When I was twelve years old, I was introduced to the world of magic. It all started in a crystal shop in Dallas that I wandered into with my grandmother at the beginning of seventh grade.

Patrick owned the shop, but when he wasn’t in its first location at Prestonwood Mall, he travelled the world hunting for crystals, going to far-off locations to buy geodes long before the market was what it is today. Though Patrick was a middle-aged man who ran a crystal shop, he was incredibly not-creepy, sharing his stories with my grandmother and me and sharing with me the first shamanic vision I would receive in my own secretly very magic life.

I learned about chakras and shamans from Patrick, about crystals and Greek myths, about how there is the here and now but there is also something much deeper running underneath our lives, including my little middle school life trapped in suburban Dallas. He showed me my first Rider-Waite tarot deck, long before I understood archetypes and Jungian analysis.

From there, I met other guides, moving from novice to practitioner, doing journey work myself and experiencing the shamanic visions that have guided Rise Literary into the company it is - and into what we are building it to be.

For us, every strategy and team meeting begins with a card pull, not because we believe tarot predicts the future but rather because it offers us guidance on the present, on who we are and who we are working to be. Magic is everywhere but perhaps most of all in our creative journeys.

And I hope somewhere, in the magic crystal shop in a suburban mall near you.

Finding Your Magic

We spend a lot of time looking for guidance as writers. We read craft books and interviews and Substacks and reviews, and we ask everyone what they think, and eventually there are so many voices in the room that we can barely hear our own.

So this week, we’re doing something simpler.

Pull a card.

That’s it.

You don’t need to know tarot. You don’t need to memorize the Major Arcana or understand reversals or know whether Mercury is doing something weird again. You don’t even have to believe the cards know anything.

We’re using tarot the way writers have always used myth, dreams, art, poetry, music, religion, overheard conversations, and weird coincidences:

as a way into the imagination.

Shuffle your deck and ask:

What creative energy wants to guide me right now?

Pull one card.

And before you Google what it means, look at it.

Really look.

Your Writing Invitation

Set a timer for twenty minutes and meet the figure, force, object, or energy inside your card.

Start wherever you want, or follow these questions:

What do you notice first?
What detail keeps pulling your eye back?

If this card were a character, who would they be?
What do they want? What have they survived? What do they know that you don’t?

Where does this card meet you in your life right now?
What part of you recognizes it?

What does this card give you permission to do creatively?
To be louder? Stranger? Softer? Angrier? Funnier? More ambitious? Less certain?

What is it asking you to stop doing?
What have you outgrown that you’re still dragging around because it once kept you safe?

What does this card know about the story you’re meant to tell?

What would change if you borrowed this card’s energy for the next month?

And finally:

If this card could lean across the table and tell you one thing about your writing, it would say...

Write the answer before you have time to make it reasonable. That’s the sentence we recommend that you carry into the week.

Your Writing Practice

Keep the card somewhere visible until next Thursday. Prop it against your computer. Put it on your nightstand. Stick it beside the coffee maker.

Before you write, look at it and ask:

How would this energy enter the page today?

Then write.

Don’t keep pulling cards because you don’t like the first answer.

You know who you are.

Our Creative Wish for You

May you stop looking for the person who can tell you what to write.

May the card be a mirror rather than an answer, and may something you already knew finally become visible.

May you trust whatever makes you reach for the pen.

Go make some magic, kid.

Make Some Magic with Us in NYC!

We’re hosting our next Book Magic in NYC: From Page to Platform at none other than The Hotel Chelsea on Friday, October 2nd! Join us for a day of interactive panels, Q+A, and a luncheon with live book coaching. Sessions include:

BUILD YOUR BYLINE with Hannah Orenstein of Bustle, Lauren Puckett-Pope of The Cut + New York Magazine, and Lizz Schumer of People magazine; PUBLISHING IRL with Kristen McGuiness + Diana Ventimiglia of Rise Literary, Janea Brachfeld of Simon & Schuster, and Hillary Povar of SMITHHOUSE; and CURATE YOUR COMMUNITY with Zöe Mahler of @nycbookhoe + @bookclubforbookhoes and Mackenzie Newcomb of @badbitchbookclub.

And this is all happening at the legendary The Hotel Chelsea - a place where writers and artists have been making magic for generations. Come with a book dream. Leave knowing how to make it happen. Early bird tickets are $125 through September 1st. Space is intentionally limited, so grab your spot here.

Always, always. Keep creating.

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from publishing workshops to inspired publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

There has never been a time in my life when I didn’t want to be a writer. I didn’t always know what it meant, but ever since I cracked into my first Laura Ingalls Wilder book (and if you haven’t yet, check out the incredible Little House reboot on Netflix, produced by our film and TV partner Joy Coalition), I knew that I too had a story to tell.

But knowing you have a story and writing one down can feel like two very different things. The stories I would weave in my head felt indelibly crafted, with vivid dialogue and drama, perfect character development, and the kind of wisdom nuggets one might expect from an 8-year-old Mary Oliver. And then I would take out my pen–or much later, open my laptop–and as Eminem once said, the words won’t come out.

For a long time, I thought that meant I wasn’t a writer. Maybe I was just someone with an active imagination, and yet, the blank page called to me.

When I graduated college, I got my first job in book publishing. Within a year, I was working as an Assistant Editor at Simon & Schuster, and though I have always believed that my only natural talent was drinking alcohol (hence why I got sober at 27), I discovered that I was born with another special set of skills: I was a natural at book editing.

But this too became a double-edged sword for my creativity. Because much like teaching, there is another unfair maxim for creatives that comes out of that industry—those who can’t write, edit. And edit I did—from toxic self-help bros like Dr. Phil and Tony Robbins to incredible writers like Andrei Codrescu and Omar Tyree. Yet I still hadn’t written my own book. Finally, in 2008, I did. I went on a date a week, I wrote a book about it, and published it two years later. That book did everything you would hope a book could do—the “Today Show,” USA Today, LA Times bestseller list, a very much almost TV show with big names!

Over the next decade, I would add dozens more names to my editorial list, editing and co-writing NYT bestselling books for nearly every major publishing house.

It took me the same amount of time to write my second book. In 2023, my sophomore effort finally came to be.

But the page was no less daunting because, as anyone who has written a second book will tell you, the first one is so much easier. The first one pours out of you. The second one asks, what else do I have to say?

But that is the question that every writer must answer when they hit the blank page. They have to ask themselves: what do I have to say? And then we have to craft the story through which to tell it. That, more than anything else—more than social media followers, or an impressive byline, or unshakable talent—is what makes someone a writer.

And that’s what ultimately gets us across the threshold of our own doubts and fears.

Crossing the Threshold

Every story has a threshold.

Odysseus had to leave Ithaca. Dorothy had to step into Oz. Alice had to fall down the damn rabbit hole. We never arrive at transformation without first crossing into unfamiliar territory.

And writing isn’t any different.

We all know the term “writer’s block”—we’ve been sold this idea that if only we could bulldoze our way through, we would be on our way to creative freedom. Over the years, I began to see that I would run into the same “blocks” time and time again:

Confusion over what I wanted to say. Disconnection from the story I was trying to tell. Distraction from the page because life is life is life. Apprehension about who I was to even say it. And procrastination because there was always something more important on the to-do list than realizing my most important life goal: to be a writer.

But what if those things that stop us from writing aren’t blocks at all? What if they’re actually our creative thresholds? What if they are the vision quests we have to pass through to finally believe in our story, find our words, and dance with the blank page in ways we haven’t be able to before.

What if the threshold is the space between the brilliance in your head and the brilliance on the page? When I started to look at it that way, I began to see that instead:

Confusion can ask if we’re willing to trust what we already know.

Disconnection can ask us if we’re willing to believe someone needs our story.

Distraction can ask us if we’re willing to choose our creativity over everything clamoring for our attention.

Apprehension asks us if we’re willing to tell the truth, even if our voice shakes.

Procrastination asks if we’re willing to put ourselves first.

Those thresholds weren’t actually blocking me from the page, they were inviting me to cross over into it. This week, instead of trying to defeat your creative threshold, we’d love for you to get curious about it. And begin to ask yourself, what does this threshold have to share with me - and what does it want me to say?

What do you have to say?

Your Writing Invitation

Before you begin writing, don’t choose the prompt.

Choose the threshold.

Read through the five below and notice which one makes your shoulders tense, your stomach flutter, or your brain immediately say, “Well...it’s definitely not that one.”

That’s probably the one. Stay with it for the week and let it teach you something.

1. Confusion - The Threshold of Clarity

Confusion has a funny way of convincing us we need one more class before we can begin. One more notebook. One more podcast. One more journal entry. Maybe even one more year.

But the blank page waits for no one (and everyone). Blank pages are whatever we want to make of them.

Your Invitation

Before you ask what you should write, spend twenty minutes remembering why you ever wanted to write in the first place.

Write without stopping.

• When did writing first feel magical?

• Where do you feel most like yourself when you write?

• What story keeps returning, even when you try to ignore it?

• If nobody could interrupt you, what would you begin today?

Finish this sentence:

The story that has been waiting most patiently for me is...

2. Disconnection - The Threshold of Belonging

We hear writers say they don’t know who they’re writing for, but we’ve started wondering if that’s the wrong question. Maybe the better question is...

What book would make you feel less alone?

Books don’t have to reach everyone. They just have to reach someone. And the best someone to start with is often you.

Your Invitation

Imagine you are sitting across from yourself. Maybe you now. Or maybe another version of you. Another timeline. The version that did not have it all figured out. Or even less than you do now.

• What do they need to hear?

• What conversation have you been longing to begin?

• What are you finally ready to say?

• How might your story help them feel seen?

Finish this sentence:

If this book could have changed my life, this is what I would want to hear...

3. Distraction - The Threshold of Presence

Distraction can wear a lot of disguises—our jobs, our children, our partners, our phones. Sometimes it’s just the laundry or the dishes. Sometimes it’s researching a fourteenth-century poet because you know you heard that line somewhere.

And sometimes it’s perfectionism pretending to be productivity.

Your Invitation

Instead of noticing what pulls you away from writing... Notice what pulls you toward it. Write about:

• The last time you completely lost track of time.

• Your favorite time of day to write and why.

• One habit that’s quietly stealing your attention.

