Shows
Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore Episode: Crafting the Personal Essay and Resilient Editing Tips with Andrea FirthSend us a textJoin me and Andrea Firth for this encore episode of the writing your resilience podcast where we explore what personal essays are, how writers can uncover their essay’s aboutness, and how to develop resilient editing practices. As an added bonus, learn the inside scoop on how to get published on the Brevity Blog. Episode Highlights4:00 The Difference Between Memoir and Personal Essay7:00 Exploring the Inciting Incident for Your Essays14:00 Common Struggles Essayists Have: Aboutness21:00 The Power of the Braided Essay25:00 Resilient Editing and Workshopping34:00 Submitting to...
2026-01-0147 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore Episode: Writing Through Shame: Hannah Sward on Memoir, Resilience, and Being PresentSend us a textJoin me and Hannah Sward, author of Strip: A Memoir, for an encore episode where we go behind the scenes of her writing process—how she wrote her first draft by hand, in one long, unfiltered sentence; how she found the courage to put her full truth on the page; and how she distilled years of experience into a memoir that moves with incredible precision and power. You’ll also learn transcription tricks, sex scene-writing tips, the unexpected doors publishing your book can open, and some somatic techniques for navigating your vulnerability.
2025-12-2546 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through Writing100 Episodes Later: 10 Lessons Every Writer NeedsSend us a textWhat happens when you commit to showing up—again and again—for your writing life? In this special bonus recording in celebration of my 100th episode,, I reflect on ten years of creative work and the ten lessons I learned about growth, resilience, rest, and trusting your own process. If you’re questioning your path, feeling stuck, or wondering whether your effort matters, this episode will remind you why it does.Episode Highlights2:48: The Most Important Thing to Know6:04: Failing Up versus Floundering9:03: The Counterintuitive Nature of ProgressR...
2025-12-1813 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingGratitude, Grief, and Growth: What Frida Kahlo Taught Me About ResilienceSend us a textHolidays can bring out the best—and the hardest—parts of being human. In this special Thanksgiving episode of Writing Your Resilience, I share stories from joyful celebrations and heartbreakingly difficult years to remind you that whatever you’re feeling today—gratitude, grief, or something in between—it’s all welcome. Together, we’ll explore how art can help us hold the complexity of the season, find meaning in the dark, and transform our experiences into something beautiful.Episode Highlights1:30: Thanksgiving Reflections: The Highs and Lows04:15: Embracing Your Feelings5:10...
2025-11-2711 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWhen Every Submission Feels Like a No: Reclaiming Your Writing ConfidenceSend us a textListeners, have you been struggling to pick yourself up after experiencing one—or maybe many—rejections of your work? It’s an experience that can make you feel so alone, but I want to be the first to say that we’ve all experienced the self-doubts and even shame a big rejection can create. In this week’s episode, Lynn Shattuck, Kristin Sancken and I share our personal rejection experiences, how to reframe the “no’s” you’ve received, and how to pick yourself back up when the writing life feels tough.Episode Highligh...
2025-11-2053 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingYou Don’t Suck at Meditation: Busting 5 Myths That Keep You From Feeling CalmSend us a textIf you’ve ever sat down to meditate—especially at a writing retreat—and thought, “I suck at this,” this episode is for you. In this solo conversation, I unpack five common myths about meditation that leave writers feeling frustrated, ashamed, or “bad” at being still. From the belief that you must stop thinking to the idea that meditation has to happen on a cushion with your eyes closed, I gently dismantle the misconceptions keeping you from finding your calm–including the fact that sometimes meditation isn’t good for you. Episode Highlight...
2025-11-1328 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingSelected Misdemeanors: Crafting Meaning in Flash Nonfiction with Sue William SilvermanSend us a textHave you ever wondered how a single moment—a glance, a mistake, a shimmering flash of memory—can hold the power of an entire story? Or how the smallest details of an ordinary life can reveal something vast about who we are and what we long for? In this episode, I talk with award-winning author Sue William Silverman about her newest book, Selected Misdemeanors: Essays at the Mercy of the Reader. Together, we explore the art of flash nonfiction—those short, revelatory pieces that illuminate our obsessions and turn ordinary moments into profound reflec...
2025-10-3040 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWhen Your Best Writing Feels Terrible: Understanding Shame, Vulnerability, and the Creative ProcessSend us a textToday, we’re diving into a topic that trips up so many writers—vulnerability. How much should you share? When does honest writing become oversharing? And why does your most powerful work sometimes feel like it completely sucks? If you’ve ever been told your story isn’t raw enough—or that it’s too raw—you’re not alone. In this episode, I’ll break down the two extremes writers fall into, share a framework for finding the right kind of vulnerability, and show you how to use uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure to create...
2025-10-2326 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingMetaphors That Work: How to Make Your Writing More Vivid, Emotional, and True with Kristin Sancken and Lynn ShattuckSend us a textThis week, we’re kicking off a new Editors’ Roundtable segment on the podcast, where I dig into key writing issues with the two trauma-informed editors I’m training—Kristin Sancken and Lynn Shattuck. In our first conversation, we explore metaphors—what they are, how to craft them, and how to recognize the ones that truly sing on the page. Let’s dive in.Episode Highlights5:23: What Is a Metaphor7:15: Exercises For Creating Metaphors9:40: Metaphors We Love (or Hate)18:00: Our Writing Strategies23:57: Discovering What Works32:00 Navigating the Metaphor of HomeResources...
2025-10-1641 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingShowing, Telling, and the Shimmer: Finding the Scenes That Bring Your Memoir to Life with Marianna MarloweSend us a textWhich memories shimmer inside you? Which ones refuse to let you go? Those luminous, haunting moments are often the raw ingredients of the story you’re truly meant to tell. In this episode of Writing Your Resilience, I sit down with newsletter follower and memoirist Marianna Marlowe, author of A Portrait of a Feminist as she shares how she used shimmering memories to craft her memoir-in-essays that explores memory and identity through a feminist lens. Together, we talk about her writing process, what feminism really means, how to write from a feminist perspective, an...
2025-10-0938 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting Grief Without Cliché: Eirinie Carson on Friendship, Loss, and The Dead Are GodsSend us a textHave you ever wondered what it really means to grieve a friend—someone dazzling, flawed, and deeply loved? Or how laughter, silence, and even text messages can become part of the story we tell about those we’ve lost?In today’s episode of Writing Your Resilience, I talk with writer Eirinie Carson about her breathtaking debut memoir The Dead Are Gods and her forthcoming novel Bloodfire, Baby. Together, we explore how writing can both preserve and transform our grief, why it’s so important to show loved ones in their full hum...
