So, for the next 4 days: You can join The Lounge for $40 for your entire first year.

Normally, an annual paid subscription is $60, but from today through Friday, September 4, it’s $40 for your first year.

Okay, but what exactly IS The Lounge?

If you’ve been hanging around here as a free subscriber, you already get my Monthly(ish) Newsletter, various thoughts, recommendations, and whatever else has captured my attention. But The Lounge is where things get a little more personal.

It’s my private podcast for paid subscribers (on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream) where we talk about basically…everything.

Over the past year we’ve talked about things like:

— 5 ways I’m discipling my kids in the middle years
— what’s helping my marriage right now
— my extremely not-fancy-but-it-works skincare routine
— spiritual OCD and end times views
— helping our girls think about body image, beauty, and worth
— my journey through doubt in my faith
— ghosts, dinosaurs, and other controversial topics

Basically, if the regular newsletter is us chatting at the kitchen counter, The Lounge is when everyone leaves and we’re still sitting there two hours later.

And when you join, you immediately get access to all the past Lounge episodes, so there’s already a whole backlog waiting for you.

PLUS, paid subscribers get priority in my inbox, get to ask questions that I’ll answer on pods, and get access to my full archive of Deep Dives and think pieces.

So: $40 for your first year.

That works out to about $3.33/month for the whole shebang.

The offer is only open Tuesday–Friday this week (9/1-9/4), and then the annual price goes back to $60.

$40 for your first year!

If you’ve been thinking about joining, this is the time.

And if a paid subscription isn’t in the cards for you? Please, please know I mean it when I say I’m happy you’re here. Paid subscribers are what allow me to keep sharing so much of my work freely, and I’d love for you to join them, but I’m grateful for every single person who’s a part of our crew here—paid or free.

BRB, turning 40.

Laura

I’m joined by my friend, fellow poet and artist Kate Lab (@KateGoesCreating) to talk about how both of us somehow became poets after once feeling intimidated by the whole genre, why poetry seems to be finding a new audience right now, and how to actually read a poem if your usual response is, “Um...what does this mean?” or, “Snoozerrrrr.”

Here’s what Kate has to say to that: “Saying ‘I don’t like poetry’ is almost like saying ‘I don’t like music because I don’t like heavy metal.’” Hear, hear! We guarantee we can find you something you like, as long as you’re willing to try out a few.

We also get into the deeper reasons to read poetry and how it can help us make sense of the human experience and be used in personal devotion and prayer with the Lord.

This is part book celebration, part poetry crash course, part conversation about hope. Let’s Lounge!

Timestamps:

• 00:23 — So...what if you’re not a poetry person?

• 05:02 — How to actually read poetry

• 09:03 — Behind This Side of the Sky

• 14:00 — Why poetry can reach places ordinary words don’t

• 20:46 — What do you hold onto when life is hard?

• 28:50 — What makes Christian poetry different?

• 34:04 — A crash course for the poetry-beginner

• 36:56 — More poetry to look forward to

• 41:17 — Putting your work into the world

Mentioned in this episode

• This Side of the Sky: 101 Poems & Scriptures for the Hungry, Hopeful, & Homesick — Laura Wifler (Amazon Link.) Or get it for just 12 bucks here!

• Kate Lab / Kate Goes Creating on IG

• All Things Beautiful: Poetic Prayers and Scriptures for Every Season — Kate Lab, coming April 13, 2027

• Stephen Witmer’s devotional guide to George Herbert’s poetry

Thank you for listening to The Lounge. If you have a question for me for next time or a topic you’d like me to cover, drop it in the comments or email me at hello@laurawifler.com. And if you email, just mention you’re a subscriber so I prioritize your note!

To get The Lounge in your podcast feed:

Spotify:

• Paid Subscribers - First go into your Substack account and link your Spotify and Substacks together, then click this link to subscribe to the show.

• Free Subscribers - Use this link (yes, the same one as paid) to subscribe to the show. It’ll auto recognize if you’re paid or free, and serve you the correct episodes (I hope, ha!)

Apple Podcasts

• Paid Subscribers: You will find a private “Listen in podcast app” link on each episode page or in your Substack account settings (click out of email an onto the platform)—you can then add it yourself to receive all episodes in your feed, both paid and free.

• Free Subscribers click here - this link will only allow free pods to appear in your feed)

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For more from Laura:

• Grab her debut poetry book, This Side of The Sky

• Visit her personal website.

• Follow on Instagram

• All Laura’s books.

• Want to grow your Bible brain? Sign up for the Sword Drill waitlist.

• Write and publish your next children’s book with Laura

• Build your author website in minutes.

Say no more, I'm in!

While the Launch Team gets a whole bunch of stuff, perhaps the biggest thing I’m offering is a frequently asked-for live poetry workshop! It’s called For the Ones Who Watch the Skies: a poetry workshop on attention, longing, hope, and the world right in front of us. You guys have been asking me for years, and now it’s happening!

The workshop will basically be a crash course in writing modern poetry from a Christian perspective. If you like how I write, I’d love to have you join me, and I will do my best to communicate how I transfer my thoughts to the written word.

So if you want in, join the Launch Team here. If you can’t make it, no worries, I’ll send out the recording to the entire Launch Team after.

And if that’s not compelling enough for you, here’s what else the Launch Team gets:

• Early access to the book. You get to read the book before anyone else, plus first looks at everything before it goes public.

• A place to hang out. You’re in on the private Instagram Broadcast Channel, where I’ll be sharing updates and BTS stuff on life and the book.

• Freebies and giveaways. Shareable graphics, printable extras, and a shot at some fun prizes along the way—please see the fancy graphic my publisher made below for some of the stuff you can win.

  

In return, you agree to pre-order the book ($12 here!), share about the book, and just generally be an awesome cheerleader for the launch. Hopefully, once you’ve read your early copy of the book, that’s not too hard. ;)

Alright, that’s the pitch. We start tomorrow, and I’d love to have you.

I am IN!

Let’s watch the skies together, okay?

Laura

I thought I didn’t like poetry. I had no formal teaching in the craft, nor was I much of a poetry reader, which is why I didn’t recognize it as poetry.

But you all did.

Today, much to my surprise, I’m often asked for my top tips for writing poetry. At first, I had no robust answer, only what you will read as the first tip on the list below: Feel deeply. Let yourself go as you write.

That’s basically all I did at first.

But as I’ve been asked more and more, and consider what I did in my forthcoming debut poetry book, This Side of the Sky, there are a few things I would offer. Even if you don’t think you like reading or writing poetry, I encourage you to try. You might find, like I did, a new love.

Here’s another readon I want you to try: The majority of popular modern poetry is written by non-believing authors. While many people can write poems that are smart, complex, and beautiful, I’ve noticed there’s more to be captured in the human experience. As image bearers, we cannot fully know ourselves apart from God. The gospel is what gives us and the ordinary moments of our lives meaning, significance, purpose—and perhaps most essential for the human heart—hope.

And so as Christians who are poets, we write with that in mind—it should set our work apart.

Before we get to the list, if you want to dive even deeper into this, I’m offering a free poetry workshop for anyone who serves on the launch team for This Side of the Sky starting on 8/26. If you can’t make to the workshop there will be a recording sent out after. Sign up below to help me launch the book, and to get your free, live poetry class!

I'm in!

Okay, let’s get to the tips. No matter if you call yourself a writer or poet or not, I pray something in here will be of value to you.

Here’s me, putting on my “poet voice,” which is absolutely different from my casual newsletter voice. Let’s go.

1. Feel deeply. First, you must understand that if you do not feel anything when you write poetry, it is not poetry. It’s okay if you don’t feel anything at first, but as you write on, you must. Remember Frost? “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” If you bawl as you write, your reader might feel sad. If you cackle, your reader may grin. Collapse into your feelings as you put your whole self into the work. You can remove things later, but to start you must be hunted by your feelings. You must ache with their weight.

2. Add gristle. Your first pass at the poem will be plain and tired. You will use cliches and prefab language around the sands of time and an ocean of emotion. So keep a word bank on your notes app. When you hear a sticky word, write it down. Then take your original poem, edit out all your pre-chewed language, and replace it with sinewy, fibrous words. Give people something to chew on late at night, the next morning, in five years.

3. Don’t be afraid to be misunderstood. Poetry has long been known to be a conversation between the writer and the reader, with much of the meaning left up to interpretation, but this still doesn’t stop people from wondering what you as the author, “tried to say.” When the readers ask (in person or on the internet) take a slow blink, a deep breath, and let them. Let them hypothesize. Let them ask. Let them push back on what they think you said. Conversations mean people are reading your work, and isn’t that what we want? For the same reason someone loves a piece, another loathes it. For each creative choice, there will be those that resonate with it and those that reject it. The goal is not to worry about taste or interpretation, but instead write what you love. Write what you can stand up for.

4. Pull a string. Perhaps the greatest delight for a reader is when a poem pulls a thread all the way through but you never notice until the end. Write down two seemingly unrelated topics or anecdotes or just … things, and weave them into a couple.

5. Be weird. After you write down everything you feel you want to say, go back through and make it weirder. No one wants to read a reheated message. Delight yourself with an unmoored line. Free-float a fresh analogy. Don’t be afraid of adding a spike.

6. Go where the words are. Every writer knows that ideas come and go, and if you do not capture them, they will always go. So when the words come, strike! Run to the notebook while boiling pasta on the stove. Roll over and scribble a title under the moon. Write down the hot words, the words that itch and buzz in your brain. Scribble them while they feel urgent and make sense of them later.

7. Add the hope: The Celts had a phrase, “Thin Place.” They often said that Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart, but in a Thin Place, the distance softens like a veil parted. It’s there we sense the sacred, gaining an awareness of another world. As you write, find the collision of Heaven and Earth. Speak to the holy mystery that haunts every surface of your life. Offer the knowledge that every beat of your mortal human heart is sustained by the God of the universe.

8. Write the specific, insignificant-seeming details. Write about the small bump on your mother’s collarbone or the way your daughter’s floral quilt feels velvet against your cheek. Somehow—and I don’t know how this works—but your grandmother’s paisley couch where you ate a slice of casserole will become the reader’s memory of being lonely. The opal egg your son brought you after the miscarriage for comfort will become the reader’s comfort in their grief. It is a wonder, isn’t it?