• One tiny ritual that might help you return to the page.

Then complete that ritual—not a big one, just one small step towards the page.

4. Apprehension - The Threshold of Courage

Fear is possibly one of the best writers on the planet. It imagines endings that haven’t happened yet—all day long. It invents conversations no one has had—or haven’t had yet, as it tells us. And it somehow convinces us that telling the truth is more dangerous than spending another decade avoiding it.

We’ve all met this threshold.

Your Invitation

Instead of trying to silence your fear... Invite it to speak. Write about:

• What scares you most about writing this book?

• What makes your heart hurt?

• Which book changed your life because someone else told the truth?

• When was the last time you shared your story?

Finish this sentence:

The sentence I’ve been avoiding begins with...

Then write it. Even if you delete it tomorrow.

5. Procrastination - The Threshold of Commitment

Oh procrastination—you’re like addiction turned inside out, but instead of telling us to do more, work more, try more, you demand less, less, less:

“I’ll start after summer.”

“After work settles down.”

“After the kids are older.”

“After I feel more confident.”

But confidence doesn’t show up on its own; confidence requires that we go out and just do it (sorry, Nike - don’t sue us).

Your Invitation

Imagine you’ve already begun. Not finished. Just begun. Then write.

• What is your biggest dream as a writer?

• If your book existed, how might it change someone else’s life?

• What’s actually been stopping you?

• What are you willing to write now?

Finish this sentence:

Today, I begin by...

Then keep your promise.

Your Writing Practice

Every time you catch yourself saying, “I’ll write later...” Pause.

Put your hand on your heart. Take one breath. And ask yourself,

Which Creative Threshold am I standing in front of right now?

Don’t force the answer. Just notice it. Sometimes awareness is enough to open the door.

Our Creative Wish for You

May your Creative Threshold become a doorway instead of a wall. May you remember that every writer you’ve ever admired stood exactly where you’re standing now. May you trust that the threshold has appeared because you are finally ready to cross it.

Go write now.

Always, always. Keep creating.

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from publishing workshops to inspired publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Last month I made my annual pilgrimage to Florida with the kiddos to my mom’s house in Naples. Say what you will about the politics of Collier County, but there is always something about the warm water and humid air of Southern Florida that reminds me that sometimes creativity requires heat and water to finally come to boil.

I got to spend mornings swimming laps in my mom’s pool (because apparently I swim now), afternoons reading a book (the Pulitzer Prize winning Angel Down by Daniel Kraus) while the 4:00pm thunderstorms rolled through, and a luxurious Friday spent at one of those trendy cold plunge/hot sauna places before heading over to the Ritz to have NA champagne (my new favorite thing) and oysters while I began to think about what Hot Book Summer was actually about.

And that’s when it hit me–Hot Book Summer is about all of that. It’s about moving our bodies, it’s about treating ourselves to a novel on a rainy afternoon, it’s about getting dressed up and taking ourselves out on a date for NA (or not) champagne and remembering that despite the daily rut of work and laundry and bills and the emotional roller coaster we call life, creativity is both the cold plunge and the warm sauna.

Creativity is how we wake ourselves up but also how we resource ourselves down. And that’s what we hope to do over the next three months.

Before we get into what it means to conjure your story or craft your book, we first want to warm ourselves up; we want to connect back into movement and magic; we want to begin to discover what it means to actually embody your truth.

This month isn’t about figuring it all out. It’s about remembering why you wanted to write in the first place. Every week, we’ll be sharing writing invitations, meditations, practices, and creative wishes to help you embody your truth.

And this Sunday, we’ll be hosting a one-hour workshop to help guide you back into your body - and into the deep well of your own creative magic. Join me and Rise Literary author Áine Rock, whose life-changing book, Blow Up Your Life: The Wild Art of Wanting More, was just released last week - and is available everywhere in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook. And we’re offering ten free, signed copies to the first ten people who sign up for Sunday’s workshop.

Because we start our creative adventures by wanting more - for ourselves, for our dreams, and for the stories we were born to tell.

Welcome to Hot Book Summer.

Let’s begin.

Your Ritual - Anchor Yourself

Before you write a single word this week, we’d love you to begin with Áine Rock’s beautiful Anchor Meditation from Blow Up Your Life.

Let’s take a moment together to drop in. To find the energy of anchoring, and to awaken the current of desire that lives within you.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body and the weight of your hips, your feet on the floor, the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. Let your posture stay tall but soft, like a flower stretching toward light.

Now imagine a golden cord extending from the soles of your feet, moving down into the earth. Watch as it travels deep into the soil, wrapping gently around a luminous crystal at the earth’s core. Feel the pulse of that crystal, steady and alive. It draws up through the cord, through your feet, through your legs, the wisdom of the Mother, the heartbeat of creation itself.

Let this golden light move through you.

It clears what no longer serves: the fear, the hiding, the doubt, the shame. They dissolve like morning fog under the warmth of the sun. Keep breathing as the light rises through your belly, softening the space that receives.

Let it travel to your heart.

Feel your shoulders release, your throat open, your voice awaken. The light continues upward, through the space between your eyes, and out through the crown of your head. A radiant lotus unfurling, pouring golden light all around you.

You are bathed now in this light.

Floating in the glow of the earth and the angels, held between heaven and ground. Listen for the whisper that lives inside your heart, the truth that wants to guide you.

What is the knowing that you can no longer ignore?
The one you are ready to honor fully?

Bring your hands to your heart—left hand first, then right, cupping softly as if holding something precious. Imagine the essence of this truth gathering between your palms, a seed of light born from your own heart. It might take the shape of a color, an image, or a word.

Hold it gently.

Only you need to see it. Only you need to know it. Trust that it lives within you now, always. If it feels right, place that light back in your heart. Or release it into the golden field around you, knowing it will return when called.

Now see the lotus above your head begin to close, drawing all that golden light inward. Feel every cell, every atom in your body glowing with this energy. Let the golden cords beneath your feet loosen and return to the body. Bring the grounding energy of the earth back home within you.

Rest here for a few breaths.

Full of light. Rooted. Sovereign.

You carry a deep knowing now—the truth of what is alive in you, the light that guides you through even the darkest nights. Let your hands fall softly to your lap, holding this sacred secret close. It doesn’t need to be shared yet. For now, it is yours alone—your awakening, your transformation, your beauty.

Take three slow breaths.

With each exhale, return more fully to the space around you. When you are ready, open your eyes and come back to yourself—anchored, alive, and awake. What truth revealed itself in the stillness?

When you’ve finished...Don’t rush. Don’t check your phone. Don’t make coffee. Stay exactly where you are for another minute or two.

Something has already shifted.

Your Writing Invitation

When you opened your eyes, something came back with you. Maybe it was a word. Maybe a color. Maybe a person. Maybe a feeling you haven’t let yourself admit out loud. Whatever arrived...Trust it.

Today we’re going to write toward that feeling instead of away from it. Set a timer for twenty minutes. Don’t edit. Don’t reread. Don’t try to sound like a writer. Just answer these questions.

1. Five Years from Now, the Writer I’m Becoming…

Describe her. Not what she’s accomplished. Who she’s become. How does she move through the world? What has she stopped apologizing for? How does she spend an ordinary Sunday afternoon? What kind of conversations is she having? What kind of life has writing helped her create?

2. One Year from Now…

What has changed? What feels impossible today that feels completely ordinary twelve months from now? Who have you become because you finally decided to write?

3. In Three Months, on the Last Day of Hot Book Summer…

What are you most proud of? What surprised you? What are you ready to do next?

4. Today…

Returning to this moment, today. This version of you. What truth revealed itself in the stillness? What do you already know that you’ve been pretending not to know? What’s asking for your attention?

Finish these two sentences:

The writer inside me already knows...

Today, I choose to honor that knowing by...

Don’t overthink it. Trust your first answer.

Your Writing Practice

Carry a notebook with you this week.

Every time something delights you, surprises you, breaks your heart, makes you laugh, or makes you stop in your tracks... Write it down.

Notice the small moments. That’s where the magic starts.

Our Creative Wish for You

May you remember that creativity requires attention. May you fall back in love with your art. May you trust the voice you find in the quiet parts of your life. And may this be the summer you stop waiting for permission.

Go make some magic, friend.

Before You Go

One last thing.

Don’t worry about whether what you wrote is good. We’re not here to write well. We are here to be honest.

Good writing gets shaped by great editing. But telling the truth? That simply requires that we slow down, we write it down, we start listening, and we start sharing what we hear. Everything else can wait.

We hope to see you on Sunday for the Embody Your Truth workshop - remember to sign up here.

Always, always. Keep creating.

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from publishing workshops to inspired publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

And so we did.

Story Magic was the redemption tour. Because over two days at the Odéon Theater, I was reminded of what Paris has to offer – the art and the creativity, the poetry and the inspiration. And I was also reminded of romance. In both its human and immortal forms. Of what it means to fall in love and what it means to ask, what is love?

What is love? As someone who is negotiating the slow end of a marriage (the Mozzarella pull, as my dear friend and our Chief Creative Officer, Vyana Novus, calls it, and more on V below), this question lives in my everyday life. I love my husband. We have been best friends for years. We will likely always be best friends, and not in the way people hope to at the end of a marriage, but in the way that our friendship was there long before we were together and will be there long after.

And yet, there was not enough love there to be the cartilage to the ups and downs and dark moments that inhabit every relationship. Because that requires a different kind of love. That requires eros. And in Paris, we were reminded that eros is born from creation as much as creation is born from eros. Words are spells, books are incantations. And when we write, we make the imaginary real. We romance our own imaginations into something solid, something we can touch and read and share.

We connect. And throughout Story Magic, we got to see what happens when people connect. One of the true delights of the retreat was the last-minute addition of a reporter from People Magazine, Carly Tagen-Dye, who wrote an incredible piece about her experience at Story Magic. It truly says it all, but it was also a reminder of why writing retreats are so important for our creativity. They give us the space to dream and to meet other dreamers.

We were so honored by the dreamers who came to Paris. We can’t wait for Story Magic next year and for our next event, Book Magic, happening in NYC (Go Knicks!) on Friday, October 2nd at the Hotel Chelsea. More on that soon!