2025-10-0237 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWrite the Story That Sets You Free: A Behind-the-Scenes Pivot Toward Soul AlignmentSend us a textHave you ever wondered if what you’re doing is truly aligned with your soul’s purpose? Or maybe you’ve had that nagging feeling that something’s off—that you’re not quite on the right track. How do you know when it’s time to stay the course, and when it’s time to pivot so you can do more of what you love and let go of what no longer serves you? In today’s very personal episode of Writing Your Resilience, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my own writing and b...
2025-09-2545 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Secret to Writing Your Best Work: RestSend us a textThis week, we’re talking about something our culture often dismisses but your writing life desperately needs: rest. In this episode, I’ll share why rest matters, how you can create more of it—even when life feels full—and the surprising lessons I learned during my own summer break. Grab your pen and notebook and get ready to explore the radical power of doing less.Episode Highlights1:26: Why I Decided to Take a Month Off5:30: Connecting with Your Inner Compass10:23: The 3 S’s of Rest 15:23: Why Doing Less Can Le...
2025-09-1827 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Fawning Trauma Response: Ingrid Clayton on Healing People-Pleasing and CodependencySend us a textHave you been told you’re a people pleaser or found yourself saying yes when you meant no, without even thinking about it? Have a friend who struggles to express their feelings or share their preferences? If so, you might have encountered the fawning trauma response. Join me and Ingrid Clayton, author of Fawning, and the memoir Believing Me, as we unpack the misconceptions regarding this trauma response, share our experience, strength, and hope, and show you how to join the unfawning revolution she’s spearheading with her new book. Episode Highl...
2025-09-1156 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: The Creative Cure for Writers: Trauma-Informed Approaches for Memoir and Embracing Your Creativity with Jacob NordbySend us a textDo you struggle to see yourself as creative? Or have you ever wondered where your creativity comes from, and how to maximize it? This week, I’m joined by Jacob Nordby, founder of A Writing Room Collective and author of Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, and The Creative Cure, a powerful guide to reconnecting with your creative self. In this week’s episode, Jacob and I dive deep into the healing power of creativity, trauma, and the inner wisdom we all carry within us. Grab your pen, open your heart, and...
2025-09-0441 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: The Power of Micro Memoir: Grief, Storytelling, and Experimentation with Amy LinSend us a textHow do you dive into the marrow of an experience we’ll all one day share, yet so many of us struggle to talk about? And how do you write into a topic so widely covered that it feels impossible to say something new? Today, I’m joined by Amy Lin, author of the stunning micro memoir Here After, as we tackle these questions head-on. Together, we’ll explore the raw realities of grief, how Amy’s memoir acts as a powerful container for this universal experience, the magic of the micro-form, and what it...
2025-08-2856 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: How Recovery Supports Memoir Writing and Book Marketing Tips with Laura Cathcart RobbinsSend us a textAuthor Laura Cathcart Robbins shares book marketing tips she learned while promoting her memoir Stash: My Life in Hiding, and how recovery helped her cultivate the honesty needed to write her memoir. Laura’s Bio: Laura Cathcart Robbins is the best-selling author of the Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir, Stash, My Life In Hiding, and host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room. She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diver...
2025-08-2158 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: Caring for Your Nervous System and Creativity with Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Kirby MooreSend us a textWriting can be a powerful tool for healing, but when writing the tough stuff, it’s easy to get triggered and relive the experiences you’re writing about. If you’re wondering what to do about this, join me and somatic experiencing practitioner Kirby Moore as we explore how the nervous system works and how to care for it and your writing life. Plus, Kirby will teach you a powerful tool you can use right now to calm your nervous system. While you can listen to this on any platform, if you’re a visual...
2025-08-1448 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: The Power of Words: Samman Akbarzada on Finding Her Voice After Fleeing AfghanistanSend us a textImagine working tirelessly for years to publish your first novel—only to have the moment of celebration collide with the collapse of your country. Imagine being forced to flee, leaving behind everything you’ve ever known, and yet… still finding your voice through poetry, storytelling, and advocacy.Today, I have the honor of speaking with Samman Akbarzada—a poet, novelist, refugee, and fierce advocate for human rights. Her novel, Life is a Movie, tells the story of a working child in Afghanistan, while her poetry collection, A Glimmer in the Dark, captures...
2025-08-0744 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: Making Meaning and Writing Toward Posttraumatic Growth with Lennie EchterlingSend us a textLennie Echterling joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about the lessons he learned from landmine survivors, the difference between empathy and toxic positivity, the importance of fostering your posttraumatic growth, and how to use writing to build your resilience. Lennie’s Bio: Lennie Echterling, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus at James Madison University with more than 40 years of experience in promoting resilience, particularly during crises and disasters. He has served as crisis counselor, consultant, and trainer following many traumatic stress events, including tornadoes and floods throughout the United Sta...
2025-07-311h 04Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: Navigating Complex Relationships and Writing Through Trauma with Lara LillibridgeSend us a textIf you have a complicated relationship with someone, how do you write about them? Should you craft a linear memoir that reads more like a journey or write something that mirrors your experience? Join me and Lara Lillibridge, author of Girlish, Mama, Mama, Only Mama, and The Truth of Unringing Phones, as we explore the impact of estrangement on the memoir writing process, how to protect your heart as you write about painful experiences, the power of publishing your story...
2025-07-2438 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: Recovering from Cults and Religious Trauma Through Writing with Tia LevingsSend us a textTia Levings joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss her experience as a debut author, writing to heal without retraumatizing yourself, the gaslighting that happens in religion, and getting things off your chest and onto the page to educate others with your writing.As you listen to this episode, consider the following questions: What would you need to do to claim your story? What would tell you it has legs? What would you need to do to see it from a wider lens? If it is a really tough story, h...
2025-07-1754 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: Understanding Neurodivergence with Katie Rose Guest PryalSend us a textKatie Rose Guest Pryal joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to take a deep dive into what neurodiversity is and how it impacts writers.Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What do you know about neurodiversity? Do you consider yourself to be neurodivergent? If you are, how does that impact the way you set up your writing life, what you write about, and how you see the world?Katie Rose Guest Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is a bipolar-autistic author, keynote speaker...
2025-07-1050 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEncore: It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic Abuse with Dr. Ramani DurvasulaSend us a textDr. Ramani Durvasula, author of It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People, shares her insights into narcissism, how narcissistic abuse survivors can heal, how to get support, and how to care for yourself when writing and promoting a book on tough topics.Dr. Ramani’s Bio: Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist in California, the founder and CEO of LUNA Education, Training and Consulting, and professor emerita of psychology at California State University Los Angeles. She is the New York Times bestselling author of It’s Not...
