Open Book with Narratively Academy

Thanks so much to everyone who joined our virtual launch party this Wednesday! It was such a treat to meet writers from all around the world and to hear about what you want from this writing community. Special thanks to Narratively Academy instructors Kerra Bolton, Audrey Clare Farley and Kern Carter for telling us all a bit about how you do what you do, and to everyone who asked a question out loud or in the chat.

For those of you who missed it, you can watch the full video above to get a sense for what we have coming up at Narratively Academy.

Questions? Ideas for other things we should do? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

A few weeks ago, we published a deeply moving essay by Elizabeth Laura Nelson about love, loss and moving on. Earlier this afternoon, our executive editor, Jesse Sposato, spoke with her about how the piece came to be, what the writing process was like, what she’s working on currently and so much more.

We loved every minute of it, but this may be our favorite line: “I don’t love advice. I don’t love giving it, I don’t love getting it, [but] my advice … is do what feels right for you, and … don’t listen to other people too much.”

If you missed the live conversation, you can watch the whole thing above. Thank you to everyone for joining, commenting, sending hearts and asking questions. It was a great time!

Elizabeth Austin’s revealing and emotional story “I Was the World’s Worst Cancer Mom” has really hit a nerve with our readers. Earlier today, Narratively co-founder Brendan Spiegel sat down with Elizabeth to chat about what’s happened in her life since she wrote this piece, how she’s built her successful career as a freelance writer, and much more. We had a really fun chat—thanks so much to everyone who joined and chimed in with such interesting questions!

If you missed our live chat earlier today, just click play above to catch up.

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