: Our Book Club meeting is on Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Discussion Qs and more info HERE.

🕵🏻‍♀️ Deep Dive: Hardcovers vs. Paperbacks

The Incredible Kindness of Paper is out in paperback! It was published first as a hardcover last year, and now, 9 months later, it’s in paperback just in time for summer travel bags.

At the same time, my newest novel, Ideal Life, will skip the hardcover edition and come out straight to paperback in August.

Why the different publishing strategies? Why did The Incredible Kindness of Paper “get” a hardcover edition, but Ideal Life won’t?

The Changing Economics of Publishing

The list price is the price that is physically printed on the back of books.

The Incredible Kindness of Paper hardcover list price: $27.99

The Incredible Kindness of Paper paperback list price: $18.00

Ideal Life paperback list price: $17.99

The list prices are before discounts. Big online retailers (like Amazon) and box stores (e.g. Target, Costco) rarely sell at list price, which means readers can buy the books for cheaper.

Author Royalties

Most readers (and even many aspiring writers) don’t realize that an author’s royalty rate is different for hardcovers and paperbacks.

Royalties are calculated based on the list price, so even if Amazon or Target discounts the book, that does not affect the author’s royalties.

For traditionally published authors, hardcover royalties typically start at 10% of the list price and can escalate to 15% after a certain number of copies sold (e.g., 10% for the first 999,999 copies sold, then 15% after 1 million copies are sold).

Paperback royalties are usually around 7.5% of the list price.

(For an even deeper dive on how authors make money—advances, royalty rates, agent commission, etc.—check out this Author Diary.)

You can see why publishers (and authors) love hardcovers. The margins are better for everyone. A hardcover sale is worth two to three paperback sales in terms of what ends up in the author’s pocket.

But a hardcover only works financially if people actually buy it.

Reader Price Sensitivity

We are living through a time when readers are more price-conscious than ever. The economy has made people more careful about discretionary spending, and as much as it pains me to say it, books are discretionary. When someone is choosing between groceries and a $28 hardcover, the hardcover loses, as it should.

So publishers are increasingly asking themselves: Will this book sell enough hardcovers to justify the hardcover print run? Because printing hardcovers is more expensive. If those copies sit in a warehouse or get returned by bookstores unsold, the publisher loses money.

Why Is Ideal Life Going Straight to Paperback?

I know some authors might panic if their publisher decides to go straight to paperback. The author might think, Oh no, does this mean my publisher doesn’t believe in my book?

No. Paperback originals are a strategic choice, and they’re becoming more and more common across the industry. For Ideal Life, my publisher and I looked at the landscape—the economy, the genre, my readership, the price sensitivity of the target audience—and decided that Ideal Life would reach more readers at a $17.99 entry point than at $27.99.

More readers finding the book at a price they’re comfortable with:

—> more sales overall

—> more word of mouth

—> more momentum.

And momentum is a huge part of what drives book sales.

The Takeaway for Writers

If you’re on the path to traditional publishing, know that the hardcover vs. paperback decision is a business decision. It’s not a reflection of your worth as a writer or the quality of your book. It’s your publisher’s best guess at how to position your book for success in the current market. (And of course, things change year by year).

And remember: the format your book comes in matters far less than the fact that it exists in the world at all. Hardcover, paperback, ebook, or audiobook—every format is a door, and every door lets a new reader in. 💛

Buy now for your summer vacation bag:

The Incredible Kindness of Paper ebook is $2.99 for a limited time. Hardcover edition is also on summer sale, and the paperback is out now, too!

🎁 Exclusive Preorder Gift: Handmade Bookmarks by Me!

Last year, I made beaded bookmarks to send out to influencers as part of my publisher’s marketing campaign, and many of you asked if you could get one. But I ran out!

I’m not making that mistake twice. This year, I am making plenty of book-themed bookmarks, and you can get your hands on one by preordering from Fireside Books, my beloved local indie bookstore. (Preorder instructions at the bottom of this post.)

I had so much fun browsing jewelry-making materials to choose just the right pieces for these bookmarks:

• pink book charms to match the cover of Ideal Life

• purple star charms, because purple stars are the logo of the “Ideal Life” company in the book

• pink beaded chain to complement the charms + a slender gold metal bookmark because I like the slim ones that fit between the pages of my books without bending them.