9. Get your butt in the chair. This, my friend, is the oldest writing advice you’ll ever receive. Perhaps it was once said as, “Place thy personage upon the seat,” or “Affix thyself to thy writing desk,” but the message remains: Sit down and write because you’ll always find a reason not to. Postpartum, a new job, new marriage, new grief. You will put it off for later every day that you do not believe that your words are worth writing. So believe that this work has value. Believe that it is doing something. That might be just for you, or perhaps, somewhere down the line, for someone else. Either way, trust that the words are worthy of writing and sit down and write.

10. Worship. The best poetry is an overflow of worship. Whether the poem breaks your heart or mends it back together, your writing, your art, is an offering to God. So write to know. Write to understand. Write to say. But above all, write to worship the God who has given you life. Write with the hope you have both today and eternally.

No matter if you’re brand-new to poetry or you’ve been writing this way your entire life, I hope you take some time today to sit down and worship through writing.

—

Don’t forget! I’d love to have you join my launch team for This Side of the Sky—and as a thank you for helping me, I’ll help YOU learn to write poetry, even if you’ve never done it before (or don’t think you’d like it). AND you get the chance to win these awesome prizes!

I'm in!

My 40th birthday is staring me down as it’s only a few weeks away on September 3rd. My brother-in-law is also turning 40 around the same time and the other day we started talking about what our obligatory mid-life crisis purchase was. He thought for a bit and said he might buy an outdoor TV because there’s nothing like a Vikings game in the yard in the fall, and I told him I’m thinking about a water filtration system since we live within a mile of a golf course.

We dream big in the Wifler fam.

That being said, there is one bigger dream I have for my 40th birthday—to have 40 Book Clubs discussing This Side of the Sky this fall.

Writing is mostly solo sport, but the reading part doesn’t have to be. That’s why I’m so excited about the 40x40 Book Club Challenge. While I wrote the poems alone at my kitchen table, they can be read and discussed by women around the world. Honestly, I think the book tastes better that way. It gives it memory.

And to do that my publisher and I have teamed up with Baker Books to get you 40% off This Side of the Sky —that’s the deepest discount I’ve seen!

Only $12!

Go, go, go! Even if you don’t plan on a book club, this is the best deal you’re gonna find.

Get me that book!

When you register your Book Club, you’ll get a Book Club Kit made just for conversations around these poems. Inside you’ll find:

• Food and drink ideas

• Ready-to-send invite text

• Discussion questions

• Ways to set the mood for the party

• A reading schedule and communication plan

Basically everything you need to plan and host an incredible night. All you have to do is get the group together.

And just for fun, I Vibe Coded (Do you expect anything less from me anymore?) a quick website for you to register your Book Club, and see where all the book clubs are! Plus there’s a counter so we can keep track of all the Book Clubs and celebrate when we hit 40!

Below is a sweet mockup of what it WILL look like. Go be the first to register your Club!

I'm definitely hosting one of these!

And if you’re still not convinced, we’re going to host a grand prize giveaway for one U.S. book club where we’ll send you custom sky-themed cookies and a beautiful flower bouquet for your discussion night!

So hurry to register; we’re aiming to have all 40 Book Clubs registered by my birthday, 9/3/26, for your chance to win!

I'm in! I'll host!

If you’re trying to convince a few friends what it’s all about, send them this video:

And in other fun news, Launch Team sign-ups are open! A Launch Team is a group of people who believe in the message of the book and want to help get the word out. As a thank you for your help, I’m sending you a bunch of freebies, and I’m so excited to have you!

The Launch Team will be hosted on an IG Private Subscriber Chat, and here’s what you get when you join:

• An exclusive LIVE poetry workshop with me, Laura Wifler, on 9/8 (will be recorded)

• An early e-copy of the book

• Chances to win sweet giveaways of some of my favorite things

• Shareable poem and quote graphics

• All preorder incentives

• Time to hang out, get behind-the-scenes updates, and ask me anything

All you have to do is pre-order the book and agree to help me share about it. We start on August 26 and will go through September 25, 2026. If that sounds like a deal to you, I hope you join me!

Sounds like a deal!

Friends, thank you so much for helping me get this book out into the world. I can’t wait for you to hold it in your hands.

Watch the skies with me, will you?

Laura

I love summer for plenty of reasons—even during the 10,000-degree heat wave we’re having now—but mostly I love it because I get so much time with my kids. And the older they get, the more I enjoy parenting them. For example, last night after our daughter with disabilities went to bed, the remaining four of us sat around eating popcorn, swapping favorite stories about her, and laughing over how cute she is.

It hasn’t always been this way—there have been some hard seasons in the last 13 years of parenting—but if you’re in the thick of the little years, hang in there. So far, any fear I had about the middle school years either hasn’t been as scary or simply hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve always been grateful for people who tell me that you can still have a great relationship with your high schooler and how those years don’t have to look like the stereotype we’ve been sold. So to any mom behind me, I want you to hear: The middle school years are wonderful. It’s a joy to raise middle schoolers. They are genuinely funny, smart, interesting, and…even somewhat wise at times!

While I’m not really one for offering parenting advice. (Even if you read every one of the Risen Motherhood books, you won’t find one word of actual parenting advice.) But I’ll leave you with two things my own parents prioritized in my family growing up, and I’m doing with my own. Proof in the pudding: My older brothers are two of my very best friends today!

1. Speak Life.

   From Proverbs 18:21, this age-old advice from Amy Carmichael gets said at least once a day in our home: “Is it true, necessary, and kind? It must be all three to say it.”

   We have firm boundaries around name-calling, unkind words, a rude tone of voice, lying, statements where you have to say, “This might be mean, but…,” or even not responding when someone asks you a question.

   While no one in our home is perfect at this, we strive to “Speak Life” in the Wifler home, and not death.

2. Learn to name your reasons.

   In our home, as we talk about our days, thoughts, and opinions, my husband and I ask our kids to name why they feel a certain way or hold an opinion. Sure, you can not like broccoli, but why? The taste? The texture? That it doesn’t have enough salt? The mere idea that it’s a vegetable?

   The naming part is the difficult part, but it also produces reasonableness, discernment, wisdom, and the openness to change one’s mind. Basically, learn how to think. Don’t like an activity? Articulate why. Don’t like our decision? Tell us where we’re wrong and why.

   We don’t do vibes around this house.

Neither of these practices is revolutionary, but perhaps one will give you an idea—or simply remind you of something you already know—as you finish out the summer.

And with that, I’m out. I’m keeping this one short so I can get back to the kiddos.

ps. The other day we were talking about what the kids want to do with their futures, and my daughter said, “Make an app, like mom!” There are only a few times I’ve felt prouder. Sword Drill, my new Bible trivia app, is in the final rounds of beta testing. It’s been so much fun to play the Daily5 each day and get crushed on the Leaderboard by people all over the world. After beta testing, it’ll be invite-only for a few months while I get my cyber-sea-legs under me. If you want to make sure you get on it early, sign up for the waitlist here.

I want this app!

A Poem for You

If you like this poem, it will be in my upcoming poetry book, “This Side of The Sky.” Pre-order anywhere books are sold.

Words I Can’t Stop Thinking About

And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the people of Israel and speak my words to them.

Ezekiel 3:1-3

What I’m Reading, Watching, & Listening To

Quick reminder that inclusion in this list does not equate endorsement. I read, listen, and watch widely. Being on this list does not mean I agree with them. I'm also in a book club, which means I do not always pick the books I read.

What I'm Reading:

• 5 Habits of the Tech-Ready Family: Raising Wise Kids in a Wild Digital World - Chris McKenna - If you enjoy my annual “Tech Prep for Kids’ Guide,” you’ll love this book. Chris is someone I look to for guidance on how to navigate tech and kids, and this is a wonderful book every parent, teacher, and youth pastor should read.

• The Calamity Club, Kathryn Stockett - I was pleased to see Stockett come out with her second book, as I still remembered her first book, The Help from 17 years ago. The two main characters, Meg and Frances, are so endearing; you can’t help but root for them. I appreciate the light Sockett shines on the forced sterilization of people in the late 1920’s-1970’s and the start of a major eugenics movement that still continues today. I started sharing about this a while ago, particularly because it targeted people with disabilities (watch my video here) and most people have never heard of it. In addition to this topic, it’s a book that makes you think hard about a lot of things (while also being incredibly funny).

• The Help, Kathryn Stockett - Reading The Calamity Club made me want to re-read her first book. While it got some pushback when it was first released, I still really enjoyed this book on a second read-through. (Sockett is wildly talented with character voices!)

• Dust to Dust, Jen Wilkin - I had the privilege of reading this last fall for endorsement, and I couldn’t go through it fast enough. I find that I’m right in the middle of the chiasm Jen writes about, but with a daughter with disabilities that still wears diapers at night, and a parent with advanced Parkinson’s, there’s a lot of blurring of “age” lines in my life. Regardless, this book offered so much to think about, and I pray it serves as a crucible for transformation of individual perspectives and family relationships around the world.

• Discontinuity to Continuity: A Survey of Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies, Benjamin L. Merkle - I’ve been deep in studying covenant theology while reading the Old Testament. I don’t think I realized how much of an impact your viewpoint on this topic has on how you talk about the gospel and view world events. (And you have a view, even if you don’t realize it!) This book is a great one if you’re brand new to this topic and just want a fair look at all the positions.

• Clara’s Quilt, Madeleine Corbett (author) and Caroline Greb (illustrator) - Remember that poetry and art collab I did last fall with Caroline Greb? Well, she illustrated her first children’s book, and it is lovely. Such a perfect gift for your next baby shower.

What I'm Watching:

• We mostly just watched the World Cup. My husband is a big soccer fan. (He even went to a game in Kansas City!)

What I'm listening to:

• Can’t help but bop along to this new one from Forrest Frank.

• Will never not love this song. These are the words you want deep in your soul.

• My 13-year-old loves this song. A good emotional poetry-writing song too. :)

• This artist was one of my son’s counselors at camp this summer. While he didn’t tell anyone he was on Spotify, my son found him, and now his songs are on repeat. So good.

Get your free poetry prints!

When you pre-order my upcoming poetry book, This Side of the Sky, you get freebies! My publisher and I took two of my most popular, sharable poems—Instructions on Motherhood and Instructions on Friendship—and made them into beautifully designed printables. When you redeem, you’ll get these prints directly to your email, along with discussion questions and a special Spotify playlist with songs that I wrote the poems to. All you have to do is pre-order the book from your favorite retailer, and submit your receipt!

Lemme have those freebies!

I gotta get the book first!