2025-07-031h 11Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting for an Audience Without Losing Yourself: Trauma-Informed Storytelling with Beth DochertySend us a textWhat does it mean to write the truth when your story includes trauma—and how do you do it without retraumatizing yourself or your readers?That’s what I’ll explore with this week’s guest, Beth Docherty—a trauma-informed healthcare educator, musician, and emerging memoirist—as she shares her journey from research chemist to advocate for safer, more compassionate care. Together, we dive into one of the most important questions memoirists ask: How do we write about hard truths in ways that are honest, responsible, and healing? Get your notebook, open your he...
2025-06-2628 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingDisrupting the Inner Critic: Dr. Risa Ryger on Writing, Change, and the Self-Owned MindsetSend us a textThis is the 75th episode of the Writing and Resilience Podcast, and I would not have made it this far without your generous support of this podcast and my work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.Now, about today’s episode. What if the key to writing through pain isn't pushing harder, but rather being radically kinder to yourself? That's what I'll explore with Dr. Risa Ryger, clinical psychologist, international speaker and founder of 93% Consulting. We explore what it really means to change an...
2025-06-1935 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingUnlock Creative Flow with Qigong: Somatic Practices for Writers with Jay DeMaioSend us a textHave you ever felt like your creativity is blocked—but you know the problem isn’t your ideas, your schedule, or even your writing practice? What if your nervous system holds the key to unlocking the stories inside you?In this episode, I’m joined by Jay DeMaio, a trauma-aware Internal Martial Arts teacher based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Together, we explore how Qigong—a gentle, meditative movement practice—can enhance creativity, help regulate your nervous system, and bring your body into deeper harmony so your writing can flow more freely. We also dig i...
2025-06-1252 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWhy Writing Is Still Worth It: Sean Murphy on Endurance, Inspiration, and Literary CitizenshipSend us a textIn this episode, I reconnect with the brilliant and multifaceted Sean Murphy—poet, fiction writer, founder of 1455 Literary Arts, director of the Center for Story at Shenandoah University, and host of the podcast Some Things Considered. Together, we explore what it means to create during challenging times, why writing is a long game built on endurance, and how generosity—both to others and to your own process—can sustain your creative spirit. We talk about literary citizenship, artistic joy, and the mindset shifts that help us keep going when the road feels steep. We als...
2025-06-0546 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingUsing Human Design to Break Through Writing Blocks and Find Flow with Maha MamishSend us a textHave you ever wondered what truly drives you? Are there parts of your personality that leave you puzzled, making you ask, "Why do I do that?" Have you been trying to improve an aspect of your life—especially your writing life—but it feels like no matter what you do, nothing changes? If you’re nodding along, get ready for a mind-blowing conversation with Human Design coach Maha Mamish.In this episode, you'll learn what Human Design is, why I’m so passionate about it, and how it can tran...
2025-05-2949 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingBringing Light to History: Amy Fish and the Journey of One in Six MillionSend us a textSix years ago, Amy Fish and I sat at a table in a hotel ballroom during the HippoCamp Writing Conference when she told me about her latest book idea. As soon as I heard about it, I said, go write that book. In this episode, we celebrate both the journey and the final version of her latest nonfiction book, One in Six Million. Join us as Amy shares how she maintained her motivation through a six-year writing process, how she kept track of her extensive research, how she found the right tone and...
2025-05-2237 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingBuilding a Writing Career Without Social Media: Amelia Hruby on Creative IndependenceSend us a textWhen was the last time you examined your relationship to social media? During this week’s episode, I speak with Amelia Hruby, host of the Off the Grid podcast, a show that helps business owners and creatives leave social media without losing customers or readers. Discover what led her to leave Instagram, how her post-Instagram life has changed, and how tips from her Leaving Social Media Toolkit can enhance your author platform regardless of your relationship to social media. Plus, you’ll learn some easy, actionable SEO tips that will quickly make you more...
2025-05-1553 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingDeep Memoir Writing: 3 Stages of Transformation Every Writer Should Know with Jennifer SeligSend us a textIn today’s episode, join me and Jennifer Selig as we explore how memoir writing can be a powerful tool for healing and self-discovery. Learn how Jennifer’s unique blend of depth psychology and storytelling offers a fresh perspective on the writing process, and find out how her alchemical stages of change and equations for transformation can help you navigate the emotional terrain of your memoir. Episode Highlights4:30: Depth Psychology and the Writing Cure12:15: Understanding Archetypes17:28: The Three Stages of Transformation 25:30 The Four Equations of Transformation 29:00 The Issue of Cathar...
2025-05-0843 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingFinding Your Form: Kelly McMasters on Writing Memoir in Essays and Emotional TruthSend us a textWhat happens when a story won’t stay linear—when your life fractures in ways that defy neat beginnings, middles, and ends?In this episode of Writing Your Resilience, I sit down with essayist, professor, and former bookshop owner Kelly McMasters, author of The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays. From leaving marriages to landscapes, identities to illusions, Kelly’s memoir is a brilliant meditation on grief, desire, and the elastic form of the essay itself.We talk about what it means to write honestly into complexity—how a false childhood memory c...
2025-05-0146 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEmbracing Your Weirdness: Allison Landa on Self-Acceptance and Social StigmaSend us a textWhat makes you weird? Is it something that fills you with pride or something you try to hide, a secret you’re constantly working to cover up? In today’s episode, I’m beyond excited to sit down with the brilliant author, Allison Landa, whose memoir Bearded Lady takes us on a raw and transformative journey of self-acceptance, societal judgment, and the complex relationship we have with both our inner and outer weirdness. Whether you’re a writer or simply someone who wants to connect with a compelling story of resilience and identity, this con...
2025-04-2450 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting Through Collapse: Eiren Caffall on Illness, Climate, and Finding Your Memoir's FormSend us a textHow do you tell a story of resistance that invites others in? Through the power of your metaphors—something today’s guest, Eiren Caffall has truly mastered. During today’s conversation, we explore how chronic illness and a love for nature shaped Eiren’s memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary, what it means two books in tandem (and release them just months apart), and how crafting metaphor-rich, layered narratives can become both an act of resistance and devotion. It’s time to grab your pen, open your heart, and get ready to learn how collaboratio...
2025-04-1749 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Protect Your Writing Time, Energy, and Creative Worth with Carolyn FallertSend us a textHave you ever felt like your creativity isn’t enough or that your artistic endeavors are secondary to everything on your to-do list? Have you tried all the strategies only to find yourself struggling with this yet again? Join me and my client, Carolyn Fallert, as we explore the impact of familial and cultural socializations and how strategies aren’t enough. You need to understand yourself. Get ready to discover the importance of understanding your unique operating system and how it should determine the strategies you use. Episo...
