In this episode Mark interviews Andrea Torrey Balsara about her writing, her passion in inspiring joy through storytelling and energy healing, trauma, creativity and much more.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

I THINK IT'S A SIGN THAT THE PUN ALSO RISES is available now in hardcover, mass market sized paperback, and audiobook.

In the interview Mark and Andrea talk about:

• The very serious and troubling trauma Andrea had been living with for most of her life without realizing it and how it prevented her from trying to focus and work on
• The sabotage that kept creeping up from her subconscious
• Being told the importance of writing her own stories, which led to taking some writing classes
• How writing became a way for Andrea to express things that she was not otherwise able to express and the way it led her into a space where she could become fully creative
• When the memory of the terrible trauma came back to Andrea and struggling with wondering if it really truly happened
• How it's almost easiest to allow yourself to go crazy than to think that you "were evil" or just making this all up
• Not avoiding the darkness in her Young Adult books
• The love that Andrea has for the teenage girl that she was
• How hard it is for a person hurting and going through such trauma just taking that next step
• Finding herself within the character of a story of hope and finding the light in the darkness
• Recognizing that yes, horrible things happen in this world, but many gifts are also given to help get through it
• The "heroes journey" of making one's life satisfying saying "this is not where my story ends"
• Andrea's novel THE GREAT AND THE SMALL and how it explores what it takes to enable the rise of dictatorship via very small personal compromises that a person can make along the way
• The value in looking for the light, looking for the hope, and the importance of people being the change in Andrea's novel
• Believing in the capacity and the necessity to unite, and that the search for truth is a human right and responsibility that lies within each of us
• The "10 Steps to Inner Peace" that helped Andrea through the darkness (and which is available for anyone to read via a download on her website
• How evil itself isn't a thing, it's the absence of love
• The way that we can be that "leaven" in the bread
• The studies that have shown that sending love to a plant can help it thrive (and vice-versa when sending negative energy)
• And more . . .

After the interview Mark reflects on a few elements of the Andrea's message that resonated with him.

Links of Interest:

• Andrea Torrey Balsara's Website
  • Instagram
  • Link to Andrea's TEN STEPS TO INNER PEACE PDF download
• Manuscript Report (Mark's affiliate link)
• Buy Mark a Coffee
• Patreon for Stark Reflections
• Mark's YouTube channel
• ElevenLabs (AI Voice Generation - Affiliate link)
• Mark's Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Newsletter (Signup)
• An Author's Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries
• The Relaxed Author
  • Buy eBook Direct
  • Buy Audiobook Direct
• Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
• An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores
• Wide for the Win
• Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books
  • This Time Around (Short Story)
  • A Canadian Werewolf in New York
  • Stowe Away (Novella)
  • Fear and Longing in Los Angeles
  • Fright Nights, Big City
  • Lover's Moon
  • Hex and the City
  • Only Monsters in the Building
• The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard
• Merry Christmas! Shitter Was Full!: A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
• I Think It's A Sign That The Pun Also Rises

Andrea Torrey Balsara is an award-winning children's and young adult author/illustrator, as well as an energy medicine practitioner and mental wellness and creativity coach. Her passion is to inspire joy through storytelling and energy healing, helping people-of-all-ages to walk "the Hero's Journey" in real life. She writes and illustrates for young children under her full name, Andrea Torrey Balsara, and for young adults under A.T. Balsara.

Andrea is also a painter, an avid amateur explorer of quantum physics, and a keen environmentalist. She advocates for the humane treatment of animals and regularly volunteers at a donkey sanctuary where she uses energy medicine to help previously neglected and abused animals regain their health and vitality.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast ("Laser Groove") was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0