The Random Roundup

• I was honored to again have a poem featured on Rabbit Roolm Poetry. Check it out here:

  Rabbit Room Poetry

  Here in This Room—Laura Wifler

  By Laura WiflerWe could never get over it, the way the pomegranate opened like a dying star, bleeding out on the counter. It is like the way my desire for you to have everything you ever wanted spills out of me and I cannot contain it. I wish I could wave a wand to make it all happen exactly as you wish. Yes. But all I can do is be here in thi…

  Read more

  2 months ago · 93 likes · 5 comments

• The good side of AI: Successful clinical trials of people controlling AI-powered wheelchairs with their minds.

• The scary/could be good side of AI: “The Robots Cometh.”

• The best one-bowl chocolate zucchini bread recipe. (vegan and gluten-free)

• My youngest daughter loves babies and playing mommy, and these reborn babies have helped give the real babies around us a break. She plays with them every day.

• I always wondered why sometimes a strand of my hair would be half gray and half brown (and the brown part was the top part). Turns out, the gray hair marks a season of stress.

• Wore this dress to a recent event and got so many compliments.

• The family’s sunglasses were driving me crazy, so I ordered these inexpensive organizers and stuck them to the back of a cabinet in our mudroom. Makes me feel v. fancy to go pick which of my three sunglasses to wear.

• I’ve shared this before, but I cannot recommend a Mighty enough. All three of my kids have one (they don’t have phones) and they use them all the time. You connect it to a premium Spotify Family account, and they can have music anywhere. My older two use AirPods, and my younger one uses headphones.

• I had a pretty good laugh when Zacheeus showed up in this skit on what would happen if you speed-dated people from the Bible. Also this one. The Bible humor these days is on point.

• After getting a bob haircut for my 39th birthday (which I LOVED) I’ve decided to pull a 180 and to see how long I can grow it. Another influencer shared this shampoo and I am excited about the possibilities. I’ll report back.

• With school starting back up, I grabbed these to help mark my youngest daughter's water bottles at school. The Sharpie name always washes off!

• I recently shared with paid subscribers how I’m using ChatGPT to play quarterback for my family’s health. Of course, one month after I built my own agent, ChatGPT launched a health connection that allows you to connect with things like MyChart. Regardless, I’m glad it exists. No more screenshots of blood tests! If you or a family member has a complicated health history/status, this is exciting.

• Speaking of health, Parkinson’s disease is the world’s fastest-growing neurological disorder. They’re now terming it the “Parkinson’s Pandemic.”1 Driven by humans living longer, rising environmental toxin exposures, and less smoking2 (yes, really!), global cases have more than doubled over recent decades. One out of 336 people in the U.S. lives with Parkinson’s. As noted above, my dad has Parkinson’s and so did my grandpa, which makes my family very invested in helping with research and trying to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. If you’d like to help with simple at-home tests or surveys, even if you’re healthy and have no family history, please visit this page.

• Who knew Will Ferrell had a son with a voice like this?!

• “Oh it’s Avatar!” (Please only watch this if you love Marvel/fantasy.)

• Have you seen the sporty/girly combo that’s in style right now? If you want to pull it off (and yes, anyone can pull it off), here’s one of the tops I wear (with this bra under) and here are the Firebird track pants.

• Sometimes, for a more classic look, I wear the above pants with this cropped tee, which I also always get asked about. I have it in 7 colors!

• Too hot to cook? Make this.

• If you’re Vibe Coding, I’ve appreciated some of the posts from Zach Chmel on the “how to,” and this hopeful post a reader sent me. If you’re subscribed to my Vibe Coding feed, sorry I haven’t been there. I’ve been emailing the Sword Drill beta testers like a maniac, and all my time and energy has been poured into it. I’ll be back soon with a mega update!

• Forever will make this watermelon cucumber dish.

• A very interesting interview with Sam Altman about what the future will be like (and he thinks the future is here). Even if you don’t like AI, this might be worth listening to to stay aware.

  • Side note to get you thinking: This summer, my kids are taking an online typing class. Previously, I was relying on them learning to type at school, not through computer use at home, but schools barely teach it as they assume kids use computers at home. That said, I think typing will feel more like writing in cursive soon. Speaking is so much faster than typing; I believe most tech will move away from keyboards in the near future. While this is exciting to me for daily life stuff, I’m still making my kids learn to type, just like I’m making them learn to have good handwriting. Your brain thinks differently when it types/handrwrites so it’s a valuable skill!

• I was thrilled when a journalist from the Today Show contacted me after seeing this post about birthday parties for children with disabilities. I shared the gospel in the interview, but none of it made it into the final write-up. That’s okay; the Lord knows!

And that’s a wrap! See you next month(ish)!

As you have likely heard authors talk about, pre-orders are crazy important for an author. They help books stores know about your book, make libraries aware, and let “the powers that be” know people want more of this kind of content (aka, modern Christian poetry) so they’re motivated to procure and release more.

Don't need convincing, lemme redeem!

Okay when you pre-order This Side of The Sky, here’s what you get:

1. Two poetry prints. We took two of my greatest hits—the poems “Instructions on Motherhood” and “Instructions on Friendship” and made them prints, per popular request! Made to be framed, taped to a mirror, tucked into your Bible, and shared with friends, grab these and print as many as you like.

2. Discussion Questions. For taking the book further on your own, or (my favorite) with friends. You can sit with these questions solo, or bring them to a table full of people you love and see where the convo goes.

3. A secret Spotify playlist. I put together a sweet playlist of music I wrote the poems to, therefore they are good for listening with the book. Idk what it is, but music makes the poems 1,000x more emotional. So, sorry if you cry.

All you have to do to redeem is pre-order the book at your favorite online retailer, submit your receipt at the link below, and I’ll get everything over to you asap.

(pssst. Best deal I can find online right now is 35% off right here.)

Get My Freebies!

Alright, one more thing—this one I’m only teasing for now because I’m not quite ready to spill all the details.

As you all have heard, I’m turning 40 on September 3, about two weeks before the book launches. And instead of, I don’t know, a party, what I actually want is this: forty book clubs reading the book together by my fortieth birthday. I’m calling it the 40x40 Challenge.

Here’s the idea—you register your club, and I send you a complete kit. Guide, discussion questions, invitations, food ideas, a playlist, all of it. So all that’s left is the good part: gathering your people around these poems.

Also: There will be prizes.

More on that soon. But start thinking about who your people are that you’ll want to read this book with.

For now—preorder, grab your bonuses, and enjoy those prints!

Laura

ps. Am so grateful for those of you who take the initiative to ask your local retailers and libraries to carry the book like this, below. Brings me to tears with how supportive you all are! 😭

Now, my brain is short-circuiting by looking at my doubt in a whole new way. I’m not saying I have it, but I do discuss what it is in today’s Lounge podcast.

Plus, I’m talking about a new way my husband and I are managing our finances, how to “quarterback” complicated health cases (between my mysterious chronic pain, my dad with Parkinson’s, and my daughter with Rare Chromo, I had to get good at this!), and—because a subscriber asked—what I believe about the end times. Yes, we’re going there.

In addition, I debated on including this in the final cut, but ultimately I left it: I think I might be selling one of my businesses (and I bet it’s not the one you think). Plus, a whole lot more. Listen in on today’s monthly subscriber pod. Let’s Lounge.

psssst - I recently figured out how to get The Lounge on to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, so whether you’re a paid subscriber or not, you can be sure you always see The Lounge in your feed (sometimes, due to the subscriber’s generosity, I release free pods!) Click your platform of choice below to be taken to the link.

• Spotify:

  • Paid Subscribers - First go into your Substack account and link your Spotify and Substacks together, then click this link to subscribe to the show.

  • Free Subscribers - Use this link (yes, the same one as paid) to subscribe to the show. It’ll auto recognize if you’re paid or free, and serve you the correct episodes (I hope, ha!)

• Apple Podcasts

  • Paid Subscribers: You will find a private “Listen in podcast app” link on each episode page or in your Substack account settings (click out of email an onto the platform)—you can then add it yourself to receive all episodes in your feed, both paid and free.

  • Free Subscribers click here - this link will only allow free pods to appear in your feed)

• Other Platforms: There’s a pretty little sidebar on the webpage and you can grab the RSS feed for other distribution channels.

Questions I answer in this episode in order of appearance

• What’s your favorite summer drink?

• How’s your chronic pain, and how do you manage it?

• How do you mentally “live” with chronic pain day to day?

• Did you tell your kids about your doubt?

• Spiritual OCD (La’s random tangent)

• How did you hold it together in front of them while doubting day to day?

• What’s going on in your biz brain? (Dropping a bit of a bomb here.)

• What do you believe about the end times?

  The Lounge is a sorta-secret BTS pod only for subscribers. If you want to tune in, go paid below!

Read more

On the flip side, I feel like I keep talking to people who treat me like a peer, when in reality they are miles ahead of me technically. They know the language, the systems and when to when to say things like “API endpoint.”

Meanwhile, I’m over here asking ChatGPT if I filled out my S-corp form correctly.

The most helpful thing, in my experience, has been to pick one platform and actually use it.

Get your hands dirty. Build something.

Ask what feels like dumb questions.

Get really good at one platform, and don’t run away the first time people start talking about how bad it is. All the platforms are in a race to be the biggest and the best, most likely the one you chose will catch up in a few days, if not a few weeks.

Once you know one platform really well and understand their terminology/style/strengths, etc. then you can add another, and maybe another, but at the end of the day, I think for most of us 2-3 platforms is plenty.

For me, I use Claude (fav!) and ChatGPT regularly, and I use Lovable as my main vibe-coding agent. While I’d like to get better at Claude Code and Design, my head is starting to hurt a bit with all the advances and things to keep up with, so while I’ve dabbled in them a bit, I’m following my own advice and just trying to stick with the ones I know well at this point.

What I do like about using a few a time, is I’ll usually have them all running at once. Let’s say I’m building on Lovable, I almost always have ChatGPT and Claude open too. Loveable to do the build, Chat to do a lot of the debugging and generate images, and Claude to build databases or do deep dives for me.

Screenshots. Screenshots. Screenshots.

One of my biggest tricks is using screen shots. Learn the shortcut command for your keyboard to screen shot only what you want or need help with (on mac it’s shift>cmd>4) and use it constantly. I’ll show the AI what my screen shot and ask:
What does this mean?
Did I do this right?
What should I put here?
What is it asking me?

I do avoid sharing anything sensitive, especially banking or financial information as I’m still not comfortable with security, but generally, I show it whatever: general forms, app errors, settings, dashboards, confusing setup screens, and even design inspo—screenshots have been incredibly useful.