2025-04-1032 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Navigate the Business of Writing and Publishing: Expert Advice from Jane FriedmanSend us a text Writers, if you've ever wondered how to navigate the ever-changing world of writing and publishing, then you are in for a treat. Jane Friedman, who has spent nearly 25 years in the book publishing industry is here today to talk about the second edition of her groundbreaking book, “The Business of Being a Writer.” Join us as we explore the most important part of the business of being a writer: the mindset writers need to cultivate to build a viable writing career. Get ready to learn the secrets to handling rejection, thinking not just about...
2025-04-0337 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Art of Intimacy: Crafting Connection in Memoir and Essay with Lilly DancygerSend us a textJoin me and editor extraordinaire Lilly Dancyger as we discuss her latest book, First Love, an intimate, electric collection of essays on friendship, identity, and what it means to grow into yourself in community. During our conversation, Lilly shares her sharp insights on the craft of memoir, why she bristles at the idea of writing as catharsis, and how she pushes back against the dead girl trope by keeping her cousin Sabina fully alive on the page. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn memory into art without falling into the trap of...
2025-03-2743 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting with Purpose: How to Understand Your Audience and Create Compelling Content with Krystal ProffittSend us a textWhether we like it or not, writers are content creators. And one of the biggest struggles I watch writers face is understanding their audience—what they want, what they need, and how to authentically engage with them. In this episode, podcast coach, content strategist, and host of the award-winning The Proffitt Podcast, Krystal Proffitt shares valuable insights on how writers can navigate this challenge and build meaningful relationships with their readers. If you're a writer looking to expand your platform and reach, this episode is for you. Let’s di...
2025-03-2043 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingAre Trauma Triggers Ruining Your Writing Life? Here's What to DoSend us a textIf you’ve ever sat down to write about a tough experience, only to find yourself avoiding the page, feeling emotionally wrecked, or questioning whether you should even be writing this story—you are not alone. Writing about trauma can be healing, but it can also trigger us in ways we don’t expect. Today, we’re going to unpack this. We’ll talk about what trauma triggers really are, how they show up on the page and inside us, and—most importantly—what you can do to navigate them so your writing process suppor...
2025-03-1324 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Power of Words: Samman Akbarzada on Finding Her Voice After Fleeing AfghanistanSend us a textImagine working tirelessly for years to publish your first novel—only to have the moment of celebration collide with the collapse of your country. Imagine being forced to flee, leaving behind everything you’ve ever known, and yet… still finding your voice through poetry, storytelling, and advocacy.Today, I have the honor of speaking with Samman Akbarzada—a poet, novelist, refugee, and fierce advocate for human rights. Her novel, Life is a Movie, tells the story of a working child in Afghanistan, while her poetry collection, A Glimmer in the Dark, captures...
2025-03-0643 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Creative Cure for Writers: Trauma-Informed Approaches for Memoir and Embracing Your Creativity with Jacob NordbySend us a textDo you struggle to see yourself as creative? Or have you ever wondered where your creativity comes from, and how to maximize it? This week, I’m joined by Jacob Nordby, founder of A Writing Room Collective and author of Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, and The Creative Cure, a powerful guide to reconnecting with your creative self. In this week’s episode, Jacob and I dive deep into the healing power of creativity, trauma, and the inner wisdom we all carry within us. Grab your pen, open your heart, and...
2025-02-2740 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEmbracing the Full Catastrophe: Writing About Loss and Finding Belonging with Casey Mulligan WalshSend us a textHave you ever been told what you’re writing is too dark, too sad, or that it needs more levity? Have you wondered how a story of tragedy can grow into something more than the sum of its parts?Join me and my client, Casey Mulligan Walsh as we discuss her revision process, what it took to embrace both the heartbreaking and beautiful aspects of her life, and how she’s become a small press author whose book debuted at number two in Amazon’s Grief and Loss category, just behind Mary F...
2025-02-2046 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingCounterintuitive Editing: Finding Balance Between Inner Reflection and Outer Action + Writing Tips for 2025 with Sarah ChaunceySend us a textJoin me for a conversation with Sarah Chauncey, a veteran writer, developmental editor, and the author of P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna, as we dive into the inner and outer work of editing, the power of allowing rather than forcing, and why true creative flow often comes from stepping away from the keyboard. Episode Highlights3:03 The Role of the Unconscious in Writing 6:28 The Power of Not Pushing 9:16 The Sunk Cost Fallacy and Your Writing Projects10:15 Your Book Is Not Your Identity 12:27 The Counterintuitive Guide to Life2...
2025-02-1344 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting Through Shame: Hannah Sward on Memoir, Resilience, and Being PresentSend us a textThis week, I’m thrilled to introduce you to a powerful voice in memoir, Hannah Sward, author of Strip. In today’s conversation, Hannah takes us behind the scenes of her writing process—how she wrote her first draft by hand, in one long, unfiltered sentence; how she found the courage to put her full truth on the page; and how she distilled years of experience into a memoir that moves with incredible precision and power. You’ll also learn transcription tricks, sex scene-writing tips, the unexpected doors publishi...
2025-02-0644 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingUsing the Akashic Records to Awaken the Powerful Writing Voice within You with Amy RobesonSend us a textEvery writer wants to be successful, but sometimes we just get stuck or feel uninspired. Even when things are going well, we can be baffled when our big wins don’t feel more successful. This week, I’ll explore these struggles alongside my guest, Akashic Records master teacher, Amy Robeson. Join us as we bust some of the myths around success, talk about the secrets to raising your vibration, and explore some out-of-the-box ways you can awaken the powerful writing voice within you. Episode Highlights1:46: Definitions of Awakening 7:32: The Da...
2025-01-3044 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting Rituals: Staying Grounded While Being Vulnerable with Natalie BusterSend us a textHow do you write about really tough, or even traumatic, life events, in a way that connects with your audience and the truth, without losing yourself? It’s a question so many writers ask me. This week, I’ll answer it with the help of my guest, the multi-talented Natalie Buster—a certified trauma-informed yoga therapist, actress, and writer. Together, we explore how grounding techniques, breathwork, and mindful rituals can help writers and creatives stay connected to their truth, heal through their craft, and navigate vulnerability. Episode Highlights2:28 What Is...
2025-01-2343 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Gaslight-Proof Your Writing PracticeSend us a textHave you ever dismissed your feelings, discounted your writing wins, or told yourself you should feel differently about your writing projects? If so, you might be gaslighting writing practice. Join me as I discuss what gaslighting is, how it shows up in our writing lives, and most importantly, how you can stop doing it.Episode Highlights: 2:12: Defining Gaslighting 5:42: Reasons Writers Gaslight Their Writing Practice 10:05: Ways We Discount Our Creative Intuition14:46 The Impact of Change on Our Writing Practice23:50: Tools to Gaslight-Proof Your Writing Practice31:37: The Poison of Comparison ...