But what about love? Because the other big lesson from Paris was how much our team loves each other. For five nights, we took over a fantastic Paris apartment where we laughed and ate gluten-free pastries and drank tea every night and pulled tarot every morning. And that too was love. To get to build something so beautiful with such an amazing group of friends and colleagues. But one of us was missing.

Our beloved Vyana Novus has been struggling with an ongoing chronic illness due to an antibiotic reaction from over 8 years ago. In the last month, her severe pain took a dire turn for the worse. She could no longer join us in Paris, and when I got home, I found out that she hadn’t been able to eat or drink for days. So off to the ER we went. For anyone who has struggled with a chronic illness, you know how not helpful those words are, but we tried.

The next day, we decided Vyana had no choice but to start treatments with a specialist in her diagnosis. The cost is decidedly steep, and because V can no longer work and needs full-time care, we launched a GoFundMe last weekend. We have already raised so much and yet still need so much more to help her navigate the months of healing ahead.

But we are hopeful. I came home from Paris terrified she wouldn’t make it a week. And here we are! We take her to LA today to begin treatment tomorrow. Hope is there. And also love.

We create from it. We write from it. We connect through it. And we tell our stories about it. In Paris, we created a game called Mary Oliver roulette, where I would flip through a book of Mary Oliver poems, and when someone would call out, “Mary,” I would stop and read. Here is today’s pull:

What Gorgeous Thing

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

What gorgeous things this life is filled with. With Paris. With love. With mozzarella pulls. With best friends. And with our creativity.

Always, always. Keep creating.

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

It’s a fitting place to write this email.

This week, we’re hosting Story Magic in Paris, gathering writers to reconnect with their creativity and tell the stories only they can tell. But we’re also celebrating something else: the launch of our second RiseEA title, You Had Me at Bonjour by writer and relationship coach Dufflyn Lammers.

And we need your support - click here to find out how!

RiseEA titles are digital-first books, published as ebooks through Simon & Schuster and audiobooks through Blackstone Publishing. We’ve partnered with Kickstarter because we believe there are extraordinary books and voices that deserve a path to publication now—not years from now after endless rounds of querying, waiting, and hoping someone else sees their value.

And now we have less than 12 hours left in Dufflyn’s Kickstarter campaign, with just under $1,200 left to raise.

Usually, more than 1,000 people open this email within the first hour of sending it. If everyone reading this right now contributed just $5, Dufflyn would reach her goal and cover the costs of producing the ebook and audiobook versions of the book.

Any funds raised beyond that goal will go directly toward publicity and marketing, helping more readers discover her story.

And what a story it is.

You Had Me at Bonjour is a love story, yes—but it’s also a story about reinvention, courage, serendipity, and what happens when we dare to believe that a different life might be possible. It’s a reminder that sometimes the most extraordinary chapters begin when we least expect them, and that what seems like impossible love may be more possible than we think.

One of the toughest parts of publishing is the query process: sending your book out to agents and editors and waiting for someone to say yes. At a certain point, authors are ready to prove themselves in the marketplace—sharing their work widely to demonstrate the value of their stories and the communities waiting to hear their message.

That’s where RiseEA comes in.

Together, we’re helping authors publish their books and create cinematic audiobooks that capture the attention of agents, editors, producers, and audiences alike.

In March, we published our first RiseEA title, Tizzy, a powerful novel that demonstrated exactly what can happen when a community rallies around an important story. Now, we’re building on that momentum with You Had Me at Bonjour, and we’re just getting started.

This week in Paris, we’ll be celebrating storytelling everywhere we turn—from our Story Magic retreat to Thursday night’s book launch for You Had Me at Bonjour at Red Wheelbarrow (if you’re in Paris, RSVP here!). It’s a week dedicated to creativity, courage, and the belief that stories matter.

But none of this happens without readers.

None of this happens without community.

And none of this happens without people like you saying, “Yes, this story deserves to exist in the world.”

With less than 12 hours remaining, every pledge matters. Let’s help Dufflyn cross the finish line.

Bisous!

Kristen

What You Might Have Missed:

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Last summer, I decided I wasn’t going to just sit on another screenplay and not share it, so I began to enter Sacred Monster (the title coming from an autobiography of Maria Callas, who also had a cameo in the screenplay) into competitions. What I didn’t expect was to win laurels for it – starting with the Santa Barbara Screenwriting Conference and then, most magically, from the Matera Film Festival in Italy.

But then, life took over. Running the publishing house, launching RiseLive, organizing Story Magic, our first writing retreat in Paris (we only have a few spots left – more on that below!), and the screenplay that could went back to its little quiet corner in my iCloud files.

Because there are so many forgotten files. Screenplays based on Republic by Plato, a weird three-act play set at the funeral of Marilyn Monroe, which might also be purgatory and where Joe DiMaggio turns out to be the Great God Pan (I do love Greece), a dystopian YA novel set in 1980s Southern California, or Sacred Monster, the screenplay that saved my sanity when it felt like my whole world was falling apart.

I mean, where do we start?

I think many writers have a graveyard of starts. It’s not that we don’t know what to write, but that we have so many stories. And in the deluge of our ideas, we are never able to focus on just one. But it doesn’t have to be just one, just which one for right now. Because what I realized was that it’s really about focusing on the one you most want to see happen. Now. Not the easiest one, or the most likely to succeed.

The one you want to succeed, the one that stirs your heart. And then if the universe also guides you there, you know you’re headed in the right direction.

When we decided we were hosting Story Magic at the Odéon Theater in Paris, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I have been personally obsessed with the Odéon for years. It’s a long story involving the French film Les Enfants du Paradis, the French actor and Odéon theater director Jean-Louis Barrault (and star of Les Enfants), and the playwright Sam Beckett, whom Barrault brought to France and staged the first French performances of Waiting for Godot and Endgame.

As part of Story Magic, we are hosting a night of Parisian adventures – one of romance, with a lingerie and fragrance shopping trip with retreat co-host and Rise author Dufflyn Lammers (her book You Had Me at Bonjour comes out next week!), another gastronomy night with Rise co-host and author Elena Azzoni (author of Tizzy!), and a night at the Odéon with me.

Little did I know that the play being performed that night would be Scenes du Mariage, based on the Swedish miniseries on which I based Sacred Monster. When I saw it pop on the calendar at the Odéon, I shook my head. Because, of course, that’s how magic happens.

That is story magic.

When our dreams and our desires and the universe align to say go this way, tell this story, draw this painting, make this sculpture, write this book (or screenplay or script or poem).

Do this thing.

And we listen. If you’re ready to write your book, tell your story, or make your art, we are here to help. And if you want to run away to Paris with us, we still have three spots left for Story Magic. And I have a screenplay to dust off.

And who knows? Maybe Artemis will show up in Paris, too.

If you want to learn more, join us tomorrow AM, Tuesday 5/27, at 10:00am PST/1:00pm EST for a free workshop to finally craft your writing practice. We’d love to share more about what Story Magic means - whether you’re in Paris or not!

Sign up here!

Allons à Paris, mon ami!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Be a part of You Had Me at Bonjour! Our first RiseEA title to be supported by our new partnership with Kickstarter is now live. Support Dufflyn’s publishing journey and become a part of what it means to write, sell, and publish a book!

• Author Alchemy is the course we all need!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

At one point, the women find themselves standing in a set of ruins. Carmela looks around and then remarks, “We worry so much, it seems like that’s all we ever do, but in the end, it all just gets washed away, it just gets washed away.”

I decided that day that I wanted to live in Paris. Because it does. It all gets washed away, but the one thing that remains are the stories that we tell.

What a RiseLive

When we hosted RiseLive on April 26, we were there to tell those stories. We held our first live speaking event at the wonderful Hotel El Roblar in Ojai. On the property, there lives two giant tortoises named Abra and Cadabra, and as we shared that day, Abracabra is a very powerful spell—it is how words shape reality, but also how we can heal one another through those words.

And so our speakers healed, and they offered healing in turn. From the welcome talk from NYT-bestselling author and RiseLive story architect Katie Hendricks and hotel owner and conservationist Eric Goode, to the powerful stories of our own Chief Creative Officer Vyana Novus, career producer Lynnette Ramirez, and Rise author Aine Rock, the first half of the day reminded us why our stories matter, not just to ourselves, but how they have the power to shift the world.

After a magic hour with tarologist Angie Banicki, we moved into the second half with heartbreaking and healing stories from animal rights activist Daniel Roselle, famed interior designer Carmine Sabatella, author and producer Dr. Kamin Samuel, former Ojai mayor Betsy Stix, and, well, me.

The talks were powerful, but the live event was only the beginning. In July, we will begin sharing them on our own YouTube channel – all coming soon, so stay tuned…

Join us in Paris!

And also, Paris. Because that Sopranos episode did lead me to Paris. Six years later, I moved there to get my Master’s in International Relations (not an MFA, I know, I know). What started out as a dream went dark as Paris succumbed to the worst winter in its record, with only 36 hours of sun over five months (note: I am a California girl by way of Texas; I require an enormous amount of Vitamin D). It was sad. And hard. And my dreams of moving to Paris to write the great American novel disappeared in the rainy and 38-degree days, which is possibly the worst combination of weather forecasts (let it snow damnit!).

My dreams did get washed away, and when I returned to the States a year later, I wished so much that I could have done it differently. I wanted to resurrect the Paris dream of writing in cafes and finding my creative rhythm. I wanted to be Carrie in the lover episodes and not Madeline after her appendix ruptures. So that’s what we’re doing! We’re going back to Paris to remind us that “it all just gets washed away, it just gets washed away.”

But our stories don’t. And if you’re ready to write yours, the time is now! Story Magic is a two-day immersive writing retreat held in Paris to help you finally start your story - and finish your book! Hosted at the historic Odéon Theatre, the retreat will help you reconnect to the creative within, define the story you want to write, and create the writing practice to help you finish your book.

Co-hosted by me, Vyana, and our latest Rise Literary author Dufflyn Lammers – and with an author luncheon with Paris-based authors Ajiri Aki and Robinne Lee, the retreat is on Friday and Saturday, June 5-6, from 10am-4pm each day, culminating in a cocktail party with author portrait sessions.