Ask it to ask you questions

Another thing I do all the time is ask AI to ask me questions.

Instead of saying, “Build me a business,” I’ll say something like:

“I want to build a product for this kind of person with this kind of problem. Ask me questions so we can figure out the best direction.”

These tools are very good now at helping you clarify an idea if you treat them like a thinking partner instead of a vending machine.

That’s probably the best way I can explain how I use AI: I treat it like a teammate.

I talk to it the way I would talk to a person sitting across the table from me while we try to figure something out and that has been far more helpful to me than watching tutorials. Tutorials can be useful, of course. But AI changes so quickly that half the time a YouTube video is already outdated by the time I find it. Plus, I retain more when I’m learning in the middle of a real problem.

Don’t chase every shiny new tool

The AI world changes constantly.

For a while, everyone was obsessed with ChatGPT, then people moved hard toward Claude after Anthropic said it wouldn’t give free reign to the government. And now just recently I saw people are now mad at Claude for taking away tools and/or eating up their tokens, etc.

It is very easy to spend all your energy chasing the “best” tool that everyone is talking about and never actually build anything.

So my advice, for whatever it’s worth, is to pick one and start. Of course the tool matters. But your taste / judgement / wiliness to learn matters more.

The time is now

I think there is a real opportunity right now for people who are willing to learn this stuff. I don’t know how long this particular window will last. My guess is maybe two or three years where a lot of people are going to be able to build and launch things that would have been impossible for them to build before.

Then things will change in a huge way again. But right now, there is a strange and exciting window where a person with taste, persistence, a clear problem to solve, and a willingness to learn can build something real.

I heard someone say on a podcast recently that there is over a trillion dollars to be made in this industry (WHAT?). I have no idea how true that number is, and money is not my ultimate goal, but it is nice, and and it can change a family’s life.

But more than money, what’s really incredible is the distance between “I wish this existed” and “I made a first version” is tiny.

It doesn’t mean every app is useful and it definitely doesn’t mean every AI-generated thing is good or every idea should become a business.

But it does mean there is room to experiment and see what sticks.

I hope you join me.

Laura

*The post, like all post in my “Build in Public” section, was written with the assistance of Claude.

Please know, I take this as a compliment.

Perhaps it is important to know that my husband reads and approves of every one—but I don’t know if that makes us weird or heros for being willing to be honest about the beauty and value of marriage.

And alas, many of those poems are now cemented in a book.

Speaking of, I’ve been thinking about a way to let you feel This Side of The Sky. To make it more immersive and “atmospheric.” (They say the best books are.) Because the truth is, this book is a VIBE.

Of course, it’s not all romance and love. It’s friendship and sorrow and joy and motherhood and celebration and bodies and grief and learning how to find God in the ordinary mundane.

It’s set in my home state of Iowa, so there’s a lot of cornfield and harvest imagery, but I tend to spend some time during the winter in Florida each year, so you’ll also find a bit of oceans and sand.

So often I’m told my poetry doesn’t feel like poetry, and I don’t think you’ll feel like this book is a poetry book either.

It’s a book that reads like a story—you can fall fully into and read it in one sitting—living another life for a time that somehow makes you want to live your own more.

And it’s a book you can pick up, then pause. One page a day in another woman’s world that strangely makes your own world expand.

I don’t rightly know how to express it, but perhaps this little “trailer” I threw together can help. When you read This Side of The Sky, you’ll discover that today, and every day, anything can happen.

Every one of those images is a reference to a poem in the book. Yes, even the red two piece and the cotton candy. Releasing on September 16, 2026—13 days after my 40th birthday, I couldn’t have planned it better for you to get into the fall cozies with this book.

Right now it’s the end of June, but I know how much you love autumn, so I shamelessly, highly recommend pre-ordering this book so you’re set to go for the fall. Plus, pre-order bonuses are coming.

Grab it now!

Book Club Girlie? I Got You.

If you preorder I have a banger of a playlist you’ll get access to, a sweet Book Club guide with discussion questions, tips on hosting, invite samples, and food/drink ideas like a Dawn & Honey Fizz and Starlight Shortbread that will take your time together to the next level.

Free Printables

Plus, we’re doing free printables. They’re still being designed, but my “Instructions on Motherhood,” and my “Instructions on Friendship,” poems are finally getting the graphic design job they deserve and I can’t wait to see them on your walls.

A Peek Behind The Clouds…I Mean Curtains

(Sorry, my sky language lately is a little out of control, but if I do my job right, you’ll never look at a sky the same way again!)

Just to get you into it, here’s a marriage poem from the book—if you’ve been around a bit, it’s a greatest hit, but never fear, there’s plenty of brand new content too. I just want you to be surprised.

And don’t worry, this poem (and all my marriage poems) are rated PG.

Notes to Self on Marriage

Tell him you like it when he wears a hat. Go to concerts like you are 22. Take at least one spontaneous trip to Paris together. Though it can be like stuffing down a stale cracker, be the first to ask, “Are we okay? I feel like we’re off.” For goodness’ sake, put down your phone. Turn off the TV. Sit on the back porch with a drink in your hand and watch the deer graze in the twilight. Swallow your lecture and offer a prayer instead. Know the landscape of his body, mold, sway, surprise. Be honest about what you need. More words / more listening / more time / more touch. More of him. In a fight, go to bed. Things will look better in the morning. Literally kiss and make up. Tell him you love him, all the time, in every way you know how. But perhaps more difficult, believe him when he says it to you. Occasionally, you will have a moment where you see him from across the room. Maybe he is telling a story. Maybe he is vacuuming. Maybe he is looking at you. When his eyes find yours, press your thumb to your wrist and feel your heartbeat. Remember your life together. Do you see how things have fallen into place? How you have changed for the better? Do you see how he is the one for you and there could be no other? Thank God that he is yours.

Join me in a #SkyWatch

I often joke that in Iowa, we don’t have mountains, oceans or canyons, but we do have the sky. There has been nothing that has made me remember God more than when I look at the sky and see His handiwork.

And the beautiful thing is, we all have it. No matter if you live on the coasts or the midwest, or halfway around the world from me, we can all look at the sky anytime we want.

So let it remind you that today, anything can happen.

The Spirit can free you from a long besetting sin.

The Father can answer your long-time prayer.

Jesus can return on the clouds where every eye will see and every knee will bow.

Keep an eye on the sky with me, will you? I’d love for you to tag me in your photos of the sky, with the hashtags #todayanythingcanhappen, #skywatch, and of course, #thissideofthesky.

Friend, my prayer is that when you read this book, the truth is etched in your heart: Today, anything can happen.

Preorder "This Side of The Sky"

Laura

I don’t have a huge amount of vibe-coding updates from the past couple of weeks. Since I’m the primary caretaker of the kiddos, summer means I’m working way less—and I’m also trying to stay focused on launching my poetry book well.

So for lack of much of an update, here’s a little behind-the-scenes on how I made SADIE.

The wild thing is: I made the GPT itself in about an hour, and then the landing page/skin in about two hours. So, three hours total-ish. Crazy, right?

Here’s what I did.

First, I made the GPT agent inside ChatGPT. I basically spoke what I wanted into ChatGPT and said, “I want to make an agent that does this.” Then I took those instructions into the GPT builder and worked inside that tool, asking it to ask me questions that would make SADIE better.

From there, I started testing it.

I gave SADIE different kinds of prompts, questions, pushed on weak spots, and kept refining the prompts, questions, tone, and abilities. It was a lot of “try this, see what breaks, fix it, try again.”

One of the biggest blocks I kept hitting was the instruction character limit (8,000). I would get the instructions just how I wanted them, and then they’d be way too long. So I’d just say something like something like, “Please edit the instructions down to fit the limit without losing any of the skills.”

And honestly? It usually did a very good job. But I hit that wall a lot.

After I had SADIE working, I realized I wanted to make a “skin” for it.

Partly because it felt fun. But also because as I started getting feedback from author friends in the industry, I realized some people were hesitant to use SADIE because it lived inside ChatGPT.

(Side note: This is always so funny to me: A lot of people are nervous about using obvious AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, but they’ll happily interact with AI if it has a nice little outfit on or doesn’t look like typical AI at first.)

So I went into Lovable.

Before I started building, I went back to ChatGPT and asked it to write Lovable instructions for a SADIE landing page. I knew I wanted the site to feel retro, a little computer-assistant-ish, and friendly. That was about it.

Because all of SADIE’s instructions were already in ChatGPT, I didn’t have to work very hard to write the copy. I’ve also trained ChatGPT in my voice, so it can get decently close, though I always have to edit it carefully because it can do some wacko stuff too.

Then I submitted the instructions to Lovable, and it built the first draft.

From there, I went over to Pinterest and started searching for retro computer design inspiration. I screenshotted a handful of designs I liked and uploaded those into Lovable.

Lovable is not naturally great at design. But if you give it visual references, it gets much better. Screenshots work far better than trying to type, “Make this feel charming but not cheesy, retro but not ugly, digital but not cold.”

The green version you see below came mostly from those screenshots.

The one thing Lovable still wasn’t getting right was the little computer character. So I went back into ChatGPT and asked it to create a retro personified computer. Once I had the image, I asked it to animate the eyes blinking into a GIF.

Then I uploaded that GIF into Lovable and—ta-da. SADIE had a little face.

What’s incredible to me is how intuitive ChatGPT and Lovable are together. I didn’t have to know how to code. I didn’t have to know how to design a landing page from scratch. I didn’t even have to perfectly explain the user experience. These tools generally understand enough to get you to a strong first version.

Of course, I still changed language, adjusted sections, removed things, and cleaned up the flow. But overall, for about an hour building the GPT and two hours building the landing page, I’m pretty amazed by what’s possible.

So that’s the little behind-the-scenes of how I made SADIE. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t complicated. It was mostly me talking to ChatGPT, testing, and refining, screenshotting inspiration.

Pretty cool, right?

Laura

*The post, like all post in my “Build in Public” section, was written with the assistance of Claude.

If any of this resonates with you or a friend, I pray this episode of The Lounge blesses you. And today, in a fun turn of events, I’m in the interview seat! To celebrate the release of their new book, Jesus Will Meet You There: Finding Strength and Comfort in the Savior Who Understands (everyone go run and order!), I was honored to join my friends Kristen Wetherell and Sarah Walton for an honest conversation about doubt—what it can feel like, why it often shows up after suffering, and how Jesus meets us in our doubts with compassion.