2025-01-1640 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWhen Agents Say No: Overcoming Setbacks with Jessica YenSend us a textWhen you get negative feedback from an agent on your writing you can do two things: adapt and improve your writing, or quit. In this episode, I am speaking with Jessica Yen, a Camp Structure graduate, about the recent challenges she faced while dealing with discouraging feedback from a literary agent. Join us as we explore how agents think, what the market may–or may not–be looking for, and how to regain your power when difficult feedback knocks you down.Episode Highlights5:41: The Agent Mindset10:55: Are We Ready...
2024-12-1933 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingFrom Captivity to Clarity: Reclaiming Your Voice and Writing Your TruthSend us a textWhat’s holding you hostage or keeping you stuck? In Jessica Buchanan’s case, it initially seemed like the Somali pirates who held her hostage for ninety-three were her biggest problem. But as she completed a powerful exercise during her captivity, she realized the issues she faced were far deeper and ultimately more common than the kidnapping she endured. Join me and author, TedX speaker, book coach, and founder of Soul Speak Press, Jessica Buchanan, as we discuss the ways we dismiss our inner knowing, how to reclaim your voice, and how to writ...
2024-12-1248 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Power of Micro Memoir: Grief, Storytelling, and Experimentation with Amy LinSend us a textHow do you dive into the marrow of an experience we’ll all one day share, yet so many of us struggle to talk about? And how do you write into a topic so widely covered that it feels impossible to say something new? Today, I’m joined by Amy Lin, author of the stunning micro memoir Here After, as we tackle these questions head-on. Together, we’ll explore the raw realities of grief, how Amy’s memoir acts as a powerful container for this universal experience, the magic of the microform, and what it...
2024-12-0554 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWhy Practicing Gratitude Can Transform Your Writing and Your LifeSend us a textToday, I am grateful. Grateful for my fellow writers, all of you listeners, and for this podcast. In this episode, I am holding space for those who might be struggling with the Thanksgiving holiday while exploring how gratitude can ground us in the midst of life’s challenges.This episode reflects on:The duality of emotions surrounding holidays, elections, and the uncertainties in life.The transformative power of gratitude, especially during dark times, and how it can support mental health and resilience.How gratitude intersects with writing, helping aut...
2024-11-2815 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting with Hunger: Mindset, Goals, and the Publishing Shift with Ariel Curry and Liz MorrowSend us a textWhen you hear the phrase hungry author, what does that mean to you? How might a hungry author approach their goals and what might they’re willing to do to achieve them? Join Sourcebook’s nonfiction editor Ariel Curry and ghostwriter Liz Morrow and me as we talk about the mindset writers need to succeed, how to stay hungry while working on your writing projects,, and the surprising new role self-publishing plays in the publishing industry on this week’s episode of the Writing Your Resilience podcast. Ariel’s Bio: Ariel Curry is...
2024-11-2150 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingForgiveness to Friendship and Why It's Never Too Late with Gayle and Mildred KirschenbaumSend us a textIs there an age when it’s too late to publish a book, forgive a person, or take a chance on yourself? Not if you’re Mildred Kirschenbaum. With the help of her daughter Gayle, Mildred is a 101-year-old Instagram sensation and debut author who is currently on a book tour. Join us as we discuss the challenges of mother/daughter relationships, how forgiveness turned Gayle and Mildred into best friends, and the secrets to lifelong learning and living vibrantly no matter your age. Mildred Kirschenbaum, a centenarian from Brooklyn, NY, has c...
2024-11-1445 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingBright Spots, Neurodiversity, and More Chicken in Your Memoir with Kristin Jarvis AdamsSend us a textIf you’re writing about a medical drama or other high-intensity journey involving another person, how do you write about these events without swallowing your story of transformation? What would you do if your agent’s feedback to you was “more chicken?” That’s exactly what parent advocate Kristin Jarvis Adams’s agent said after reading a draft of her memoir, The Chicken Who Saved Us. Join us as we explore the challenges of turning an animal into a primary character in your memoir, learning to appreciate the diverse ways we communicate, how to get past...
2024-11-0736 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Loneliness of Sibling Loss with Alyson Shelton and Lynn ShattuckSend us a textNovember is Worldwide Bereaved Siblings Month, yet most siblings grieve alone. They’re told to be strong for their parents, or they get subtle, and, sometimes not so subtle, cues to move on. Yet the loss of a sibling is the loss of a lifetime, because it’s a relationship we expect we’ll have for most of our lives.Join me, Alyson Shelton, and Lynn Shattuck as we remember our brothers and talk about sibling loss, the challenges of living with disenfranchised grief, and how writing has helped us heal and mai...
2024-10-3146 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingBreaking the Silence on Sexual Assault with Cheyenne WilsonSend us a textMany survivors of sexual abuse and assault silently carry questions about what happened to them. Am I truly a victim? Should I report what happened? If so, what are the steps? How do I disclose this to family members? Join me and Cheyenne Wilson, sexual assault advocate and author of We Are the Evidence, as we explore the power of breaking the silence around your experience, the importance of healing in community, and how to find the resources that are right for you. Plus, you’ll hear about the unlikely eve...
2024-10-2443 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting about Absent Fathers and Attachment Styles with Acamea DeadwilerSend us a textJoin me and Pushcart Nominee, TedX Speaker, and multi-passionate creative, Acamea Deadwiler, as we talk about normalized violence, how our attachment styles can influence the way we approach our memoirs, and the importance of connecting with your inner compass. During our conversation, you’ll also learn what transcendental meditation is and how Acamea used her TM practice while writing her memoir, Daddy’s Little Stranger,Acamea’s bio: Acamea Deadwiler is a Pushcart Prize nominated memoirist and essayist who received praise from Publishers Weekly and authored the memoir, Daddy’...
2024-10-1752 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingSelf-Acceptance, Dating Disasters, and Life After Loss with Debbie WeissSend us a textJoin me and Debbie Weiss, author of the memoir Available As Is, as we discuss how multiple major losses impact the way we see ourselves and the world, the challenges of dating when you’re over fifty, and the most important thing new writers should consider when starting a book. Debbie’s Bio: Debbie Weiss is the author of the award-winning memoir “Available As Is: A Midlife Widow’s Search for Love” about creating a new life after the loss of her husband and high school sweetheart of 32 years. Her writing has been fea...
2024-10-1045 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Challenges of Being Vulnerable On the Page with Megan WilliamsSend us a textWhat would you do if an experience you’d long dreamed of was not only not what it’s cracked up to be, but at times miserable? Would you own up to the challenges or pretend it’s as great as you imagined Join me and Megan Williams, author of One Bad Mother as we explore the challenges of being vulnerable on the page, the realities of modern motherhood no one wants to talk about, and a key book-launch lesson every author needs to know. Resources Mentioned During This Epi...