Plus, my husband Tom is super crafty so he had every kind of pliers and cutting tool I could ever need.

I am so excited to make these bookmarks for you!

Preorder soon because my little hands can only make so many of these, and when they’re gone, they’re gone…

Autographed Books with Exclusive Preorder Gift available only from Fireside Books!

• I will personalize the book if you like, just include (in your order) the name I should write in the book. (i.e., “To Andrew”)

• Fireside Books will ship to you or you can pick up from the store if you’re local!

Please pre-order via email at orders@firesiderwc.com.

• Fireside Books is a small husband-wife run store, so they’re taking orders by email (they don’t have a website that takes orders).

  • (Important note: ordering from their Bookshop.org page will not ship an autographed copy or gift, since those orders go through Bookshop.org’s centralized distribution, not Fireside’s actual store.)

» This post is part of our Author Diary series. You can find past entries HERE.

Welcome to another episode of the Creative, Inspired, ALIVE podcast—where we go behind the scenes with the storytellers shaping our culture.

Our guest, Sarah MacLean, is a New York Times, Washington Post & USA Today bestselling author. Vulture Magazine writes - “MacLean is a master at weaving passion and vulnerability equally in her characters. When it comes to historical romance, she’s one of the best…” These Summer Storms is her first contemporary novel. In addition to her novels, Sarah is a leading advocate for the romance genre, speaking widely on its place as a feminist text and a cultural bellwether.

Today, we talk about:

• putting everything on the page,

• romance vs. women’s fiction,

• what romance teaches us,

• the power of our pleasure,

• and so much more.

xo, Joanna & Evelyn

🎥 Watch the Conversation

You can watch the full video on:
→ Our Website | Youtube | Substack app

Captions and full transcripts are always available on the website version (just click the “CC” button or the transcript tab below the video).

🎧 Prefer to Listen?

Stream the episode wherever you get your podcasts:
→ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Audible | or your favorite platform

🎙️ Browse all past episodes HERE

📝 Want to Ask a Future Guest a Question?

We invite the community to submit questions via our community chat—available in your browser or in the Substack app. We love including your curiosities in the conversation!

Connect with Sarah MacLean:

You can find Sarah on Instagram and on her podcast, Fated Mates. The paperback of her newest novel, These Summer Storms, is available in bookstores everywhere.

June has arrived, which means it’s time to preview some of the upcoming book releases we’re excited about—the ones that have caught our eyes, tugged at our curiosity, or whispered, “Take me on vacation.”

xo, Joanna & Evelyn

Note: We don’t receive affiliate commissions or payment for these mentions. We haven’t read these yet; these are genuine picks based on love of the author, intriguing premises, or early buzz that feels promising.

📚 June’s Most Anticipated New Releases

I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney (June 1st paperback release)

Obituary writer Bud Stanley isn’t really living his best life. He’s fallen into a funk after a divorce. And he’s about to be fired for accidentally publishing his own obituary one mildly drunken night (though technically the company can’t legally fire a dead person). As Bud awaits his fate at work, he does the only logical thing: He goes to the wakes and funerals of total strangers to learn how to live again.

Whistler by Ann Pattchet (June 2nd release)

While visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her husband, fifty-three-year-old Daphne Fuller is shocked to discover she is being followed by her former stepfather, Eddie Triplett. Although Eddie was only married to her mother for a brief time when Daphne was nine, their unexpected reunion decades after a life-altering event instantly rekindles a powerful bond that they refuse to lose again.

Every Beat After by Sara B. Larson (June 2nd release)

Years after a life-saving heart transplant, Liv Karlsson lives in the fragile space between gratitude and fear—thankful for every heartbeat and afraid of when they might stop. Running her family’s cozy Swedish bakery gives her purpose, but mounting financial pressures and an annoying yet attractive new neighbor leave her wondering: Is she truly living . . . or simply existing?