Flights from the US are still $700, and flights from LA are under $1000. And the cost of the retreat is only 500 Euro. And of course, because you’re our friends, use the code WRITENOW for 20% off - and don’t miss this chance to finally start the book you’ve already dreamed of writing! Head to https://www.riseliterary.com/storymagic to find out more.

Free Workshop Tomorrow

And if you want to know more, join us tomorrow for a free workshop – Your Path to a Writing Practice with me and fellow retreat hosts Vyana and Dufflyn! Sign up at bit.ly/storymagicparis.

Because it does all get washed away. But our stories don’t. They become the ruins that are left behind, reminding people of the lives we lived, the lessons we experienced, how we healed, and how our stories always, always matter.

Just ask Carmela.

Allons à Paris, mes amis!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to a Murder Mystery Launch in LA!

  

  • We are so excited because next week the secret is out! The Revenge Party hits shelves on Tuesday, May 12th. Emily is doing a five-city tour (in Seattle, LA, Bend, OR, Bedford, NY and Boston, MA!). If you’re in the LA area, join us for the launch party (and murder mystery night) to celebrate. You can get tickets here! And check out Emily’s tour schedule here. And if you haven’t gotten your copy yet, head to Simon & Schuster to pick your favorite retailer!

• Author Alchemy is waiting for you!

  

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author. Through the five modules, you will learn how find the promise and approach of your story, create a writing practice, build a byline, curate your community, and finally, pitch your book! Stop thinking about writing your book and start your path to publishing. It all begins here.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? Check out the free quiz (with writing prompts) to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles. And get our free Rise Writing Field Guide to begin building a writing practice you can commit to.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to inspired publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Twelve incredible speakers, one day at the then recently opened Ojai Playhouse. And what a day it was. From local speakers like Gregg Stewart, Lauren Duke, and Jennifer Pastiloff to other writers, thinkers, and poets from across the country, TEDxOjai didn’t feel like the usual keynote.

Ten of the talks were immediately posted, a little too quickly, if you ask us, and two were flagged. The flagged talks were given by female speakers with advanced degrees speaking on their subjects of expertise. One was an MD in psychiatry from Harvard speaking on evolutionary psychiatry. The other was an EdD in maternal studies discussing maternity choices in modern medicine. Both were well-resourced, with pages of peer-reviewed studies to back them up.

Neither of them was outside of the community guidelines from TEDx.

Was it misogyny? Or was it corporatism? Or was it just really bad communications?

It didn’t matter.

We often say, we’re moms, so if you make us mad enough, we’re just going to do it ourselves.

And on April 26, 2026, that is exactly what we are doing. Welcome to RiseLive.

RiseLive

RiseLive is a new stage, built in matriarchal practices of radically inspired storytelling and somatically embodied stage presence. Sure, it’s ten speakers giving ten-minute talks, but it’s also an experience.

And it all begins in Ojai, CA. Because on Sunday, April 26^th, RiseLive Ojai is happening, well, live, from 10am-2pm. We will have those ten speakers, including Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe-winning writer Krista Vernoff (Grey’s Anatomy, Charmed, and the creator of Rebel), conservationist, director, and Ojai local Eric Goode (Chimp Crazy, Tiger King), NYT bestselling author and Ojai local Katie Hendricks, HGTV host and famed designer Carmine Sabatella, former mayor of Ojai Betsy Stix, local artist and our own Chief Creative Officer Vyana Novus, and Children of God whistle blower and Executive Director of the Ventura SPCA Daniel Roselle.

The event will take place at the recently opened El Roblar Hotel in Ojai, with a mid-day Magic Hour presented by Magic Hour tea and famed tarologist Angie Banicki. It is going to be four hours of healing, magic, performance, and radically inspired storytelling.

RiseLive isn’t here to offer another Call to Action. It is here to question why we struggle with becoming our most realized selves. What are the systems that stop us? The histories that block us? The real demands for healing aren’t about personal responsibility but about collective change.

And you get to be there. Join us and use the discount code LOCALSLOVE for 50% off the ticket price through Tuesday, April 21. Because RiseLive asks why. We hope you’ll be part of the answer.

And RiseLive isn’t our only big event this year!

Story Magic

We’re excited to share that we are taking our sold-out Book Magic coaching events to Paris this June with a two-day retreat called Story Magic! Story Magic is a writing adventure where we’ll be diving back into creative inspiration to help writers finally start their story or finish their book. From in-room prompts, integrated writing on the streets of Paris, live editorial feedback, and book publishing guidance to an author luncheon with local authors Ajiri Aki and Robinne Lee, Story Magic is going to be a retreat like no other.

Seats are selling fast, so head to https://www.riseliterary.com/storymagic if you’re interested in joining us. Or let us know if you’re open to sharing with any local friends in Paris. We are offering a locals-only price of 500 EUR for friends in Paris - an incredible deal for two days of nonstop creative magic!

It’s been an exciting year over here with so much more to come. If you or anyone you know is ready to start their path to publishing, we’re here to help. And if you’d like to hear more about what we’re up to these days, we’ve had some great press recently.

Lots of fun stuff.

Allons à Paris e Ojai, mon ami!

Let us know if you’re ready to tell your story!

Elena + Lauren + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many years of wrestling with my writing practice, it’s that I don’t write alone. I just don’t. For a long time, I questioned my commitment. Am I really a writer if it’s so hard to get myself to write? Ha! What is it about this craft that is so love/hate? Or is that every creative endeavor? Why am I so resistant to the thing that makes me happiest (once I’m finally doing it)?

I came upon this discovery the hard way. Nine years had passed since I published my first book, and in that time, I’d barely written more than a to-do list (those things didn’t get done, either) or letters to my senators. In an effort to pinpoint my block, I looked back to determine what was different about the time when I was writing a ton versus now.

Two things:

1. I did not have a small child. This is a legit hurdle, let’s be honest. But for me, that wasn’t the biggest obstacle.

2. I was in a writing group and/or had a writing buddy. Side note, for a portion of this time, I lived in Paris, and when my French friend described me to ‘un ami’ of hers, he thought she’d said, “Riding Buddy.” (I suggest you get one of those too, sounds fun.)

I knew myself well enough that it wasn’t strictly motherhood that kept me out of the chair. I’d managed to write through even bigger obstacles than a milk-siphoning, sweet-potato-poo spewing bundle of joie. If I carved out time for writing, I wrote.

During a recent reading, someone asked what inspires me, and I answered, “Other people’s stories.” When I’m in a writing workshop or group or class, I can never decide which I love more: receiving feedback or participating in other people’s writing process. Creativity is not meant to be a solitary experience. Solitude is not even in our nature. For survival in our most primal human form, scaling a tree for some me-time with your candle and quill pen would have been a very bad idea. Do cougars like the taste of fresh ink? Let’s not find out.

Let’s instead gather together with our computers and pens and notebooks and clementines and cashews and chocolates and coffee and tea and laughs and timers and tears and dance breaks and share in the creative process the way we were meant to.

It’s the only way that’s ever worked for me.

And speaking of Paris (as we often do, these days), who’s coming with us?

Life is busy, and as unromantic as it sounds, creativity is something that needs to be scheduled if it’s going to be prioritized.

I’m not going to say you have to get on a plane to be your most creative self, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. Sometimes creativity needs some distance from the mundane. From the ordinary. From real life… laundry and dishes and doctor’s appointments and school lunches and pick-ups and drop-offs and the mental and emotional and physical load of being an adult. It’s difficult to jump back and forth between a deeply creative experience that taps into your soul and something spirit-draining (soul-sucking?) like planning dinner for the millionth time this year and navigating the schedules that allow for everyone to eat said meal.

I joke that I like to run away from home to be creative. HA-HA, it sounds ridiculous until you do it. The first time I went to a writing retreat, and I’m not even sure it was technically a retreat for writers, but I did a lot of writing there (and on the way home and in the days and weeks that followed), the thing that surprised me most was how much emotional space I had when I wasn’t responsible for anything else. Our meals were prepared, the schedule was set, the people were there. I made so few decisions in those three days that my mind was able to quiet so much that I could hear all of the things that were often drowned out.

So, if you need to quite the mind, maybe it’s time to book your flight. Spend two days making decisions only about which evening date you're going to take yourself on and which chapter of your story you want to live and to write next. The two days are designed to help you prioritize yourself and your creativity in a way that isn’t always possible in the busyness of home.

Allons à Paris, mon ami!

Let us know if you’re ready to tell your story!

Elena + Lauren + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Before we jump in, what exactly is RiseEA?

For those who are ready to publish, RiseEA is the newest way to get your book to market now. RiseEA offers eBook and audiobook distribution that can turn your manuscript into a book in as little as FIVE MONTHS.

If you’re interested, feel free to reach out to us HERE!

“I remember the moment I started saying, she: she went to the co-op, she went to the grotto. And then it became this character. And then I found myself falling in love with this character. ”

In this episode, Chief Marketing Officer ⁠Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld⁠ sits down with author and Rise Chief Operating Officer ⁠Elena Azzoni⁠ to explore her journey as a ⁠RiseEA ⁠author! They dive into the world of writing, marketing, and self-love and discovery. If you're interested in hearing more about Elena’s book, ⁠Tizzy⁠, and what it looks like to make a memoir fictional, this is the episode for you!

“There were many times where I would write something and as a memoirist, I want to tell the truthiest truth I can tell. Right? I’m letting it all hang out. And then I would get scared and I would be like, what if my clients read this?”

In this episode, Publisher and CEO ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ sits down with author and Paris-based love coach ⁠Dufflyn Lammers⁠ to explore her journey as a creative and coach. They dive into the world of writing, love, and creativity, and learn about her upcoming book, You Had Me at Bonjour, ⁠Story Magic Paris⁠, and the ⁠RiseEA publishing⁠ experience for Dufflyn’s memoir.

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Stay gold and happy writing!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

My knuckles banged against a hollow door at the end of a narrow 1920s hall, echoing into the room beyond, the way a cheap, modernized door would.

It swung open, unleashing the rowdy sounds of hungry kids who’ve been stuck in a car all morning.

Kristen’s face dropped.

“I don’t like the room,” she said.

I walked in tired and in pain, and set our dinner on the table. “Okay, give me a minute and let’s figure it out.”

We had just checked into our weekend room in San Francisco; the two of us and our two 7-year-olds—all exhausted, overstimulated, hungry, and anxious to get into the day.