2024-10-0335 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEstrangement, Dementia, and the Fractured Memoir with Lara LillibridgeSend us a textIf you have a complicated relationship with someone, how do you write about them? Should you craft a linear memoir that reads more like a journey or write something that mirrors your experience? Join me and Lara Lillibridge, author of Girlish, Mama, Mama, Only Mama, and The Truth of Unringing Phones, as we explore the impact of estrangement on the memoir writing process, how to protect your heart as you write about painful experiences, the power of publishing your story, as well as the a-ha Lara had about which part of the writing...
2024-09-2637 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingCaring for Your Nervous System and Creativity with Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Kirby MooreSend us a textWriting can be a powerful tool for healing, but when writing the tough stuff, it’s easy to get triggered and relive the experiences you’re writing about. If you’re wondering what to do about this, join me and somatic experiencing practitioner Kirby Moore as we explore how the nervous system works and how to care for it and your writing life. Plus Kirby will teach you a powerful tool you can use right now to calm your nervous system. While you can listen to this on any platform, if you’re a visual...
2024-09-1947 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting about Intergenerational Trauma with with Margaret Juhae LeeSend us a textLike it or not, our family history shapes who we are. What if lost portions of your history are holding you back? What lengths would you go to recover this history, understand it, and then turn your discoveries into a memoir? Join me and author of the memoir Starry Field, Margaret Juhae Lee, as we explore the impacts of intergenerational trauma on our identity, the challenges of writing a researched memoir, staying motivated over the long haul, and the problem of getting an agent too soon.Margaret’s Bi...
2024-09-1248 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe True Meaning of Success and The Multiple Paths to Publishing Your Book with Courtney MaumSend us a textWhat does it take to become a professional writer with a published book? More importantly, what does it take to become a happy writer? Join multi-genre writer and book coach Courtney Maum and me as we discuss writer mental health, the key ingredients in an author brand, what success really means and how you can achieve it, as well as the number one skill all authors need to cultivate. Courtney’s Bio: Courtney is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking publishing guide that Vanity Fair recently nam...
2024-09-051h 10Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingIs It Self-Protection or Self-Sabotage: Why Tough Stories Cause Writer's BlockSend us a textHave you ever worked on a tough story only to hear a voice in your head say maybe you’re not good enough, or maybe this isn't the project for you? How do you know if it’s self-sabotage or a wise part of you that’s trying to get your attention? Join professional writer Donna Moriarty and me as we discuss these voices and how to tell the difference between sabotage and support—especially when one voice is telling you to slow down or stop. Resources Mentioned in This E...
2024-08-2929 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingStrategies for Navigating Traumatic Memories In Your MemoirSend us a textTW: Mention of Sexual AssaultIn this episode, you’ll hear from Deborah Svec-Carstens, a writer working on a memoir that details her journey of healing after trauma.In this episode:Writing about trauma and recounting hard memories.Three reasons why we struggle to write about feelings The impact trauma has on our memories and emotions Writing speculative scenes Writing around your toughest experiences The benefit of studying other writers ResourcesAtlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human E...
2024-08-2224 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Challenges of Writing Coming-of-Age MemoirsSend us a textThis week, you'll hear from Laila Rall, a writer working on a memoir about her chaotic, bicultural childhood with an unstable mother. We will explore two of the biggest challenges writers of coming-of-age memories grapple with: when does my story really begin and how do I gracefully insert my wisdom into scenes that involve very young narrators?Episode Highlights2:25 Exploring the Scope of Your Book3:15 Feedback on the Childhood Voice5:43 Are You Starting in the Right Place7:15 The Importance of Beat Sheets18:15 Maintaining the MysteryResources Mentioned During This...
2024-08-1525 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingThe Dark Side of Publishing: Why It's So Hard for Trauma SurvivorsSend us a textThis week, you will hear from Laurie Riedman, a memoirist who wrote Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories from a Junkyard Girl, a collection of short pieces that mirror the fractured memories she built while growing up in a world filled with discarded car parts. During our conversation we talk about how to deal with the voice in your head that says what you’re writing isn’t true, and how trauma survivors can care for themselves while navigating the publishing process. Laurie’s Bio: Laurie Riedman is a persona...
2024-08-0831 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingDoes What I Am Writing Really Matter?Send us a textThis week, you'll hear from Amanda Creasey, an outdoors writer and novelist, as we explore the age-old existential question: does what we are working on matter? In this episode, you will hear Amanda vulnerably share the frustration and discouragement many writers face when working on long-term projects and publishing their work. We’ll examine the drivers that keep us going, the truth about how many books authors typically sell, and how to show up for yourself as you write. Amanda’s Bio: Amanda is an English teacher, outdoors writer...
2024-08-0129 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Tell My Story Without Sounding Like I’m Playing the VictimSend us a textThis week, you will hear from Wendy Hawkes, an emerging writer working on a coming-of-middle-age memoir about how she survived category 5 Hurricane Dorian, a storm whose intensity was due to climate change, and how this experience taught her to go with the flow. During our conversation we talk about how to write tough scenes without overdramatizing them or falling into a victim role, and how to decide which details truly belong. Wendy’s Bio: Wendy Hawkes (she/her) is an American emerging writer currently crafting a memoir based on...
2024-07-2528 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow Can I Braid My Life Story With My Deceased Partner’s?Send us a textThis week, you’ll hear from Meredith Master, a writer working on her memoir who is deciding on its structure. In this episode, we discuss writing a braided memoir, writing with a disability, telling the story of someone who has passed away, and how to write about the parts of someone’s life you weren’t present for. Meredith’s Bio: Meredith Master is a blind writer living in New York City, where she shares a small space with her guide dog, Ivan and mostly unhelpful Boston Terrier, Jelly Roll. She is curren...
2024-07-1829 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingShould I Honor Their Privacy or Break the Silence by Publishing My Memoir?Send us a textHave you ever felt the need to write your story and share it with others? What if you believed breaking the silence would heal you, but family members want you to keep certain stories private? Could you find a way to respect their wishes while honoring your truth? In this episode, I am joined by Stephanie Shafran, a writer who’s spent a lifetime being silenced and is now experiencing just this situation. We talk about writing what you need to write, deciding whether to publish, and respecting a f...
2024-07-1131 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingIs My Book Ready for Beta Readers?Send us a textBefore you send your book to beta readers, listen to this episode!In it, you’ll meet Melissa Macomber, another Camp Structure alumni who’s working on her memoir. During this episode, we explore how to know when your book is ready for beta readers, the three types of beta readers you’ll need, how to choose beta readers wisely, and questions to ask them before sending out your work. Melissa’s Bio: Melissa is a writer currently working on a memoir about how to recognize your soulmate(s). You can f...