The Long Con by Jenna Voris (June 2nd release)

Desperate to pay off her family’s medical debt, hotel caterer turned thief Chloe Bly is recruited by a billionaire for a high-stakes heist at an exclusive Miami island resort. To secure her freedom and the massive payout, she must partner with her infuriatingly gorgeous rival conwoman, Harper Parisi, while trying not to let their simmering attraction sabotage the job. We’re looking forward to this slow-burn thriller.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See (June 9th release)

In 1870, three drastically different Chinese immigrants—Dove, a scholar’s sheltered daughter entering an arranged marriage; Petal, a peasant girl sold into American servitude; and Moon, the educated, English-speaking wife of a doctor—arrive in the rough pueblo of Los Angeles. As fierce anti-Chinese sentiment culminates in the violent Night of Horrors, the women must rely on their unlikely friendship and sheer endurance to survive the brutal realities of their new home.

This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint (June 9th release)

In this mythological retelling, the free-willed goddess Aphrodite finds herself irresistibly drawn into a passionate romance with Ares, the volatile god of war. As their love affair spans across mortal lifetimes, Aphrodite begins to question the cruel games of Olympus and must ultimately choose between her divine purpose and a love destined for ruin.

Retro by Jessica Goldstein (June 23rd release)

Desperate to escape her debts and unemployment, Ash takes a glamorous job as a time-travel tour guide for wealthy vacationers, finding herself swept up in historical adventures and a era-crossing love triangle. However, as her temporal trips begin to mysteriously erode her memory and real-world relationships, she is forced to confront the dangerous reality that living in the past threatens to destroy her actual life.

» Jessica Goldstein will be on our podcast this month!

The Revelation of Dionne Daphne by Mara Brock Akil (June 30th release)

Dionne Daphne’s curated life as a high-society beauty editor shatters when an ex-boyfriend delivers news that forces her to confront a long-buried childhood secret. To find the truth, she embarks on a spontaneous road trip with a stranger, navigating a reckoning with her fractured family to discover a more authentic future.

» Mara Brock Akil will be on our podcast next month!

💛 Evelyn’s latest book is on sale! 💛

The Incredible Kindness of Paper is on sale right now for $2.99 on Kindle.

It’s also now available in paperback, just in time for your summer beach bag!

🥰 What Are You Looking Forward To?

What have you read recently that made you squeal or cry?

What books are you most excited to read on the beach this summer?

Leave a comment below — we’d all love to grow our TBRs together.

Leave a comment

🎥 The video replay of our May meeting

📚 Your invitation + discussion questions for our next book pick, These Summer Storms

🗓️ Upcoming Book Club Picks

💛 RSVP & Zoom link (below the paywall)

xo, Joanna & Evelyn

🎥 Replay: Writing Creativity and Soul

If you missed our last Book Club meeting, you can now watch the full replay above.

We had a beautiful discussion of Writing Creativity and Soul. We talked about:

Writing as a Spiritual Act: We talked about how art requires one’s whole being and discussed the difference between the subconscious and the soul during those “aha” moments in creation. We wondered if the state of flow—requiring patience and expansion—could be synonymous with accessing the soul or spirit, and contrasted this with the brute-force state of thinking through a problem.

Maya Angelou’s Three Pillars: We talked about how writers need something to say, the ability to say it, and the courage to say it. We shared how we found different pillars challenging at different times in our careers. Struggling with the courage to call oneself a writer at the beginning. Having a hard time finding something to say when the well is dry. And learning how to say it by studying craft.

Protecting Creative Space and Time: The group talked about our own units of “self-ordered pattern of time” to write. Evelyn shared how author Laurie Halse Anderson gave her permission to “say no” to PTA requests, validating that her time to write as a young mom, even before publication. We talked about how avoiding distractions is essential to preserving energy and attention for our creativity. A participant recommended Chris Hayes’ The Siren’s Call about the attention economy.

Chaos and Order in Creative Process: Several of us felt the comfort of structure and the need to allow more space for the chaos. We shared ways we allow unstructured space in our creative process, including walks, showers, daydreaming during the in-between times of the day, and the essentialness of boredom and rest.

Hurrying Slowly: Kidd’s phrase “hurrying slowly” about plot pacing and the process of writing resonated with participants. Several members write fast and noticed that some slowness might be an area of growth, allowing the scenes or drafts space to breathe, especially in later drafts.

We also chatted about how many books we read in a year, reading speed, audiobook recommendations, and, of course, our June Book Club read, These Summer Storms.

