July Happiness Sprinkles + Book Club ZOOM Link
Nuns, Vending Machines, Personalized Bookstores, and Art Everywhere!
Hello Protagonists!
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
The “Reading with Wonder” Book Club is for our community members who want to dive even deeper into how great books work. Come nerd out with us! 🤓
💬 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:
or:
Refer friends to receive complimentary months:
1 referral = 1 month free
2 referrals = 3 months free
3 referrals = 1 year free
✨ 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.