Because this conversation is so close to my heart and seems to resonate with so many of you, I left it free for all subscribers. Thank you to the paid subscribers for making this possible. If you’d like to join them in supporting my work and keeping as much as possible free for those that can’t afford it, you can do so at the button below.

Subscribe now

Kristen and Sarah handle this topic with such delicacy and I’m so grateful. This is a deeply encouraging conversation about bringing doubt into the light, the kindness of trusted friends who don’t panic, and the slow, faithful work of God holding on to his people.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why doubt can feel so frightening, especially when your whole life is shaped by faith

• The shame and embarrassment that often keep people silent

• How bringing doubt into the light can loosen its grip

• The difference between doubt and unbelief

• Why feelings are real, but not always fact

• The comfort of Thomas’s story and Jesus’s tenderness toward doubters

• How spiritual habits can carry us when our emotions feel unsteady

• Why “I want this to be true” can be an honest and faithful prayer

• The assurance that Jesus holds onto us, even when we feel weak

  ---

Thank you for listening to The Lounge. If you have a question for me for next time or a topic you’d like to see me cover, drop it in the comments or email me at hello@laurawifler.com.

For more from Kristen and Sarah:

• Kristen’s website

• Sarah’s website

• Order their new book: Jesus Will Meet You There: Finding Strength and Comfort in the Savior Who Understands.

For more from Laura:

• Grab her debut poetry book, This Side of The Sky

• Visit her personal website.

• Follow on Instagram: @laurawifler

• All Laura’s books.

• Write and publish your next children’s book with Laura

• Build your author website in minutes.

It’s a cutie little assistant for Christian writers, and I need to let you know about it.

A few months ago I had a writer friend reach out who was working on a non-fiction Christian book and he asked me if I could use my pro plan on ChatGPT to do a bit of research for him to find quotes. At the time, I was just starting to learn about AI Agents, and I thought, I’ll do you one better, pal, I’ll make you a research assistant you can use again and again.

When I showed it to him, he was floored with the results. So then I sent it to a handful of writing friends who might benefit from it and a bunch of positive responses. (I later asked a couple for testimonials.)

“Laura has created every writer’s dream: an AI research tool that doesn’t write for you, but puts more tools in your hands. I highly recommend SADIE!”

--Will Parker Anderson, Senior Editor, Penguin Random House

ps. Will does Substack coaching—if you’re writer looking to grow your Substack, check him out and apply here! He’s a great coach!

“I’m a skeptic when it comes to AI—but SADIE has convinced me that there are helpful, right ways to use it as a supportive tool in the writing process. SADIE helped me think through market positioning and audience, and now my objective is much clearer!”

—Kristen Wetherell, author of numerous books, including Help for the Hungry Soul, Humble Moms, and the award-winning Hope When It Hurts.

"Research is a critical part of my writing and teaching process, and for years I wished there was an easier way to search trusted Christian resources without endlessly digging through Google results or individual websites. SADIE solves that problem beautifully. Instead, I can quickly access articles and books from trusted theologians, commentators, and authors across church history. SADIE frees me up to spend less time searching and more time actually reading, thinking, and writing—and it has already become an invaluable part of my process."

—Emily Jensen, author of numerous books, including He Is Strong and Risen Motherhood

After that, I forgot about it.

But then the other day I remembered it when I needed to do a bit of research. So I pulled up the agent and thought, I could make this even better.

Enter: SADIE.

SADIE is a free research assistant for Christian writers. (And, now that I think about it, for anyone really, if they’re coming from a Christian perspective).

She’s a cutie little old school computer that I personified (Why? For kicks of course!) and SADIE stands for “Source and Discovery Information Engine.”

Basically a fancy way of saying she helps you find trustworthy quotes, source material, examples, illustrations, and supporting data for essays, newsletters, talks, book projects and whatever else you want to research and learn about.

A little more about SADIE:

• SADIE is built to support your voice, not replace it. She is a research tool, not an authorship tool. NEVER FEAR FELLOW WRITERS!

• She pulls from Christian, mainstream, and academic sources, so your work can be both grounded and well-rounded.

• She is especially helpful when you know what you want to say but need stronger support for it—a quote, a story, a statistic, a historical example, or a better trail of research.

• You can also use SADIE to build background knowledge before you write. Let her help you gather articles, quotes, examples, and source material worth exploring, so you can step into the writing process more informed, more confident, and with better raw material to work from.

• SADIE organizes what she finds into a usable (though a lil ugly) source sheet, so you can verify your research and actually use it in your writing. Full honesty: right now that source sheet comes as an unsightly Excel document, because that was the simplest way to keep her free.

• What makes SADIE different is the boundaries you can set and her knowledge of Christian media. When you first start to use SADIE, she’ll ask you if you want to quick start or do an intake interview. I highly recommend the intake interview as she’ll be able to give you much better sources. But either way, SADIE is trained to stick to reputable sources and is built with believers in mind—bringing in mainstream and academic material, yes, but also digging into Christian sources that can be harder to find and thoughtfully weaving those into the research.

  • Here’s a sample of some of the intake questions she’ll ask:

    • What is your topic or working title?

    • What date range should I prioritize: recent material, historical material, or a mix?

    • What source mix do you want most: Christian voices, academic research, mainstream reporting, ministry resources, cultural commentary, or a balanced blend?

    • Any theology or denominational preferences I should respect?

    • Any voices, outlets, or traditions you want included?

    • Any voices, outlets, or traditions you want avoided?

    • What kind of material would help most: quotes, stories, stats, case studies, scholarship, cultural examples, biblical/theological framing?

    • Any geographic focus?

    • Any era focus?

SO COOL, right? All of this will help you hone your results to be what you actually want.

SADIE’s just for fun, but her results are pretty special (and if you’re a writer, will save you a lot of time).

As a note, SADIE runs inside ChatGPT, so if you click on any of the links here, it’ll take you to her fancy front door (just so ppl aren’t so scared of her) then when you are ready to research, it’ll take you to the Agent in ChatGPT. Doing it this way was the only way that I could keep it free and keep the results still decent.

Perhaps if there’s enough desire for it I can build it out so the results are super pretty and don’t require going to an outside AI, but for now, this is just a fun little hobby project I thought I’d kick out the door.

Please use it and share it all you’d like—whether you’re a writer who needs a great quote to back up a topic in their book, or a mom at home that just wants to do a deep dive on a topic—SADIE’s here to help.

Try SADIE!

Enjoy!

Laura

ps. Since this is a free tool, I’m not offering any troubleshooting tips on it, but if you see anything major or somehow get terrible answers, I’d love to hear. Still learning over here. Always in process.

pps. I do generally have a thing against referring to an AI as a he or she … ya know, the whole Imago Dei thing. But I built SADIE in a haze of vibe coding madness and only remembered how I felt after the project was finished. (Truly.) So, do what you will with that. I don’t have the energy to rebrand her. Feel free to refer to SADIE as an “it,” if that helps. Thank goodness the Lord knows our hearts.

True confession: After I stared taking medication for pain, I’ve been struggling to write poetry. It makes sense that dampening my ability to feel anxiety, fear, or sadness would effect my writing, but I’ve been a bit surprised by how much! Friends IRL say I haven’t changed, and overall I agree. But beneath the surface, I can feel it. I don’t cry (I used to tear up at the first peony of the season), I don’t react, I don’t get that shiver in my spine when I know I’ve touched a nerve.

And in some ways, that’s okay. After eight years of walking through a lot of hard things, I admit—I’m enjoying a new found steadiness. I don’t want it forever, but for now, it’s been … a relief. It’s a bit weird to admit all this right after I announce my poetry book, but we’re all about whole personhood here and that’s the truth.

While I still can write poetry, it just doesn’t feel quite as easy as it used to. So I’m trying to take the age-old writer advice and keep opening my laptop, but I’ve also been writing other things that are less feely, like this and this, and I’ve been heads down in app development and in learning to use AI. While you can follow all my detailed updates here (remember you have to specifically subscribe to that section of the newsletter, it won’t come to you naturally), here’s a quick look at where I’m at with projects.

I finally got Parlor out the door (If you’re a writer or an author, you need a website—one that’s simple, easy, and low-cost. If those words make you nod along, come over!) and I’m suuuuper close to launching the V1 of Sword Drill, my Bible trivia app (If you want to grow in your Bible knowledge, sign up here for the waitlist to be one of the first to get on. Plus, it unlocks a sweet founder’s badge.)

I have a few others I’m working on that I’ll hopefully be able to share more about soon, but the real thing I want to encourage all of you in is if you have been avoiding AI, please start to at least start to understand it. I’m not saying you have to use it, (and certainly not in the ways I am) but at least get your arms around it.

Why would I choose to give this premium real estate in the intro of my most read piece of content each month?

Because I’m sensing a shift in AI’s capabilities—it’s changing to where I believe we’re going to find out sooner than later the real impacts of AI on our communities, economies, and lives—in a way that perhaps either the doomers or the accelerationists are predicting. I’m not either one—I think I’m a bloomer or at times a gloomer. (See chart below.)

This was an interesting listen from an ex-Google executive on “How To Prepare” for the age of AI. In it he talks about what you can do to prepare for the AI change. Number one? Get good at AI. Number two? Be nimble. Number three? Ethics. Ethics. Ethics.

And while I don’t agree with everything he said, I so appreciated that he emphasized ethics. What does he mean by ethics? He talked about lobbying for right and good use of AI, of teaching your children how to use it and how not to use it, of telling the government that we need regulation and rules around these machines and bad actors.

As Christians, I believe we’re uniquely positioned to push into and advise on this. Why?

• We have fixed anthropology—humans are image bearers and all have dignity and value, no matter their productivity or capability. We know what a human is, and isn’t, and what they deserve.

• We have a doctrine of sin that many in Silicon Valley don’t. Many people in the world assume human nature is inherently good. Christians know we’re all corrupt and good intentions can quickly go south. We understand that left unchecked, people and systems fail.

• We hold tension between tool use and idolatry. We’re good at “both/and.” We can affirm AI’s helpfulness while also recognizing its dangers.

• We understand the long-game. A lot of tech ethics look the short-term and are dollar and market driven. Our ethics take a long-term view and are driven by legacy, accountability, and stewardship of this world for future generations.

While I know so many of you want to bury your head in the sand on this, it’s real and it’s happening. Even if you think you’re opting out, it will effect your life in thousands of ways (Unless you choose to be or live like a monk.)

Right now we’re in a cutie little bubble where you can fairly easily avoid it, but it won’t be like that for long.