2024-07-0325 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Return to Your Memoir After Loss and How to Navigate Your Author Platform as a Trauma SurvivorSend us a textThis week, you’ll hear from Camp Structure alumni Shoshana Koch, a writer and speaker who’s working on a coming-of-age memoir. During this episode, we explore the challenges trauma survivors face when building an author platform, how to deal with rejection, and how to re-engage with a writing project after an extended break.Shoshana’s Bio: Shoshana is a psychologist, writer, and speaker who focuses on the intersection of trauma and addiction. She is editing a debut memoir set in an ‘80s childhood with her strung-out family (think “Lord of the Flies” mee...
2024-06-2731 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting that Gets Noticed with Estelle ErasmusSend us a textWelcome to season three of the Writing Your Resilience podcast! During seasons one and two, I interviewed experts and published authors who generously shared their wisdom on writing and healing. We’ll get back to that in season four. But sometimes it’s nice to know the people walking this journey alongside you. For my season three “Summer Shorts” series, you’ll meet ten writers in the trenches of the writing process and hear my advice to them.But I wanted to launch this season with one more expert–Estelle Erasmus, author of th...
2024-06-201h 06Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through Writing"How Do You Know When Your Story Is “Finished?” Ask Me Anything with Lisa Cooper EllisonSend us a textWelcome to the last episode of Season 2! This second season has been amazing, and I am so grateful for all of the featured guests and all of you listeners. Just as I did last season, I decided to sit behind the microphone and open myself up to answering questions.In this episode, you’ll meet Katie Rouse, a poet, memoirist, and former student in my Camp Structure course. During this episode, we explore the signals that your story is “finished” and ready to marinate. As you listen to our interview, here are so...
2024-06-1321 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingIt’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People with Dr. Ramani DurvasulaSend us a textDr. Ramani Durvasula, author of It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People, shares her insights into narcissism, how narcissistic abuse survivors can heal and get support, and how to care for yourself when writing and promoting a book on tough topics. Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist in California, the founder and CEO of LUNA Education, Training and Consulting, and professor emerita of psychology at California State University Los Angeles. She is the New York Times bestselling author of It’s Not You: Identifying and Heali...
2024-06-061h 10Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingAddiction, Recovery, and Confronting the Good Mother Myth with Ann BatchelderSend us a textAuthor Ann Batchelder talks about her daughter’s struggle with addiction, their recovery journeys, the myths she had to confront, her struggle with perfectionism, and the writing tips she learned as she was writing her memoir, Craving Spring: A Mother's Quest, a Daughter's Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them TogetherAnn’s bio: Ann Batchelder writes about women’s wisdom and the pain and beauty of difficult transitions. She is the author of Craving Spring: A Mother’s Quest, a Daughter’s Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them Toget...
2024-05-3049 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting about Chronic Illness and Crafting the Hybrid Memoir with Jennifer LundenSend us a textAuthor, Jennifer Lunden, shares her struggles with chronic illness, the challenges of writing a hybrid memoir, especially when you’ve not trained in science writing, and the grit all writers, but especially writers with disabilities, need to cultivate. Jennifer Lunden Bio: Jennifer Lunden (she/her) is the author of American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, which was praised by the Los Angeles Review of Books and Washington Post, and called a “genre-bending masterpiece” by Hippocampus. Her essays have appeared...
2024-05-2349 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow Recovery Supports Memoir Writing and Book Marketing Tips with Laura Cathcart RobbinsSend us a textAuthor Laura Cathcart Robbins shares book marketing tips she learned while promoting her memoir Stash: My Life in Hiding, and how recovery helped her cultivate the honesty needed to write her memoir. Laura’s Bio: Laura Cathcart Robbins is the best-selling author of the Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir, Stash, My Life In Hiding, and host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room. She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diver...
2024-05-1658 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingCrafting the Personal Essay and Resilient Editing Tips with Andrea FirthSend us a textAndrea Firth joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about what personal essays are, how writers can uncover their essay’s aboutness, and how to develop resilient editing practices. As an added bonus, she also offers writers the inside scoop on how to get published on the Brevity Blog. Andrea’s Bio: Andrea A. Firth is a writer, editor and educator living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an Editor at Brevity Blog and cofounder of Diablo Writers’ Workshop where she teaches creative writing and provides developmental editing. Andrea...
2024-05-0947 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHeeding Your Inner Voice and Navigating Your Memoir's Dark Night of the Soul with Suzette MullenSend us a textAuthor and writing coach, Suzette Mullen shares tips for structuring your memoir, navigating the dark night of the soul, living with integrity, and learning to listen to your inner voice. Suzette’s Bio: Suzette Mullen (she/her) is a memoir and nonfiction book coach, retreat leader, and the author of the memoir The Only Way Through Is Out (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024), named one of February’s “most anticipated” releases by Lambda Literary. Foreword Reviews calls The Only Way Through Is Out: “Candid, inspirational… An emotive memoir that issues a stirring call to women...
2024-05-0251 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingSurviving a Social Media Witch Hunt and Threading a Theme Through Your Memoir with Natalie MacLeanSend us a textNatalie MacLean joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about surviving a social media witch hunt, how it impacted her relationship with alcohol, threading a theme through her memoir and marketing your book like a pro. Natalie’s Bio: Natalie MacLean, named the World's Best Drinks Journalist, has also won four James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. She’s the bestselling author of Red, White and Drunk All Over. Her new memoir, Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much has just become a natio...
2024-04-2552 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingMaking Meaning and Writing Toward Posttraumatic Growth with Lennie EchterlingSend us a textLennie Echterling joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about the lessons he learned from landmine survivors, the difference between empathy and toxic positivity, the importance of fostering your posttraumatic growth, and how to use writing to build your resilience. Lennie’s Bio: Lennie Echterling, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus at James Madison University with more than 40 years of experience in promoting resilience, particularly during crises and disasters. He has served as crisis counselor, consultant, and trainer following many traumatic stress events, including tornadoes and floods thr...
2024-04-181h 05Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingFinding Your Voice and Crafting Stories that Ignite the Soul with Sue William SilvermanSend us a textSue William Silverman joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to talk about the power of creative nonfiction, how to use metaphor, masks, and language to harness its power, and how this work can lead to personal growth.As you listen along, here are a few questions to ponder: Which of your stories yearn to be told? How do you uncover their many emotional truths? What do those truths look like on the page and sound like when you read them out loud? Sue’s Bio: Sue William Silve...