This city is where I became an adult. Not my hometown, but certainly where I grew up.

When I first moved to Southern California ten years ago, I’d travel back often—even after giving birth. But then life shifted. The pandemic, a divorce, and the increasing impact of disability made the distance between who I was and who I was becoming widen quickly.

It’s been years since I last visited, even longer since I went with my child.

This trip was waiting for me with arms full of memories.

I was already emotional as I approached our hotel room, holding a bag of my favorite gluten-free fried chicken that I hadn’t tasted in a decade—a flavor that fueled my nights in massage school 13 years earlier. I was already emotional, hearing the sounds of the city below, looking out over the San Francisco skyline. I was already emotional and already exhausted when we decided we weren’t going to stay at the hotel we had just checked into.

Everything looked fine; nothing was logically wrong, but we both felt… off, and that was enough. We trusted it without needing further proof, even though it was inconvenient.

Twenty minutes after arriving, with chicken & brussels sprouts in our bellies, we were back in the lobby heading to a new hotel.

As we drove, I turned towards the backseat and said to the kids, “Listen my doods, always trust femme intuition. Even when it doesn’t make logical sense, even when it’s inconvenient—always trust femme intuition.”

The lessons I’ve learned by dragging my face through the mud are things I enjoy making explicit & digestible for my child. This one—‘trust femme intuition’—ooo this one was hard won.

As we arrived at the new hotel, we realized the Chinese New Year parade—the very thing we had come for—was right at the end of the street.

We checked in, got upgraded to a suite, and received recommendations that shifted the entire texture of the trip and our plans for next year.

When we opened the door to our room, we were all stunned. The suite was bigger than the apartment I had lived in ten years ago.

Multiple rooms. Two bathrooms. A 6-person dining table. A sectional sofa. A walk-in closet. Sunset views stretching across downtown. I turned to the kids again and said, “You see? This is why we always trust femme intuition.”

As I hurried to unpack before dinner, I felt time cut through me like a gust of wind, like a boulder colliding with a still lake.

Often, time feels like pressure—something we’re running out of, something we’re behind on, something we’ve wasted, but here it felt like hydration.

Inevitably, time changes us. It always holds us as we become new versions of who we’ve always been.

I once sat in this city’s sandy dunes singing my dreams to the ocean, letting its rhythm shape and change me. And here I was again, a decade later, doing the same thing completely differently.

I carry death in my hips now; it holds my spine straighter than before.
I walk with eros in my heels now; it has made me resolute.
I casually chew on my rage like bubblegum, and it brings me great joy.

I’m decisive and disciplined now in ways that an older version of me couldn’t imagine.
I stand taller, I breathe deeper, I laugh harder.
I think, in fact, I move much like those waves—soft, fluid, fierce, unyielding.

And though this version of me knows how to hold life with more nuance, with a looser grip and greater balance, I remain humbled by the way I’m continually influenced by who I once was. I meet past versions of myself again and again, and every time I do, I’m changed.

I’m a seasonal bloom, feeding my own becoming by simply allowing time to happen.

I bloom.
I whither.
I quietly retreat.
I reemerge.
I repeat.

I’m different in ways only time can offer.
Time isn’t an enemy of creation but rather an essential ingredient.

Time changes what we leave on city streets and inside dusty journals. It changes the way we carry what once felt impossible to hold. It changes how we understand the stories we live, and ultimately how we decide to tell them.

Time doesn’t just pass,
It reveals.
And it always tells the truth.

Oh, how many times I’ve believed, ‘that was a phase,’ ‘I’m not that person anymore,’ ‘it’s too late to go back,’ only to discover time wasn’t distancing me from that project, that dream, that idea—it was preparing me for it.

I’ve learned that a different kind of work happens when we allow time’s presence to shape us.
A different story gets told—one with a straighter spine, a deeper breath, and a louder laugh.

I’ve seen how the version of me who began many of my endeavors wasn’t the version of me meant to complete them.

As I walked the echo of my memories in the Inner Sunset, through Golden Gate Park, and across Chinatown, I reflected on what has become possible in my life simply because I’ve stopped rushing to finish projects & ideas, and stopped forcing clarity upon myself before its natural ripening.

I trust now that what’s unfinished isn’t necessarily abandoned; it likely just requires my own becoming.

Like I said in last week’s podcast episode (Write Now. Season 2 Episode 3), “time is an essential component of matriarchal design & storytelling. Use it like a tool, not a constraint.” And that’s exactly what we’re going after in our two-day storytelling workshop in Paris this June. Come with the projects that’ve been collecting dust on your shelves, that’ve been whispering in your daydreams, that tug gently at the hem of your shirt. Bring the stories that’ve been germinating quietly in the soil of your life and discover what this version of you has to say.

Join us this summer, June 5th & 6th, at the historic Odéon Theatre. Reserve your space today and finish the story that’s been waiting for this version of you.

Let us know if you’re ready to tell your story!

Vyana + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

Leave a comment

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

We start most of our Rise Literary business meetings by pulling a tarot card, we’re guided by our intuition, and we check in with astrological charts when making decisions. We pair the “woo” with action, and we create MAGIC.

There’s a Picasso quote that I love and refer to often:
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

You can’t just sit around waiting to be inspired - the cure for writer’s block is to write… If you’re looking for magic, make some!

On the podcast this week, I talked with my [truly magical] friend, Michelle Garside, about the absolute magic that is overflowing in her life right now as she’s preparing for her first book to come out next year. She used phrases like “I was so lucky” and “THIS IS NOT NORMAL!” in describing some of the incredible opportunities she has right now as she’s starting to promote her book. Garside lived the ultimate dream when an agent reached out, declaring that she should write a book and offering help to get it to print. INSANE. While that’s not how it normally happens, it happened when Michelle was looking for and creating magic in a really special way. Not a magic potion, not a spell casting, but putting the effort required into bringing about her own kind of magic.

(My millennial brain just conjured up an image of the boys from Weird Science creating Kelly LeBrock. Oh the 80s, what a time to be alive and unsupervised.)

The magic Michelle and I talked about is deliberate and expansive; it’s not formulaic like a+b=c, but rather, something that feels like yellow+four=haircut. It doesn’t make sense because it’s relying on a concoction of action and faith, not a specific vision you’re clinging to too tightly.

When good things get thrown upon your doorstep, it can feel random, but it isn’t passive. You’re rewarded for continuing forward, moving, doing what feltright, aligned, and inspired. It is only through alignment that you suddenly find yourself, completely unexpectedly, exactly where you’re supposed to be.

You get to make your magic however you want, however it fits you best and makes you come alive. It’s rarely my style to tell someone how to do anything, but if you’re looking for some guidelines or a starting point to bring some magic into your life, the combination of BELIEF, MOTION, and LETTING GO OF THE DETAILS will take you far.

You have to believe in yourself, with your whole fucking self. You just do. Practice. Find a person who can help you, but YOU have to believe that what you’re doing and working toward is absolutely yours for the taking.

Keep moving. You have to do something. Get up and get going. Negativity has a harder time hitting a moving target, but magic loves to bob and weave. Staying in motion pushes you towards it, and it’ll catch you from there.

If you are stuck on a specific detail or vision, you are likely going to miss out on something even better. Let go of the timeline, the exact picture, and all of the details. Hold onto the big picture of what you want your life to be and stay open to BIG possibilities!

I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at a publishing company. I have a finance degree. I was an accountant, a doula, a real estate agent, a PTA president, and the COO of a non-profit. Last year, kind of by accident, we produced a TEDx event (quite possibly the best professional day of my life), and now we’re launching a new global speaking series. I stand right now in a spot I could never have imagined, and yet everything I’m doing fits so perfectly into the life I imagined for myself. I believed it, I kept running towards it, and it ended up feeling like magic.

Just like inspiration has to find you working, so too does magic. Michelle’s story of an agent tapping her on the shoulder and suggesting she write a book almost sounds too good to be true. But she tapped her on the shoulder while she was out making moves, working her butt off, showing up and saying yes, and doing anything and everything to create the life she craved. Michelle was building her career, but she’d first done an enormous amount of personal and professional development to be able to show up in alignment with herself and her clients. She said yes to opportunities - even the ones that scared her. That tap came to her shoulder at a cocktail party, not her front door while she was sitting on the couch.

There are so many more things I could say about magic and showing up for yourself, but I’ll let you listen to it. Michelle and I talked about this on the Write Now. podcast - listen and tell us how you’re showing up for yourself!

In this episode, Chief Marketing Officer ⁠Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld⁠ sits down with brand architect and debut author ⁠Michelle Garside⁠ to discuss the magic of making bold moves while writing and promoting your book. If you want some guidance as to how to create an experience that brings your book to life and lights you up, this is the episode for you!

Let us know if you’re ready to tell your story!

Lauren + the Rise Literary Team

Leave a comment

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Sign Up Today

There’s a reason we can’t stop…

Like millions of others, I have spent my last two months obsessed enamored with the show Heated Rivalry. I have never been a fan before. I never made sourdough, was never into boy bands, and despite being a lifelong reader, I have never joined a book club.

So finding myself in the middle of a raging fandom about a fictional story of two gay hockey players who are secretly in love has been disorienting to say the least. But the truth is, I am as interested in the love story as I am in the creativity behind it. The small budget. The passion project. The unknown actors offering career-defining performances that rank as some of the most somatically centered character work to ever grace a screen. Any screen.

Because, as a writer, watching Heated Rivalry has reminded me that the creative process isn’t simply about crafting a story, it’s about reminding us of what makes life worth living, and that includes one of the greatest and most treasured experiences of being human - falling in love.

Love in Times of Chaos

In many ways, no one should have been surprised by the reaction to the show. But I am sure its creator, Jacob Tierney, et al, would have no idea how it would time out. Just as the Department of Justice began to download millions of heavily redacted Epstein files – replete with pedophilia, murder, and cannibalism, with over 1 million mentions of our current and abhorrent president – Heated Rivalry arrived as the salve and the great reminder that, as cruel and debased as humans can be, they can also be Shane and Ilya. Complicated, heartbreaking people who just want to love one another no matter the cost.