During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we did a Future Self Visualization.

Joanna led a guided meditation (based on Tara Mohr’s Playing Big) where participants traveled 20 years into the future to meet their future selves and ask questions about what matters, how to write their truth, and receive other guidance. Many found deep guidance and reassurance from the experience.

As always, the replay is available to paid subscribers to keep our discussions cozy and private.

📚 You’re Invited: These Summer Storms

Whether you’re a curious reader or a fellow writer, we’d love to have you join us. No need to be “an expert”—just bring your thoughts and your love of books.

Our next Book Club pick is:

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
An estranged billionaire’s daughter returns to a private Rhode Island island for a memorial, only to find her late father has left the family in a manipulative inheritance game. This was one of our favorite reads late last summer, so we obviously want to talk all about it with you!

Meeting Date:

Sunday, June 28th, 2026
8pm ET / 5pm PT
Zoom link below

💬 During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:

• Constraints - MacLean uses the “one week on an island” premise as a creative constraint. Did the bounded time and place make the story feel tighter, more theatrical, more artificial, or more emotionally pressurized? Is the container of the book the island, the will, the storm, the week, Alice’s return, or the family reckoning?

• Birth Order - In our podcast interview with MacLean, she talked about taking pleasure in turning birth order tropes on their heads. How well did she accomplish this? Which characters transformed and which characters failed to transform?

• Posthumous characters - MacLean also talked about her decision to never have Franklin alive on page, so the character is absent but still structurally powerful. How did she keep a dead character active in the plot?

• Reveals - Which secrets landed because they were carefully seeded, and which surprised you through timing or emotional context?

• Wealth - The Storm family’s wealth creates spectacle, but also emotional distortion. How did the book make you feel about family wealth?

• Career Transitions - This novel is a transition for MacLean, going from Historical Romance to Book Club Fiction. Did this feel like a debut? Where did you feel her romance-genre roots most strongly: banter, pacing, emotional legibility, sensuality, character arc, or payoff?

  • Do you perceive traditional publishing as supporting or inhibiting the creative evolution of authors?

  • What other authors have successfully transitioned to other arenas?

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

• MacLean stands for the power of pleasure and joy in our world. How does pleasure have power in your creative life? How can you invite more pleasure into each day?

• In our podcast interview with MacLean, she talked about her admiration of Jennifer Lynne Barnes (whose most popular series is called The Inheritance Games) and her advice to find your “id buttons,” which are the small and big things that you adore, and fill your book with them. We will take time to list our personal “id buttons” in writing and life.

We think this is going to be a wonderful conversation!

Share

✨ Introverts welcome: Cameras on or off. Your presence is enough.

Upcoming Book Club Picks

In case you missed it, here are our book picks for the second half of the year:

🔐 RSVP & Zoom Link

To protect the privacy of our discussion space and prevent Zoom-bombing, the RSVP and Zoom link are posted below the paywall.

If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:

Subscribe now

Or refer friends to receive complimentary months:

• 1 referral = 1 month free

• 2 referrals = 3 months free

• 3 referrals = 1 year free

Refer a friend

💛 💛 💛 💛 💛

Read more

Welcome to May’s edition of Happiness Sprinkles—a soft, joyful roundup of small things worth smiling about and a few wonderful things you in this community have been reading and writing.

In this post, you’ll find:

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight - Celebrate Our Creativity Community Members

📖 Book Club Details + Zoom Link

• Reminder! Our “Reading with Wonder” Book Club meeting is this Sunday, May 31st at 8pm ET / 5pm PT

• Zoom Link at the bottom of this post

xo, Joanna & Evelyn

🌸 Happiness Sprinkles

A few quiet delights we’ve loved this month—and hope you will, too.

• Balancing Challenge and Comfort - The floral art and furniture design in this piece by TK Fareed stunned us. Then, we enjoyed hearing about the artist’s challenge with it, too. It made us reflect on our own balance of challenge and comfort in making art. How far do we push ourselves? Sometimes we can only find that line when we try something audacious.

• Art for the Birds! - We’ve been loving all the creative bird content on social media this spring. Artists building bird nest supply stores and bird lovers offering amazing charcuterie boards. All the bird content, please.