In the next few years, AI will change how you shop, how you cook, how you drive,1 how you advise your kids on college and careers, how you learn theology, how you find a house, how you sleep—I could go on. The list would never end.

It will infiltrate every area of our life.

I don’t say this to terrify you. Remember, part of the cultural mandate given to humans by God is advancement—to take God’s raw creation and develop, order, and cultivate it. Our job is to find the potential of this world and draw it out. (Cool, right?)

Of course, the fall complicates our carrying out of this mandate. The printing press spread both the Reformation and propaganda. And AI will do the same at a scale never seen before. (Tower of Babel anyone?)

So please Christians, I beg you. Don’t run from this. Think deeply about it.

Engage.

Ethics. Ethics. Ethics.

Christ. Christ. Christ.

Remember Kuyper’s famous statement? "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

That includes the data center being built 10 miles from your house.

ps. I’ll be at TGCW in June. If you spot me, I hope you say hello! I love meeting readers!

—

The Four Ways People Relate To AI2

• Accelerationists (Zoomers) - Pro-AI and want to hit the gas pedal to advance AI as fast as possible, believing it will solve humanity’s biggest problems.

• Bloomers - Optimistic about AI’s potential but also recognize the risks. They drive forward while tapping the brakes to ensure safety.

• Gloomers - Pessimistic about the short term. They don’t necessarily fear extinction but they worry heavily about job losses and human displacement.

• Doomers - Believe that advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity and often want to halt development entirely before we reach a point of no return.

A Poem for You

If you like this poem, it will be in my upcoming poetry book, “This Side of The Sky.” Pre-order anywhere books are sold. The poem first appeared at The Rabbit Room.

Words I Can’t Stop Thinking About

“He can make the dry parched ground of my soul to become a pool and my thirsty barren heart as springs of water. Yes he can make this habitation of dragons this heart which is so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations to be a place of bounty and fruitfulness unto Himself”
― John Owen, The Mortification of Sin

What I’m Reading, Watching, & Listening To

Quick reminder that inclusion in this list does not equate endorsement. I read, listen, and watch widely. Being on this list does not mean I agree with them. I'm also in a book club, which means I do not always pick the books I read.

What I'm Reading:

• The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion (Vol. 1-7), Beth Brower - I picked these up when a reader tipped me off that they are on Kindle Unlimited. These past few weeks I’ve ripped through the first eight volumes rather quickly (They’re each about 100 pages, so it’s not saying that much.) If you’re unfamiliar with the fandom, the Emma M. Lion series is a set of open journals from a young girl living in London in 1880’s. If you like Victorian literature, you’ll like these (clean, very light romance). I do think it helps that author Brower also categorizes it as fantasy…which I didn’t know going into the books, but I think will help frame them for you. Don’t be deterred if you don’t like magic, it’s more like curiosities.

• The Mortification of Sin, John Owen - I read this as background research for a project I’m working on. I’m pretty sure I read it in college, but it felt fresh and new with 20+ years of suffering and change under my belt. A solid read forever.

• A Hunger for God, John Piper - After last month’s talk of fasting, I asked my pastor for his best recommendations. He suggested this book for the theological undergirding, and this PDF for some practical application. Both good, quick reads if you want to grow in this topic. (And I still suggest Fast Like a Girl for all my female friends.) I think of the main thing I’ve learned (and I need to write a whole new post on this) is how biblical fasting is more about repentance and grief over sin than to get something you “want.” More to discuss there, but onward we go!

What I'm Watching:

• We’re back on The Chosen train! For summer, we’ve canceled most of our subscriptions, so I may have little to report here for a while.

What I'm listening to:

• Things That Most People Say, Vincent Lima - Writing music. Almost beats the meds and makes me tear up. Almost.

• Where Rainbows Never Die - The Steeldrivers - My husband got me hooked on this song. (Do not stop playing this until you listen beyond 1:32.)

• Everyday Hallelujah, Phil Wickham - You all are out there sharing Justin Bieber’s version when Phil had one all along. (And I’m sorry if I offend, but it’s way better.)

Did you hear? My Debut Poetry Book is Coming Soon!

Friends, you finally got me to do it. I wrote a poetry book! This Side of The Sky: 101 Poems & Scriptures for the Hungry, Hopeful, and Homesick, releases on 9/15/2026 and I cannot wait for you to hold it in your hands! It’s a mix of my greatest hits poems and a whole bunch of brand new material that’s never been seen before. I’ve poured everything I’ve got into this book, and I would be honored if you’d pre-order a book for your home.

Grab it!

The Random Roundup

• Researchers stunned by a forgotten medieval book in Rome hiding the oldest English poem. The poem (it’s beautiful).

• Lots of books released by friends this month:

  • Betsy Childs Howard - Arlo Takes Off - This is a very well done book that is indirectly on gender and embracing who God made you to be. While the message is gentle, it’s still powerful. I remember sitting at lunch with Betsy years ago discussing the concept for this book and it’s better than I ever could have imagined. Well done Betsy. Everyone get this book!

  • Jean Stoffer and Grace Start - We Are Home When We’re Together: Trusting God Through Life’s Changes - Of course anything Jean and Grace put their hands to is gorgeous and this book is no exception. If you have a move coming up, this is the perfect book.

  • Jessica Dennis Bush - Jude and the Extraordinary, Spectacular, Miraculous Day: A Creative Retelling of the Feeding of the 5,000 - This creative retelling is so well done. And let’s just talk about how incredible the paper cut illustrations are, but also the writing! A very well done children’s book and one that I’ll keep on the bookshelves.

  • Ruth Cho Simon’s new Gracelaced Bible - If you’re a fan of Ruth’s art, you’ll love this ESV Bible. Plus it’s a journaling Bible so there’s room to write and study.

• Lots of you have asked more about what touches I’ve added for the cottage-core look. I grabbed this cutie little jar to put my matcha in (I now buy it in bulk to save some $$), and I added little gold rods to my kitchen shelves in the most low cost, janky way possible by combing this and this and sticking them on with these so they’re removable once I tire of them (know thyself). The shelves are not used much, so it works, but you wouldn’t want to put this in any high traffic spot. Follow me at your own risk friends! Oh! And I added these block print pillow covers.

• I’ve been doing more 1:1 coaching at The KidLit Lab and it is THE BEST. If you need help with a manuscript and want to combine it with a coaching call, this is your best bet. I also have a customized, 6 week, high touch retainer available if you want to work more closely with me. Just pop me an email and we can talk!

• If you’re not following sisters Kate Lab and Sarah Sparks, you are missing out. They are producing incredible work and I’m so thankful for their ministries.

• I succumbed to all the Peggy Martin Climbing Rose propaganda but couldn’t find them at my local greenhouses. Luckily you can order one online.

• I had a blast hanging with the Writing Off Social ladies and felt like we could have talked for hours about children’s books and marketing. They produce great content and have a wonderful community for people who are writers but not on social media. If that’s you go check them out!

• Using all the trivia questions from Sword Drill, I built my twin nephews a Jeopardy app to use when they led FCA at school. It was so fun, I built a new version to include in Sword Drill for you to play with youth groups and in your living room.

• After trying lots of detanglers, this is the best one. Easy to spray, smells good, and actually detangles my daughter’s morning lion mane.

• The band got back together last month for a minute when I had my Risen Motherhood co-founder and sister-in-law, Emily Jensen, on the pod. If you need a little RM nostalgia, this will fill your cup.

• New pool slides that are so comfy, best chunky ring, and my favorite summer tee. Wear with high waisted pants and it’s perfect.

• The sauna we got (because so many of you have asked)! I love it as a massive dopamine hit—it’s like a little cave oasis where I read (I run it at a low temp, more like 130 degrees), use essential oils (current fav), and just relax. It has not helped with chronic pain and I don’t notice much for my skin, but I do sleep better and overall am … happier? Ha! I think so! But maybe it’s my meds?!? Ack! I am no longer a reliable reviewer!

• Need a 6-10 year old boy present? I got you.

• Deli subs in tubs.

• Holy cow, this weeder actually works.

• This pod on marriage struck a chord and went bananas.

• Related again: I’ve been meaning to share my red light box that I got. Since I purchased, they’ve updated it a bit but this is essentially the same one (but better). You know I’d tell you if something works or doesn’t, and this thing works. Not for my chronic pain, but for anything with the skin, I’m so impressed. We had a run of molsecum in the house, an unexplained rash, bruises, cuts, etc. And it heals it way faster and leaves less of a mark. Don’t buy it now. Wait for black Friday. Then get it.

• I’ve heard from exactly four of you that you’ve started to try Vibe Coding because of ME. This makes my heart double tap and I’m like a proud mama with you. If you’d like to try it, but my top reco is Loveable.

• On The Lounge I talked about a few things that I’m doing to disciple my kids in the middle years, and one thing I shared was hanging up Christian art. I randomly ran across this cute little bracelet and while I have never in my life worn a crossI loved how subtle this is. Am I out of vogue with it? En vogue? Is it even en vogue to say “en vogue?” HELP ME SOMEONE.

• Seven Backdoors to Porn right in your own home. CUT OFF THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE.

• We’re a regular wellness spa around here as we recently picked up this vibration plate. I say “we” because my kids probably use it more than I do. My husband and I were convinced (truly, he’s who suggested I purchase it) when a friend told us about how it helps her child regulate. So we grabbed it for our youngest and you can often find her sitting on it (it’s in the kitchen currently because we’re classy) while reading a book. I have no idea if this is a good one or not, but it’s priced right and it does seem good for her…? Idk, how do you ever know? I use it 3x a week and like to imagine my bone density improving and my lymph nodes draining of toxins but we may never know.

  • If anyone asks, I say I am scrunchy aka “semi crunchy.”) Still plenty of plastics and processed food around here, folks. BALANCE.

• Schools across America are quietly admitting that screens in classrooms made students worse off. Finally!! I’m nearly forty and don’t care about being gentle anymore. We gotta wake up to this folks. Get your kids off screens (at school and at home!) and into a book, onto the grass, into a craft.

• Speaking of crafts, I recently received this fun embroidery kit from Abide Embroidery Co. and it has been such a fun project for my daughter and I to do together . COTTAGE CORE WHAT.

• Wondering how to chat with your kids about the alien/UFO hysteria? I got you.

• After I posted my new curtains on IG you all wanted the source. They are the prefect dupe for the Two Pages curtains. I got khaki (but they look dark brown in person). I did faux French rods (so they don’t open or close, but just sit on either side of the sliding door, and used these clips. They don’t perfectly match but you can’t tell on a 9’ ceiling! (Unstyled, unedited, photos below so you can see as requested, because I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.)