There are so many ways this show could have taken its source material (Rachel Reid’s Gamechanger series) and made it trite or corny or just the softcore porn that some have initially described it as being. Instead, Jacob Tierney and his actors, the mesmerizing duo of Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, crafted one of the most beautiful and brilliant forms of screened content that most of us have seen in years.

And how? They trusted their audience. They took their time. They allowed their characters to create an inner world – one where glances held paragraphs, and one hand movement could encapsulate a whole chapter. There is a reason why people keep “reheating” the show, unpacking every breath, every silent word, because when storytelling becomes somatic, we aren’t just connecting through our prefrontal cortexes, we are having an embodied emotional reaction to the story.

I will go to my grave on the fact that there is one scene from the show that is possibly the greatest cinematic moment in TV or movie history. It takes place in a hotel bar in Tampa. If you read the dialogue of the scene, you would have no idea that it is one of the most important moments in the story. You would think it’s two guys having a conversation at the bar, but great storytelling isn’t just what people are saying, it’s what they’re asking for, what they’re hoping for, what they’re craving, and why they can’t have it.

Why Love Stories Matter

Great storytelling shows us what we want from this life – and whether or not we currently have it. In the Tampa bar scene, we see both characters at the crux of their conflict, the pheromones leap off the screen, leaving the viewers breathless as they talk about hockey, personal stylists, and whether Shane’s parents are coming for the weekend. But underneath, they are showing us, this is what love looks like when you can’t express it fully. This is heartbreaking: to sit next to the love of your life and not know how to admit it.

This is what true love looks like in the light, even in its most pedestrian moments. But also, this is what great storytelling looks like, when we slow it down, when we linger on a look, a beer held too long to the lips, a wide shot that allows us to think about what’s happening to these two characters, but also, what’s happening to us.

The mania – and fandom – has felt so uncomfortable to me. These are gay fictional men portrayed by actors in their 20s. I am a straight woman heading towards 50. And yet, there is something so primal about the show that no one, not even myself, can look away. We don’t want to stop. Because Heated Rivalry has engaged our mirror neurons, mimicking the pheromones of the kind of romantic love that has fueled great stories since the beginning of time and some of the greatest moments of our own lives.

Whether one is in love right now or still dreams of being in love, Heated Rivalry showed us how creativity offers us a way towards something better than the world we are seeing around us. There is more to this human experience than war and death and genocide. And even more than motherhood or marriage or success. One of the silliest things a person can do is fall in love. It fits no human need. It is simply an evolutionary bystander. We can procreate without it. We can live without it. And yet, we would die for it.

Heated Rivalry took Rachel’s eloquent series and showed us why. And perhaps that’s why it’s woken us all up. Perhaps that’s why we’re so obsessed. Because it reminded us that despite the horrors outside the front door, there is nothing hotter than being in love. But also, feeling truly alive.

And it’s why as writers, we can’t forget to write and tell our own love stories, to share about the things we want, the things we crave, and why we can’t have them. Or perhaps, why we can. Why in writing about our journeys, we too can find our own happy endings. The cottage is waiting for us all.

Let us know if you’re ready to tell your story!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

Leave a comment

Want to hear us talk more about Heated Rivalry? Check out our podcast!

We wanted to come back with a bang, and what better way than to spend almost an hour talking about everyone’s favorite gay hockey show, ⁠Heated Rivalry⁠! On this special season two premiere episode, ⁠Kristen⁠ and ⁠Raya⁠ (the resident Gen X/Gen Z duo) flex their PhDs in HR by deep-diving into the storyline, the minute details, and the theories that make the show so compelling. With the addition of the audio from their favorite ⁠Heated Rivalry edit⁠, if you’re a fan of Shane and Ilya, this is the episode for you.

What You Might Have Missed:

• Come to Paris With Us!

  • Spend two days romancing yourself, reviving your creativity, and falling back in love with your story. Story Magic is a two-day immersive retreat for writers, artists, and storytellers who feel the quiet ache of something more. More depth. More truth. More pleasure in the act of creating.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• Five Months to Write Your Book - 19 March 2026

  • Five Months to Write Your Book is where you move from fantasy to first draft. Every other week, we gather for live group coaching sessions where your pages are read, shaped, and strengthened through thoughtful feedback and strategic direction.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Sign Up Today

There are the parts that people see, both the good and the bad, and the many parts that people don’t see. Because some of the biggest wins—securing a significant investment, attaching a big-name actor to a project, launching a super-secret storytelling project—are confidential, and also so are some of our biggest struggles.

But last year, our wins far outpaced our challenges. We’ve had two amazing books come out in the last three months—our most recent book, The Astrology of Healing by Nada Yousif, and the literary memoir Wife Mother Drunk by Emily Redondo. We just had a sold-out event in Los Angeles called Book Magic, and last week, we launched Story Magic, our first two-day writing retreat in Paris.

Story Magic is a two-day creative retreat we’re hosting at the historic Odéon Theatre in Paris on Friday and Saturday, June 5-6, right by the Jardin du Luxembourg. Through embodied coaching, integrative writing in the streets and gardens of Paris, intimate feedback in a deeply supportive circle, and curated evening experiences that awaken the eros in us all, we’re creating space for a creative renaissance. Think less “retreat” and more “beautiful plot twist.”

And there will be tarot, fancy tea, a dress-up party, professional photos, and oh so much fun. You can find out more here, but please let us know if you’re interested.

What Else is Ahead

It’s already almost March, how is that even possible? We are so excited for the Firehorse year ahead. We have four more incredible books coming out, and we announced a new strategic partnership with Emmy-nominated producer Joy Gorman to help us develop TV and film adaptations for our upcoming books. You can read more in our Deadline announcement here.

But at Rise Literary, we believe in matriarchal business, which means success isn’t about winning for us. It’s really about the magic of bringing people together, of watching them connect and fall in love with one story. It’s about watching a book go from idea to final manuscript, from the story to the shelf, as our friend Michelle Garside always says.

We want to create an anti-supremacist, matriarchal global storytelling company, which isn’t always easy when you are conditioned and cultured in a patriarchal, supremacist economic structure. Hard decisions must be made; hearts might still break. But also, it means we get to rewrite the rules. We get to pivot. We get to make mistakes. We get to say, hey, how can we do this better?

WRITE NOW.

Which is why starting today, we are relaunching this Substack – and also, our podcast – Write the Good Fight. Because, as much as we will always be writing the good fight, we are changing the name to Write Now.

All of us at Rise Literary will be taking turns at the helm – I’ll be writing about storytelling and media, our Chief Marketing Officer Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld will be writing about book marketing and promotion, our Chief Operating Officer (and soon to be Rise Literary author) Elena Azzoni will be interviewing authors about the writing process and paths to publishing, and our Chief Creative Officer Vyana Novus will be covering art, creativity, and design. And of course, our Gen Z Content Director, Raya Whittington, will be the wild card in between.

Which is why our first episode this week will be with Raya and me discussing none other than Heated Rivalry, because we basically don’t know how to talk about anything else at this point. But also, we are making space for you! For a long time, we wanted this to be a community writing space, which means Write Now will also include writing from the people in our group courses. And speaking of, we are relaunching the course, Five Months to Memoir, with a whole new name and program: Five Months to Write Your Book.

Five Months to Write Your Book is a season of devotion to your work — bi-weekly coaching, weekly creative sessions, real feedback, and a real draft of your book. With craft talks and writing prompts, chapter trackers and an agent guide, it’s structure and soul working together so you can finally start and write your book.

Another big change is that starting March 1, we will no longer be offering private coaching for writers. We are always happy to share other coaches and editors for authors looking for one-on-one support, but we are making our group classes the places to go for writers looking to become published authors – and of course, through our incredible inspired publishing programs, including a new partnership with Kickstarter.

The Time Is Now

Because we do believe it’s time you Write Now. You start taking your own journey and putting it on the page. You start building your writing practice, but also your Author Alchemy. You start sharing your writing. You start meeting and connecting with other authors. You start finding your own story magic every day.

And we will keep building the programs and retreats, the books and the community for you to not only write your book but begin to share your writing and words with the world, to find other people, to connect with them, to fall in love with your own creativity. And theirs.

We are building this business brick by matriarchal brick, we are creating art, we are rewriting the rules, but also, we are writing the good fight. Because in a world filled with oppression and corruption, darkness and cruelty, our words are swords. And it is time we fight back. We are so excited about all to come, and we can’t wait to help you Write Now.

Leave a comment

Let’s find the story you were meant to tell!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Calling all Chicago friends! Join us for, How to Take Your Story From Idea to the Page - featuring Jennifer Pastiloff & Gertrude Lyons. It’s a special evening of interactive conversation between Jen and Gertrude about how they developed both of their books, Proof of Life & Rewrite the Mother Code.

• Author Alchemy is LIVE!

  • Are you tired of dreaming of being a writer but are now ready to become one? Whether you’re looking to write fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry, Author Alchemy is about understanding who you are as a writer and who you can become as an author.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• Five Months to Write Your Book - 19 March 2026

  • Five Months to Write Your Book is where you move from fantasy to first draft. Every other week, we gather for live group coaching sessions where your pages are read, shaped, and strengthened through thoughtful feedback and strategic direction.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from group classes to hybrid publishing, so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write Now. to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Sign Up Today

What do you get when you give two neurodivergent individuals mics and press record? You get this delightfully chaotic episode with ⁠Rise Literary⁠ Content Director ⁠Raya Whittington⁠ and Creative Director ⁠Vyana Novus⁠. The two discuss a wide array of topics, from the difference between patriarchal and matriarchal structures, the way age affects how you operate in corporate settings, and how to juggle the visions of many in the pursuit of one.

Suzanne Warye’s The Sober Shift

Suzanne Warye came to me in 2023 with a huge following built around sobriety for women and mothers. She wanted to write a memoir, but with her community and content, a purely personal story wouldn’t hit as hard. Instead, we crafted a book that was both prescriptive and polemic – a way to deliver actionable guidance without reducing readers to “here’s what you should do.”

Here’s the thing about prescriptive books: the market often treats them as “how-to” manuals, implying readers don’t know how to live their lives. But the best storytelling isn’t about handing someone a checklist; it’s about showing them “why this?”. Why the barriers exist, why the system is stacked, and how to navigate it. As Jay-Z says, “You can build your walls, we’re building tunnels under you.”