  

• The Power of Nature - Across a large international sample of 38,000 people, scientists found that those who felt more connected to nature consistently reported higher levels of well-being and mindfulness. This was true not just for feeling satisfied with life but also for deeper aspects of flourishing, such as having a sense of direction and meaning. Maybe we should write outside :)

• The Thinker of Tender Thoughts- Although originally published in 1963, we saw this Shel Silverstein piece for the first time this month. Seeing the danger of cruelty, cynicism, and conformity depicted so succinctly moved us. We felt awash with gratitude for this community of thinkers of tender thoughts. Let’s grow our flowers together.

🔦 Protagonist Spotlight

Every month, we love highlighting what you are creating. Here are a few wonderful projects from our community:

💛 Teri Stevens celebrated the book birthday of her middle grade mystery, Makenzie's Ring, on May 1! Keep the readers coming Teri!

🌊 David J ran an amazing inaugural week-long writers’ retreat on a cruise ship called Wave Writers! It went so well, they’re doing it again! Enrollment is open for next year.

🎉 Amy Gabrielle launched her book this month with She Writes Press: "Widow in the City, A Memoir of Heartbreaks and Hookups." Congratulations Amy!

🗡️ Canon Robertson has been busy finishing and publishing a debut fantasy novel. The Olive Branch and The Sword is available for preorder now! Way to go Canon!

Want to be featured in a future post?

Just reply to this email or leave a comment with a 1–2 sentence description of what you’ve been working on. Or, hang out in our community chat, where we share our recent smiles and successes.

📖 “Reading with Wonder” Book Club — This Sunday!

You’re invited (even if you haven’t read the book):

🗓️ Sunday, May 31st at 8pm ET / 5pm PT - ZOOM link below

📚 Book: Writing, Creativity, and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd

💬 During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:

In Writing, Creativity, and Soul, Sue Monk Kidd blends memoir with practical craft advice and deep philosophical inquiries into the creative process.

The Soul of Writing

• Kidd grounds her book in the belief that writing is a spiritual act, drawing from a wellspring between imagination and feeling. How does this framework align with your own experience of writing? Do you actively try to tap into your “soul” when you draft, or does it happen inadvertently? Or do you not experience this?

• Drawing from Maya Angelou, Kidd notes that writers need something to say, the ability to say it, and the courage to say it. Which of these pillars comes most naturally to you, and which challenges you?

Process and Craft

• Kidd talks about the balance of chaos and order in the writing process, saying that “Creativity begins in chaos...The challenge is to bring form and order to it.” How do you go about this balance in your work?

• Regarding plot pacing, Kidd strives for “hurrying slowly.” What did you think about that concept, and how does it relate to your reading and writing experience?

The Realities of the Writing Life

• Referencing Virginia Woolf, Kidd discusses the necessity of a “Room of One’s Own” and the tension between making art and managing daily life. How do you actively protect your writing time and physical space against the demands of your day job, family, or other obligations? What are your “self-ordered patterns of time”?

Literary Mentors

• Kidd emphasizes that you cannot write fully from the depths of your soul without reading the best writing you can find. What is one book that shifted your understanding of what prose can do?

• Throughout the memoir, Kidd pays homage to the literary voices that shaped her. If you were to set your own “Brontë Table” of literary mentors, who would be sitting there?

What was your biggest insight, quote, or concept from the book that might shape your writing practice or creative outlook?

💬 During the Mini Creativity Coaching portion, we will talk about:

Kidd quotes Marion Woodsman: “In our creating, we are created.”

Joanna will lead a reflection on how our creativity has transformed aspects of ourselves. We will pay attention to how our art has impacted our internal and external experience of the world and share what we learned with one another.

Zoom link is posted below the paywall to keep our gathering cozy and private.

(This also prevents any non-book-loving Zoom crashers!)

If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:

Subscribe now

or:

Refer friends to receive complimentary months:

• 1 referral = 1 month free

• 2 referrals = 3 months free

• 3 referrals = 1 year free

Refer a friend

✨ Note for fellow introverts:
You are welcome to come as you are—cameras on or off, display names changed or unchanged. No pressure, just presence.

📹 This session will be recorded for those who can’t attend live.

💙 Join the Book Club:

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