And that’s a wrap! See you next month(ish)!

But it actually helped me realize these updates probably make more sense on Fridays anyway. By Monday, I’ve already forgotten what I did over the weekend!

Anyway, here’s what’s been happening.

Parlor

Parlor is getting a handful of new users every day, which is genuinely encouraging.

Not enough yet for me to draw many conclusions about what people want, where they’re getting stuck, or what needs to change. But enough to tell me people are interested—and that’s the signal I needed.

Right now, I’m running Meta ads at $25/day (because Claude told me to). I’m testing two very different ads:

One is a more polished still image that looks like an ad.

The other is a raw, organic video that feels a little more influencer-y.

I can see people coming over from Facebook, so the ads are doing something. It’s just too early to know which one is actually working best.

As far as the product itself goes, I made several updates to Parlor over the past couple of weeks, mostly focused on making onboarding easier.

The biggest one: I changed the price and added ISBN lookup.

The old pricing had two components—a build fee and a hosting fee—and it was confusing people. After a bit more market research, I decided to simplify and go lower.

With the ISBN update, an author can now type in an ISBN for one of their books, and Parlor automatically pulls in the book description, cover image, and other details. No more entering everything by hand. One more step toward the goal: a clean, professional author website that’s easy to build, easy to maintain, and actually gets finished.

You can find the other updates, here.

I’m also thinking more about how Parlor serves not just published authors, but writers who are not published yet.

This is something I talk about a lot inside The KidLit Lab. In my work with agents, I’ve heard over and over again that they want to see writers taking themselves seriously online.

And yes, a Substack or social media presence can be part of that. But having your own clean website still matters.

So I want Parlor to be a place where writers can have a professional online presence before the book deal, before the launch, before they feel “official.”

Sword Drill

Not a ton of updates here, mostly because the Apple Developer process is slow. (I also entered a couple of things wrong and had to resubmit. Gah.)

So Sword Drill hasn’t changed much in the past two weeks. I’m mostly trying to push it through the App Store process and fix the things I mess up along the way.

But here’s the exciting part: we now have about 1,000 people on the waitlist.

ONE THOUSAND. That feels wild. So exciting.

So now I also need to think seriously about monetization, because these apps need to pay for themselves.

I know there’s probably a viable paid tier for Sword Drill, but I’m still working through what that should look like. Right now it functions mostly as a Bible trivia game. It naturally has a learning element—because, well, you’re answering Bible questions—but if I create a paid version, I’d want to press further into that. Something that feels a little more Duolingo-ish: helping people build knowledge over time, track progress, and actually feel like they’re growing.

The other option is sponsorships, and I think I could secure them. But sponsorships come with their own rigmarole, and I’m not sure I want that to be the main engine.

RMBR

No updates. Didn’t touch it!

The bigger thing I’m learning

The bigger learning curve for me is that I’ve never really done paid marketing before.

I’ve always grown things organically. Risen Motherhood. My books. The KidLit Lab. Most of what I’ve built has grown because I tried to make something genuinely useful, put a high bar on excellence, and trusted word of mouth to do its thing. And honestly, that’s served me well.

But this feels like a new frontier.

Just picture me standing here wondering what to do.

With these apps, I’m trying to reach people beyond my existing audience. And that means I have to learn how to market to a cold audience—not just serve and retain the people already in front of me.

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good marketer. And I think I am—at marketing to people who already know me, trust me, or are in my orbit.

But paid marketing? A cold audience? Figuring out hooks and creative and audiences and conversion paths?

Ugh. Much harder.

It’s a very different muscle.

I’ve looked into SEO too, but I’m not convinced it’s the best path right now. With Google becoming more AI-driven and keeping more answers inside its own ecosystem, I’m not sure SEO is where I want to put most of my energy for these apps.

Everything I’m reading and listening to says to pick one growth channel and really learn it. (I just found this podcast and am learning a ton!)

So for now, I’m choosing Meta ads. Which are a total headache—but Claude now has a connector for them, so it’s way less terrible than it could be.

Of course, everyone wants beautiful, magical word-of-mouth growth. But I don’t think word of mouth alone will move these products at the speed I want.

So this is the new mountain: learning how to get the word out—not just to people who already know me, but to the people who need what I’m building and don’t even know it exists yet.

Let’s go.

Laura

This personality quirk trait has served me well over the years. It’s part of the reason why I was willing to start podcasting at 29 when hardly anyone else was. Co-author a book at 34. Start learning LLMs at 37 and vibe coding at 39. I love to grow and change and my optimistic self believes being teachable is one of the best qualities you can find in a person.

And this idea, that I can change—at any moment, in an instant—is what gives me hope when life is hard.

You see, I’m a firm believer that today, anything can happen.

Do you believe it too?

Do you believe that today, as you shuffle over the cold bathroom tiles to the sink and look in the mirror, you can choose not to critique what you see?

Do you believe that when you sign the release papers on the hospital forms, your white ID bracelet getting caught in your IV tubes and the clipboard, you can be held by the hope that God is still good?

Do you believe that as you fluff the rice for tonight’s dinner and the children run through the kitchen shouting about who hit whom, you can pause, swallow your harsh response, and turn to them in love?

You see, if you are in Christ, you can do all of those things because you have union with Him. You have everything Christ has and you can draw on His promises at any moment.

This means, you are not a victim of your proclivities, your desires, your circumstances, or that personality test you took in high school—you can live into your future-glory self at any moment because you have the Spirit working in you to be more like Him.

You can slow a biting remark when an injustice occurs. You can attend the funeral with hope. You can conquer a long besetting sin.

Today, anything can happen. Even a miracle in your very own soul.

As Christians, this is one of the greatest hopes we have! We are never stuck! You can learn! You can grow! You can be teachable!

And do you know what else could happen today? The thing we are all told to watch for but always forget?

Christ could fill the sky, where every eye can see Him and His glory and every knee bows to Him. This old world will become the new one as the ancient plan comes to pass.

Do you believe it? That right now, as you read this post on your phone in the car, or on your laptop in the living room, BAM! ZAP! POW!

Christ returns.

I admit, I feel it’s a small chance.

But I shouldn’t. Scripture tells us to always be ready.

Today, anything can happen.

These two hopes paired together—that I can change to be more like Him and that he might return to rescue me from this fallen world at any second—are what fuel my optimism. And they are the main two things that I wanted to thread through my upcoming poetry book, This Side of The Sky: 101 Poems for the Hungry, Hopeful, and Homesick.

The title This Side of the Sky represents so many things, but two that I primarily had in mind were this:

1. Right now, we live here, on this side of the sky. We have a tendency to shuffle through our days under the fall, wondering where God is. We’re tempted to ask: Where is he up there, on the other side of the sky? Is he so busy in heaven he doesn’t have time for me? No. Remember, God is here. Working and moving on this side of the sky with us and he gives us everything we need to live with joy right now. We simply need eyes to see.

2. Someday, Christ will return for us. Right now he is in heaven, on the other side of the sky, seated at the right hand of the Father. But before we know it, he’ll be back for us. The sky divide will collapse, and we will be united to Him under one sky, and he will be our sun.

It’s the already but not yet. The current blessing and the longing. The living and the waiting. It is This Side of the Sky.

I hope you see the duality in the book cover too. A sky mirrored. A vintage painting paired with modern neon font. Opposing forces connected and making a whole.

And this is like the Christian life, right?

We hold two truths in tandem all the time:

We are both empty-handed and have hands overflowing with the blessings of Christ. We are both citizens of heaven while called to be faithful on earth. We are both sinners and saints. We are both weak and completely strong in Him. We are both saved and being saved. We are both made new and being made new.

Oh how I could go on!

But my point is this: Today, anything can happen.

I know this is harder for some people to believe than for others, but I hope this truth is one you can cling to and think of every time you read my book.

I was so honored by the endorsements that came in for the book, particularly this unbelievably kind note from author and Bible teacher, Jen Wilkin:

“God is a poet, and so is Laura Wifler. With theological steadiness and lyrical beauty, Laura’s words remind us that poetry speaks most profoundly when it is anchored in what is true. Her poems do not merely move us; they disciple us into confession, worship, hope, and the interplay between the mundane and the transcendent that we so often miss. In a world parched for poetry, here is water for the thirsty.”

Pre-orders matter so much for a book like this. They help bookstores, publishers, and readers know there’s a real hunger for Christian poetry that is beautiful, theologically steady, and honest about life on this side of the sky.

So if this book sounds like something you’d want for your nightstand, your morning coffee, or a friend, I’d be deeply grateful if you pre-ordered today.

Remember, today, anything can happen. You can even pre-order my book. ;)

Pre-order Now!

Learn More

Laura

If so, I’m guessing you also remember Sword Drills.

For those not in the know, a Sword Drill is where you race your churchmates to find a Bible reference as fast as you can. When the teacher announces a “sword drill,” you raise your Bible in the air while starting to sweat. When the teacher says, “Go!” you find the Bible passage—and if you’re first—you stand to read it while attempting to keep a humble heart.

Sword Drill comes from Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.”

And it’s the title of a new project you’ve been hearing me tease: a Bible trivia app called Sword Drill.

Of course, there are options for free play, so you can hone your Bible brain outside of the Daily 5. But in the end, it really is that simple.

My hope is for this to serve anyone at any age, at any level. When it launches, the app should have about 5,000 questions, all edited by a seminary student who is much smarter than me.

I have big plans for all the different ways we can create games that help people grow in their Bible knowledge, but the Daily 5 is the core concept—or [notice my elitist-developer nose in the air] the MVP, Minimal Viable Product, as they say in the biz.

I’ve had so many of you reach out here or on social media wanting to know if you can be a beta tester, that I decided to start a waitlist, which you can join below, and there’s a whole page where you can learn more too.

Get on the waitlst!

Learn More!

There’s so much more to share about the app, but for now, get on that waitlist if you want to be one of the first to try it out. (There’s even a special badge you’ll unlock if you’re a founding member!)

If you want all the weird BTS details, then make sure you sign up for the “Building in Public” Newsletter section (under manage subscriptions), otherwise I’ll be back here in your inbox as soon as it’s live in the Apple App store!

Laura

Lovable Desktop, ChatGPT, and better workflows

I downloaded Lovable Desktop this week and started using it for my projects. I like having my vibe coding work separated from the rest of my computer, and I especially like being able to move between projects while Lovable is thinking or making changes. If one project is processing, I can hop into another one and keep working.