That’s the energy we channeled into Suzanne’s book: actionable strategies wrapped inside a personal story, so the reader feels empowered rather than lectured.

With this approach, we built a book proposal that struck the right balance of story and strategy. We pitched it to agents and landed Suzanne representation with Colleen O’Shea, who pushed us to lean further into the prescriptive edge. The proposal went to market and sold in a robust deal to HarperOne.

We continued as Suzanne’s book coaches through the manuscript process, shaping The Sober Shift, released September 2023. Her LA book launch at Zibby’s Bookshop was a blast, and we’re keeping the momentum with a free Zoom workshop, “Sharing Your Story Through Social Media” on November 10th – helping other writers turn lived experience into content that moves and connects.

Suzanne’s story shows how a well-crafted proposal can help authors tell the stories they genuinely want to write while shaping it for what the market wants to buy. You don’t have to sell your soul to do that – but it does require knowing your story deeply enough to fight for it.

With the right balance of personal voice, strategy, and market awareness, a proposal becomes a tool not just to sell a book, but to assert your vision and guide your creative journey.

Leave a comment

Let’s find the story you were meant to tell!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

What You Might Have Missed:

• Five Weeks to Book Proposal - 11/20

  • Five Weeks to Book Proposal is here to lead you through the intimidating process of taking your amazing ideas, story, and energy, and turning it into a traditional book proposal that you can use to sell your story. But this workshop isn’t just about the proposal; it is about the blueprint for your life as a published author.

• Five Days to Celebrated Author is OFFICIALLY EVERGREEN!

  • If you missed signing up for Five Days to Celebrated Author, no worries! We’ve created an evergreen version of this course so that you can pick this one up anytime.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from private coaching to group classes to hybrid publishing so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write the Good Fight to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Sign Up Today

Over the years, this program has brought countless authors into publishing deals and helped so many writers rise to the level of published authors through Rise Literary. Five weeks. Five live Q&As. Lifetime access to five modules. Feedback on your writing. A map through the sometimes chaotic, sometimes exhilarating process of taking a book from idea to proposal.

A couple of weeks ago, we started selling the program again. And then we paused.

Because here’s the truth: the world right now feels like it’s trying to tell us that creativity is a luxury only some people can afford. SNAP benefits have been cancelled, the cost of living is up, and our government continues to undermine basic human dignity, equity, and fairness. To be honest, it felt strangely tone-deaf to be saying, “Here’s your chance to unlock your creative potential… as long as you have cash.”

Creativity should never be conditional.

So we’re doing something we’ve never done before: a pay-what-you-can option. Period. No judgment. No fine print. You can still pay the regular price — which we’ve reduced by $150 — giving full access to the program: live Q&As, direct feedback on your work, and lifetime access to all modules. But if money is tight, you can pay what you are able. Because creativity belongs to everyone.

We also know that writing is political. Radical. Revolutionary. The words you put on the page can shape ideas, influence culture, and push society toward equity, justice, and inclusion. Five Weeks to Book Proposal is a safe space for radical thinkers, believers, and creators to begin the process of structuring their books. This is where ideas become legible, actionable, and real — and where writers can start taking back power in a world increasingly stacked against fairness, equity, and DEI. We’re not just teaching proposals; we’re nurturing the next wave of ideas that will change the conversation, one book at a time.

A book proposal is more than a sales tool. Yes, it can ultimately secure an agent and sell a book, but it’s also the space where you discover what kind of book you want to write, why it matters, and who it’s for. It’s a blueprint, a roadmap, a practice in articulating your vision before the first chapter is even typed. It’s where your inner voice meets the world — where radical thought becomes structured intention.

For many creatives, investing in themselves is the hardest part. I see it all the time: we’ll pay for nearly everything else — rent, groceries, therapy, childcare — but we’ll de-prioritize our own creativity. We defund our own work while funding everything else. Writing classes, coaching, hybrid publishing programs — we convince ourselves those are luxuries, while quietly sacrificing our creative dreams.

But if writing a book is a dream you care about, it is worth investing in. And “investing” doesn’t always mean a huge financial commitment. Sometimes it just means showing up, honoring your own work, and giving your creativity the time and space it deserves. That’s why we’ve created this low-barrier entry point: to make it easy for writers to invest in themselves without adding more stress to an already heavy world.

This program is about accountability, craft, and clarity. It’s about helping you articulate your story, your ideas, and your audience — and giving you actionable feedback to make it real. It’s about showing up for your work, your vision, and your voice. Most importantly, it’s about creating a space where your creativity is protected and celebrated — a radical act in itself in a society that constantly asks creators to wait, defer, or devalue their own work.

Creativity saves us. Individually, it keeps us sane. Collectively, it changes the world. Investing in your book is not just an investment in yourself, but in a vision for a fairer, more just, more equitable society. That’s what radical creativity looks like. That’s how we build back power, equity, and inclusion — one book at a time.

Five Weeks to Book Proposal starts November 20th. Pay what you can by DM, or invest at the reduced price to access live Q&As, feedback, and lifetime modules. Honor your creativity. Show up for your book. Take the chance. Because the world needs your voice, your ideas, and your courage now more than ever.

Leave a comment

Let’s find the story you were meant to tell!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

Dallas Friends!

Join us in downtown Plano on Tuesday, Nov 4 for a special evening celebrating the release of Wife Mother Drunk: An Intergenerational Memoir of Loss and Love by Emily Redondo.

6:00 PM – Ticketed book conversation with Emily Redondo & Kristen McGuiness
7:30 PM – Book release party + signing

Come connect, celebrate, and support local authors at your favorite indie bookshop!

We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from private coaching to group classes to hybrid publishing so reach out to us!

And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write the Good Fight to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Sign Up Today

In this episode, CEO and Publisher ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ is joined by actress and author ⁠Tembi Locke⁠ to discuss Locke’s new audiobook ⁠Someday, Now⁠, her journey as an actor turned author turned screenwriter, and the importance of writing as though the house is on fire. This funny and honest episode is not one to miss!

What You Might Have Missed:

• Suzanne Warye and Kristen McGuiness Workshop, Thursday, 10/30!

  • Community starts with our stories. How we tell them, how we share them, and who we share them with. And though we all might love to hate socials, it’s also the place where we find our people. If you’re ready to finally stop hiding and start sharing your story, join us for a free workshop with Suzanne Warye, author of The Sober Shift for “Share Your Story Through Social Media,” a free workshop for writers who are asking: I write… now what?

• Dallas Friends!

  • Join us in downtown Plano on Tuesday, Nov 4 for a special evening celebrating the release of Wife Mother Drunk: An Intergenerational Memoir of Loss and Love by Emily Redondo.

    6:00 PM – Ticketed book conversation with Emily Redondo & Kristen McGuiness
    7:30 PM – Book release party + signing

    Come connect, celebrate, and support local authors at your favorite indie bookshop!

• Five Days to Celebrated Author is OFFICIALLY EVERGREEN!

  • If you missed signing up for Five Days to Celebrated Author, no worries! We've created an evergreen version of this course so that you can pick this one up anytime.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from private coaching to group classes to hybrid publishing so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write the Good Fight to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Stay gold and happy writing!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

For the last four years, I have been trying to write a book about my father. It started in the early part of 2021, when people began reaching out to me from his own past. I blamed the pandemic. These older smugglers and lovers, DEA agents and former cellmates were retired and now isolated as we all tried to stay safe. Boredom led to wondering whatever happened to this person or that, and eventually those people began to wonder about my father. It only took a brief Google search to then find me.

I had first written a book proposal in 2011 to tell my father’s story. How a middle-class boy from Bridgeport went on to become one of the biggest marijuana smugglers of the 1970s. At the time, I wanted to film a documentary interviewing those same lovers and smugglers. But my aunt asked me not to write the story. Only five years before, my father had jumped parole, leading to a 50-person manhunt from the US Marshalls where they had upturned by aunt’s home. My father might have died but the trauma she endured was still fresh.

So I put the book away until ten years later when the ghosts came a knocking. In 2022, I wrote a Rolling Stone piece about my dad. It was the kind of article that should have led to book deals and a Hollywood film. I thought as much would happen. But then after meeting with some agents, getting a few fun Zoom calls, the story just didn’t come together, and honestly, I didn’t have time to figure it out.

The story was there and yet, it also wasn’t.

I didn’t know why until three weeks ago.

Because the story wasn’t over yet.

After shelving the book proposal I had been working on with a fantastic book coach (shout out to Emily Stone!), I figured I would pick it up when I had time again. Maybe even in another ten years. And part of me wondered whether ever.

Which seemed wild. My father deserved to have his story told. And since his death in 2009, there had been so many times where I felt like he was offering me hints and nudges, pieces of the puzzle falling into place, just enough to keep me going, so how could I stop?

And yet I did. Because sometimes we don’t know where a story is going until we know how it ends. I work with a lot of writers on memoir and though so many people want to start writing in the middle of the story – as they should, as I did – sometimes, we can’t finish it until the tale is fully revealed.

Mine wasn’t yet. And then I cleaned out my desk.

My partner in Rise Literary, Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld, our CMO, was sitting on the couch in my office when I pulled out a sealed court document from 1987. I didn’t know what it contained. I started flipping through it thinking it was an appeal my father might have done after his conviction in 1983 and subsequent 60-year sentence.

But as I began to read the court document, I found another story I never knew.

My father wasn’t just an international drug smuggler, he was federal informant.

In his first four years of prison, he had stopped three prison escapes, saved the life of a prison guard from an inside hit, and helped to bring down the pilot for Pablo Escobar with fellow smuggler George Jung (the inspiration for the movie “Blow”).

In that document, the leading FBI agent on the Escobar case had come together with the DEA and the prosecuting attorney on my father’s conviction to ask for a 50-year reduction in his sentence so they could furlough my father into the DEA and FBI’s intelligence to help with undercover operations.

According to the agent who testified, my father had been risking his life for four years in order to be able to achieve freedom and they believed he would honor it through the furlough.

The attorney explained that they couldn’t furlough my father out of anything less than a 10-year sentence or he would be marked as an informant and likely killed if he and his family weren’t put into witness protection.

Okay, so here is where I come in. What the actual fuck? As I told my mother after reading this, we would have had to go into witness protection? I was nine.