2024-04-1156 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHow to Stop Gaslighting Yourself with Ingrid ClaytonSend us a textIngrid Clayton joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about Complex PTSD, how narcissistic abuse leads to self-gaslighting, its impact on the writing process, and how Ingrid confronted these experiences while writing her memoir Believing Me. Here’s a list of questions to ponder as you follow along: Have you ever doubted your own experiences? Have you ever felt like if you just did the right thing, you’d be good enough and the problems in your relationships would end? Is there something about yourself you struggle to believe in? While...
2024-04-041h 20Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingHealing Through ForgivenessSend us a textWelcome to season two of the Writing Your Resilience Podcast! After celebrating season one’s fantastic interviews, I decided to kick things off right by having a fireside-style chat with you about a topic that keeps coming up: Forgiveness. Whether we’re on a healing journey or writing the tough stuff, forgiveness can be a complicated thing to grasp and work through. In this episode, I talk about what forgiveness is, what the process looks like, and how it’s related to the writing process. As you listen along, consider...
2024-03-2851 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingAsk Me Anything with Lisa Cooper EllisonSend us a textWelcome to the last episode of Season 1! This season has been amazing, and I am so grateful for all the listeners who return week after week to learn from my featured guests. After weeks of asking other writers questions, I decided to invite some of the writers I work with onto the podcast to ask me questions!In this episode, you’ll first meet Sara Pam Neufeld, a yoga teacher and former journalist who’s working to complete the first full draft of her memoir about her quest for balance when life...
2024-03-2142 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingRecovering from Cults and Religious Trauma Through Writing with Tia LevingsSend us a textTia Levings joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss her experience as a debut author, writing to heal without retraumatizing yourself, the gaslighting that happens in religion, and getting things off your chest and onto the page to educate others with your writing. As you listen to this episode, consider the following questions: What would you need to do to claim your story? What would tell you it has legs? What would you need to do to see it from a wider lens? If it is a really tough story, how...
2024-03-1453 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingLeaning into the Mystery of our Stories with Brett Will TaylorSend us a textBrett Will Taylor joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss vulnerability, family stories, shamanism, and the importance of leaning into the mystery.As you listen to this episode, consider the following questions: What are the family stories that you are living from? Who are your people and who or what do you consider to be your guides? How do you grapple with the things that no longer serve you? How does this work and the work of being present in life help you find and sharpen your writing voice?
2024-03-0752 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingUnderstanding Neurodivergence with Katie Rose Guest PryalSend us a textKatie Rose Guest Pryal joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to take a deep dive into what neurodiversity is and how it impacts writers.Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What do you know about neurodiversity? Do you consider yourself to be neurodivergent? If you are, how does that impact the way you set up your writing life, what you write about, and how you see the world?Katie Rose Guest Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is a bipolar-autistic author, keynote speaker...
2024-02-2948 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingExploring The Loneliness Epidemic with Athena DixonSend us a textAthena Dixon joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss the multiple facets of loneliness, how to decide what is for you and what is for the public, and how to create your own definition of success. Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: How do you define loneliness? How did the pandemic impact the way that you define and experienced it? What does success look like for you? What is one positive association you have with being alone?Born and raised in N...
2024-02-2250 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingMore than True Crime with Sarah PerrySend us a textSarah Perry joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to talk about the choices they made while writing their award-winning memoir, After the Eclipse, and how each decision helped them build a book about their mother’s murder that was more than a true crime story. In this conversation, they explore the structure of Sarah’s book, how to build a character based on research, navigating the challenges of memory, and why closure isn’t what some of us are looking for.Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this...
2024-02-151h 06Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingEmbracing Our Grief with Eileen Vorbach CollinsSend us a textTW: Mention of SuicideEileen Vorbach Collins joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about living with and writing about grief, breaking free of stigma and shame, how your structure serves your readers, and the importance of humor, even when writing about unimaginable pain. Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you experienced a profound loss like death, divorce, or something else? What helped you make sense of it? What helped you learn to live with this experience? What are your t...
2024-02-0854 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting About Abandonment without Abandoning Yourself with Ronit PlankSend us a textLet’s Talk Memoir host Ronit Plank joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss writing about abandonment, the importance of understanding the context of your story, the challenges around writing about family, publishing with small presses and much more. Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you ever written about someone who's abandoned you? What kind of feedback did you get? Do you wonder how to do this without making them a monster or abandoning yourself? Ever wonder what it might be like to...
2024-02-011h 03Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting to Heal with Laura DavisSend us a textLaura Davis joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss the healing power of writing, the difference between writing to heal and writing for a public audience, and the challenges she faced while writing her memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars.Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What role has writing played in your life? If you have been writing for a while, which piece has healed you the most? Have you ever received feedback that something should be taken out of a p...
2024-01-2555 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingPracticing Radical Acceptance in Your Writing Practice with Zebib AbrahamSend us a textZebib Abraham joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss why she writes fiction, the relationship between writing and mental health, and tools writers can use to cultivate resilience, self-compassion, and radical acceptance of themselves and their work. Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you ever considered whether something should be written as fiction or nonfiction? Do you wonder which genre might be the most compassionate to you and allow you the freedom to explore your emotional truth? Do you know what self-compassion a...
2024-01-1853 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingBreaking the Silence with Melanie BrooksSend us a textMelanie Brooks joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to speak about her book, A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All. This is the book she once struggled to write about her father's death. In today's episode, we'll explore the powerful impact silence has on you and how to break through it. Before we get to this conversation, I have a few questions for you. What role has silence played in your writing and in your life? Has it ever been helpful? Has it...
2024-01-1148 minWriting Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingGet to Know Your Host, Lisa Cooper EllisonSend us a textTW: Mention of Suicide Get to know your host Lisa Cooper Ellison. Whether she was working to stay safe in an abusive home, running away from it, or navigating her brother’s suicide, Lisa has always turned to the page. She had no idea that losing everything while Battling Lyme disease would transform a hobby into an essential tool that helped her reignite her resilience and rewire her nervous system. Resilience has always played a huge role in Lisa’s life, and through this podcast she wants to help you le...
2024-01-1127 min
Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingTrailer: Writing Your ResilienceSend us a textThe Writing Your Resilience Podcast is for anyone who wants to use the writing process to flip the script on the stories they’ve been telling themselves, because when we tell better stories about ourselves, we live better lives. Every Thursday, host Lisa Cooper Ellison, an author, speaker, trauma-informed writing coach, and trauma survivor diagnosed with complex PTSD, interviews writers of tough, true stories, people who've developed incredible grit, and professionals in the field of psychology and healing who've studied resilience.Over the past 7 years Lisa has taught writers how...
2023-12-2803 min