I’m also learning that Lovable works best for me when I pair it with ChatGPT. They don’t talk to each other directly right now, but I’ve found that when I run into a bug, I’m often better off taking the problem to ChatGPT first and asking it to write very specific instructions for Lovable.

Lovable can sometimes get into a guess-and-check loop, where it says something is fixed, I publish it, and then nothing has actually changed. ChatGPT is better at helping the app slow down, trace the problem, and give Lovable instructions that make it work more like a developer: check this file, confirm this field, don’t rewrite unrelated code, verify the actual behavior.

Starting to do this has saved me a lot of time and frustration. Before I was eventually finding myself just typing, “IT’S NOT WORKING FIX IT THIS IS A PROBLEM.”

Idk if it’s true, but sometimes it seemed like yelling at it made it work harder.

But, just so I don’t get to the point of feeling like I need to scream: Start with ChatGPT.

Cost, credits, and why I’m still using Lovable

I did start burning through Lovable credits this week, which was not my favorite discovery. I think that’s partly because I’m working on several apps at once, and partly because I’m still learning how to make bigger, better, more complete prompts instead of solving things in tiny pieces.

I do think there are probably more cost-effective tools or workflows out there. But right now, we’re talking about maybe $100 at most in difference for the way I’m using it, and for me, Lovable is still worth paying for. It is intuitive, founder-friendly, and easy enough that I can move quickly without getting buried in technical setup. For where I am in the learning curve, that matters.

I also played around with Claude Design this week, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. It’s very intuitive and really helpful for seeing different design directions quickly—colors, fonts, layouts, and overall visual concepts. One thing I did with RMBR (a new app I’ll talk about in a moment) was design the app first in Claude Design, then upload screenshots of that design into Lovable. Lovable did not recreate it perfectly, but it got me much further along than starting from scratch and it was super pretty.

So my current workflow is becoming a little more layered: use Claude or ChatGPT to think, plan, design, or debug; use Lovable to build; then keep testing and refining from there.

Parlor is in beta

Parlor is now in its second week of beta, and I have about two dozen people signed up. Most of those users are coming from my own personal network and following, so it still feels early, but it’s been really helpful to watch real people use it. I added a new template (for fun) and lots of different color options. You can see in the screenshot below you can test different templates at the top left, and there are dropdown menus for colors.

There have definitely been bugs. The biggest issue this week was photos. People wanted more control over cropping and resizing, which makes sense, but it also created a design challenge because Parlor is intentionally templated. The point is that users should not have to make a thousand design decisions. They should be able to enter their information and end up with a beautiful author website without overthinking every section.

But photos are personal, and people want to feel good about how they show up on their own site. So I spent time figuring out how to give users more control while still preserving the structure and simplicity of the templates.

I think that’s the biggest thing I’m thinking through with Parlor right now: How many options do I offer vs. how much is standardized? The idea that it’s meant to press the easy button, but I’m also finding that once users are in there, they do want more control than they thought they did. That’s the challenge right now.

It’s hard to know how true to my “idea” I should stay, vs. building it with more and more options. I know the best startups have all sorts of things they ship each week, but idk if that’s how I view Parlor running. I’ve already had inquiries from podcasters, videographers, photographers, asking if it’s a fit for them, and while I know I could add functionality, I’m nervous it will pull away from the gap in the market I saw—a super simple site for writers that requires only, writing.

Would love to hear thoughts if you have them!

I started running Meta ads for Parlor

I also started working on Meta ads for Parlor this week, which is not my favorite part of the job, but it was also not as difficult as I would have expected with AI helping me.

I created the ads myself, then used AI to walk me through how to set up the campaign, how much to spend, and what decisions to make inside Meta. This is probably something that, at another point, I would have assumed I needed to hire someone to do. But with AI walking me through the process, it felt manageable.

The ads have only been running for a couple of days, so I don’t have meaningful results to report yet. But I’m curious to see whether this can help Parlor reach beyond my existing audience and personal network.

I think this is another big question—I’ve never intentionally grown a platform before. From everything on the internet, I’ve always grown organically and never paid for play, so this is new. Any other founders out there that have found a good way to target their desired audience?

I really don’t want to start socials, so looking for a way around that….

Sword Drill keeps expanding while I wait on the App Store

Sword Drill is technically ready, but it is still waiting on the App Store process. Right now, I’m waiting on a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet, which Apple requires for the developer account. I think because I juuuust opened the new business, it’s taking longer than it did previously.

In the meantime, I keep using Sword Drill in real life, which has led to a few new ideas.

The first was Family Mode. My kids wanted to play Sword Drill on my phone, but I didn’t want their games to affect my streak, scores, or stats. (Is that terrible of me?!) So I added a mode where kids or family members can play without changing the main user’s progress. It’s a small feature, but it came directly from how we were actually using the app.

Here’s how it’s looking right now. If you want to be one of the first on the app (earning a special badge) sign up right here.

I also ended up building a group Bible trivia game for my twin nephews, who were leading FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) at their school. We were chatting about what they were planning on and they told me they wanted to play Bible trivia. I told them I could help them and converted all my Sword Drill questions into a Jeopardy-style trivia game in about 10 minutes.

Once we got to playing it, it was so much fun I thought I should share it will all of you (how awesome for youth groups, or small groups, right?) So I added a link to it in Sword Drill.

But, before I did, I knew I needed to rethink the design because of trademark concerns.

So I redesigned it and turned it into Sword Drill Live, which will be a group-play mode inside Sword Drill. It’s designed for classrooms, youth groups, families, FCA groups, or small groups—basically anywhere you want to play Bible trivia with a room full of people. I’m excited about it because it adds a whole new use case to the app, and it’s genuinely fun to play.

RMBR is starting to take shape

Okay the app I mentioned earlier: RMBR. (Like “Remember.”) The idea behind RMBR is that you upload your screenshots, and the app turns them into an actionable list.

Here’s a quick look at the homepage—it will probably change a whole bunch before I ship it.

Here’s how it works: After you upload your screenshots, the app will identify what is in the screenshot, figure out the likely source, and then help attach the right link or action. For example, if I upload a screenshot from Instagram of my upcoming poetry book, This Side of the Sky, the goal would be for RMBR to recognize that it came from my Instagram, identify the book, and find the best place to buy it.

My thought is that the app should email you with your screenshot to-do list so you can work through it from your inbox. You’ll still be able to manage things inside the app, but this is how I tend to work so I liked that idea. What do you guys think? If you had this, how would you use it?

What I’m learning

The biggest thing I’m learning is that AI can make a lot of things possible, but it does not remove the need for clarity. In some ways, it requires more clarity. You still have to know what the product is supposed to do, what the user needs, what “fixed” actually means, and what trade-offs you are willing to make.

AI can help me design, debug, write instructions, set up ads, and build things I never would have known how to build on my own. But I still have to lead the process.

The other thing I’m thinking through is how to work launches and drive sales. I don’t just want to build apps to build apps. I want them to be genuinely helpful and serve people—and for people to find out about them. I’m not sure the best way to go about getting the word out right now because I also don’t want to saturate my audience too much with stuff they’re not interested in.

More soon.

Laura

ps. this post was written with the assistance of Claude.

I’m sharing the “bite-sized mom version” of how I’ve approached these conversations with my own kids—not as someone with every answer, but as someone trying to help them see that Christianity is sturdy and robust enough for their questions.

Also included: a tiny detour into vibe coding, Parlor, and my new screenshot app RMBR, because I can never be trusted to stay totally on topic.

*Cross my heart I filmed this two days before the government released the UFO files, but boy is it timely.

Timestamps

00:29 — A quick life-and-business detour

03:52 — Why I’m talking about tough questions kids ask

05:12 — Q1: Are ghosts real?

13:39 — Q2: Could aliens exist?

18:42 — Q3: What about dinosaurs? (Young earth, old earth, all the earths!)

Read more

And one thing I hear again and again is how hard it is to create and maintain a decent author website.

And while I would contest that maybe it’s not that “hard,” it does seem to zap many creative’s energy to oblivion. Choosing a template, getting your photos in the right size, deciding what goes above the fold (what even is THE FOLD?), why is this button suddenly floating in the middle of my text—all make it feel very difficult.

Even the “easy” builders like Squarespace or Wix still require you to make a thousand decisions. And if you’re not a designer, the final result can look almost right—but not quite.

So after hearing this complaint for years—from KidLit Lab students, author friends, Substack writers, and creative people who just want a professional online home without needing to become “a website person”—I started wondering if there was a better way.

And because I have recently acquired the slightly dangerous skill of vibe-coding, I decided to build the thing I kept wishing existed.

I saw a gap in the market: writers need websites, but most of them don’t need endless customization. They need a beautiful, polished structure that makes them look professional and lets them get back to the actual work.

So I built it.

Enter: Parlor.

Parlor is a simple, done-for-you website builder for (future) authors, giving you a beautiful, professional author website in under an hour.

Check Out a Demo Here!

There are no technical skills needed. No drag and drop design where things can get all out of whack. No needing to select fonts or button colors. No Photoshop/Illustrator/Canva design skills needed at all. Just a beautiful website where all the user does is the work they already know how to do: Write the content.

Sounds doable. I'm in!

Here’s how Parlor works:

I know what many of you are thinking here, I’m not a writer, why should I care? You shouldn’t! But I hope you’ll think of any writer friends you know, and send them to Parlor.

Yes, even if they are here on Substack.

Because Substack and a website don’t do the same job. Substack is built to put the words first. (It is, after all, a newsletter platform.) Parlor is built to help people find the person and their work first.

Founder’s pricing

And because you’re my crew, I’m letting you (and any friend you send this to) in on Founder’s pricing!

$149 for the site build
then $8/month, billed annually at $96/year, for hosting

And right now, I’m giving you $20 off the site build, so it’s just $129.

That price lasts for two weeks, until May 19, 2026.

Just use the code:

LAURASFRIEND

I know you or someone you know are building their writing life in the margins of regular life—between jobs, kids, ministry, laundry, deadlines, dinner, and all the other things that somehow need to be fed or answered or signed.

Which is why I wanted to help, and have Parlor be EASY, beautiful, professional, and actually affordable.

So if getting your website done has been one of those lingering tasks that follows you around whispering, You really should deal with me, this is me giving you my most loving nudge.

Let’s get it done.

I’d love to have you (or a friend you know) as one of my founding users.

I'm ready to build my site!

Laura