The judge in the hearing listened to what appears to be hours of testimony on my father’s behalf and then comes back and offers his verdict. He reduces the sentence to 30 years. My father has no chance of furlough.

He ends up serving 20 years of that sentence.

When I was nine years old, my father told me he was coming home. I always remembered the date because I told all my friends that my dad was going to be back on that day: June 5, 1987.

After reading the court document, I turned back to the front page.

June 5, 1987.

He thought he was coming home. He thought he would walk out of that courtroom that day, a free man. He didn’t. In fact, though he was finally released in April of 2003, when I was 25-years old, he never did come home.

And six years later, he would be dead. And today, he would have been 80 years old.

I will write his story. Because he risked his life for freedom, and he never got it. He lived a crazy, swashbuckling, dangerous life and it deserves to be told.

It deserves a book deal and a Hollywood film. And I deserve to watch some actor up there on the screen playing my dad and showing the world the fucking injustice of it all. And the horrible stupid games men play with power.

After I shared the story with Lauren and my husband, Lauren looked up the judge and we found that he was dead too. He died just this summer, at the age of 93. I wonder if he ever thought about the decisions he made and how they impacted people. How his ironclad commitment to the law broke actual human hearts.

And I wonder how my dad returned to prison that day, knowing he was so close. I don’t want to be so close in life. I want to get to the win. And I want to write his story.

And on his 80^th birthday, I am committing to doing that. And I’ll keep listening as he continues to find ways to share it with me.

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Let’s find the story you were meant to tell!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

Book Magic is next week in NYC!

I cannot wait and if you live in NYC, neither should you! Seats are going fast so if you’re in the area and want to come, please sign up today. Also, if money is an issue (when isn’t money an issue?!), please let us know. We’re happy to discount when needed as it is really just such an incredible day and lineup for anyone who is looking to write or publish their book. And I’ll tell more crazy stories - I promise! I mean, have you met me?? Here is the link for more information.

Book Magic NYC is one-day writers’ retreat that will show you what it takes to go from emerging writer to published author, guided by industry professionals who will give you the insight only experience can offer.

Spend a day charting your book—from your book brand to book publicity, from writing your first draft to understanding the publishing landscape. Through live Q+As and coaching with book editors and agents, published authors, and PR professionals, Book Magic Live will help you find your path to publishing.

Sign Up Today

On this episode, publisher ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ ⁠⁠is joined by the first-ever Rise client, ⁠Christopher Rivas⁠, as they dive into everything from creativity to the real James Bond, and sperm! It’s hilarious, nostalgic, insightful, and so fun. You’ll definitely want to listen to this one!

Loathing to Living and a Lot of Hustling with Sarah Gormley

“I like that you use the word hustle because that’s what it is… What are you doing today to talk about the book? Figure it out. Go! Email somebody.”

On this episode, Publisher ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ and CMO ⁠Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld⁠ are joined by author and art gallery owner ⁠Sarah Gormley⁠ to discuss how she went from loathing her life to living it to the fullest. From writing a book to successfully marketing said book and finally feeling like life is how it should be, this is truly an uplifting episode.

What You Might Have Missed:

• Book Magic Live is back, Friday, 10/3!

  • Spend a day charting your book—from your book brand to your book plan, from writing essays to understanding the marketplace. Through live Q+As with book editors and coaches, published authors, and PR professionals, Book Magic Live will help you find your path to publishing. Sign up here!

• Five Months to Memoir is back - and now on Sundays, starting September 21st!

  • ONE SPOT LEFT! Sign up now if you’re ready to stop dreaming about your book and start writing it. This five-month workshop is your space to finally tell your story. Let’s help you craft the book only you can write.

• And Five Days to Celebrated Author is OFFICIALLY EVERGREEN!

  • If you missed signing up for Five Days to Celebrated Author, no worries! We've created an evergreen version of this course so that you can pick this one up anytime.

• What Kind of Writer are You Quiz

  • What kind of writer are you? We launched a free quiz (with writing prompts) this summer to help you find your writing archetype and break through your writing hurdles.

• We are always here if you are ready to write your book - from private coaching to group classes to hybrid publishing so reach out to us!

• And subscribe here for all of this and more on Substack, IG, and wherever podcasts are sold!

Become a free or paid subscriber to Write the Good Fight to support emerging writers and to help more storytellers share their truth.

Stay gold and happy writing!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

I just don’t think I’m ready, but maybe in the spring.

I wish I could afford it, but it’s just not a fit right now.

As a book coach for over five years now, I have gotten used to hearing people say no. I do a lot of prospect calls. And it’s a rare day when the call doesn’t end with someone looking lit up on the other side of the Zoom. We have talked about the book they dream of writing, or maybe have even already written. We discuss how we can help them finish their book, find an agent, and even publish it with Rise Books. I share what other authors have done, not to sell them, though obviously I have a business to run, but to show where their writing can take them - building them a business, landing them a keynote speech, offering them a platform.

I talk to them about writing their memoirs, sharing their incredible stories, but also their hard ones. We talk about the intimacy of writing and what it really means to share your story. We talk about art and poetry and what it feels like to finally hold your book in your hand, knowing that the process might have been long and grueling (I don’t hide the hard parts), but that it was always, always worth it.

Then we hang up the Zoom or the phone. And I follow up. And then the creative regression begins. Sure, sometimes it sucks because it has implications on my business and revenue, but more than that, it makes me sad to see how easy it is for us to quickly deny our creativity. But perhaps worse, we actively defund it (that said, I understand that some people truly can’t afford courses and coaching, and that is the beauty of scholarships, but there is usually something much deeper happening beneath that).

And I get it. I’ve done the same thing so many times in my life, in the wise words of Tony Soprano, “I know what it’s like to lose a pet,” or more accurately, I know what it’s like to bury a dream. To want to write the thing, create the project, and then see all the obstacles that make it impossible for me to get there - I don’t have the time or the money or the emotional space.

Just last week, I led a writing workshop with our incredible author Emily Redondo (whose book Wife Mother Drunk is out November 4th), where we talked about a dream that should not have been buried. At the end, we asked everyone to write about what stops them from writing, and all I could write was: I have the time to write. I have the time to write. I have the time to write.

Because I do. Even between running a book coaching and publishing company, driving the kids to swim and soccer, and spending time with my 93-year-old grandmother. In between business trips, therapy appointments, and dinners with friends, I have time to write. I am writing right now. But I also know how hard it is to prioritize that. How easy it is for something else to feel more important than my own creativity.

Because creativity is often treated like a privilege in our culture. Only people with means get to be creative. Or people with free time. If you’ve got family responsibilities or financial ones, you’re not supposed to be frollicking off into the forest - or even your couch - to write. You’re not allowed to sign up for the workshop. Or invest in a book coach. You’re not allowed to pour money into your dream. Yoga classes? Sure. A trip to Sephora? That’s alright.

But a story that beats inside of you? The one that keeps whispering, let me out. Our world doesn’t want that. It wants you to stay silent. Until you can’t.

Back in June, we hosted our first live podcast event with another amazing author and dear friend, Rob Bell. I don’t think there was a more gutting moment on stage than when Rob shared about the life and death nature of our own creativity.

Lots of people have, like, a strange thing they're interested in or a hunch or a thing, and I don't know why it's tugging on your sleeve, but if you put it in the most drastic binary sometimes, I don't know. It just feels like living. And what that does is the antidote to getting jammed up in your brain. And you make a commitment not to rationalize, defend, or explain that. You just ask and take the next step. I have no confidence I can do anything. I just have confidence that I can try. And somewhere along the way, the pain of not following it just feels like death at some deep level. So I'd just rather be alive at some level.

Because that creativity inside us, that one we keep putting off, or don’t believe we have the time or the money for, the one we keep trying and quitting and trying again, it is life. And it has its own life.

That dream isn’t yours to bury. It deserves to be here, to be created. Even if it never makes you a dime. In telling that story, you create life. And you let the dream live.

So stop putting your creativity on the back burner. Stop pretending it isn’t important. Or that you don’t deserve to be an artist. We are all creatives. We are all dreamers. And we all deserve the space and time to make art. To show that we are alive.

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Five things you can do right now to prioritize your creativity:

1. Write 500 words right now. About anything. About this post. About what you had for breakfast. About the last sunset you saw. Or the last heartbreak you experienced.

2. Buy a book of poetry. Or read a poem. Or write a poem. But take a few minutes and remind yourself that poetry exists. And what a hallelujah miracle.

3. Follow your favorite writer on social media. Send them a DM. Tell them you’re going to stop ignoring your creativity. Tell them how they inspire you to write.

4. Write once a week. Then maybe twice a week. Then maybe you’ll start writing almost every day. The trying is enough.

5. Sign up for Five Months to Memoir. Not because I’m here to sell you on it (business, commerce!) but because you deserve to dance with your own creativity. And we built you a really special dance floor.

Let’s find the story you were meant to tell!

Kristen + the Rise Literary Team

Coming Up!

I am so excited to be returning to the bright light of this company: book coaching. We just opened up spots for Five Months to Memoir - which I have joked, they will have to wrest from my cold, busy hands. Because I will never love anything more (than my children of course) than watching a group of writers come together to share their truths and find each other.

And we have changed the pricing structure to make it more affordable than ever!

Now, you can sign up for the group classes with two 30-minute private sessions for only $329 a month - or if you want more intense coaching, you can add five private ONE-HOUR sessions with me for $549 a month! PS - I am using "9s" because "they" told me to. And if you pay up front, you can get 10% with the code RISEWRITE!

Sign up here.

Classes start Sunday, September 21st, and run every other week through Sunday, January 11th. They're offered live and recorded (with two private sessions) and include craft talks, live feedback, deep content development, and most importantly, a writing community to support your work, offering accountability, friendship, and the push we all need to just keep writing!

Book Magic Live is back, Friday, 10/3!

This one-day writers’ retreat, Friday, October 3, 2025, at the Arlo Midtown in New York, will show you what it takes to go from emerging writer to published author, guided by industry professionals who will give you the insight only experience can offer.

For $149, spend a day charting your book—from your book brand to your book plan, from writing essays to understanding the marketplace. Through live Q+As with book editors and coaches, published authors, and PR professionals, Book Magic Live will help you find your path to publishing. Sign up here!