In this week’s edition of Tranquility du Jour, I chat with Jamie Cat Callan on:

• Embracing Midlife as a Creative Renaissance Jaime shares how midlife is an opportunity to reconnect with past passions and reinvent oneself. Whether it’s revisiting teenage interests like art or dance, or shifting career paths, she highlights how this stage of life offers a chance for rediscovery and personal growth.

• Navigating Change with Grace and Trust From career shifts to personal loss, Jaime reflects on the challenges of midlife and emphasizes the importance of trust, adaptability, and a positive mindset. She encourages embracing change rather than resisting it, knowing that even difficult transitions often lead to unexpected gifts.

• Cultivating Everyday French-Inspired Beauty Living with intention and ceremony, Jaime infuses her days with Parisian charm—savoring small pleasures like tea in fine china, fresh flowers, and red lipstick. She reminds us that beauty is found in the details and that a cultivated, mindful life brings joy and fulfillment.

• The Power of Rest and Reflection Jaime swears by her daily nap, a habit passed down from her French grandmother and even favored by Jackie Kennedy. She finds that these moments of rest keep her energized and creatively inspired, reinforcing the importance of slowing down and honoring one's well-being.

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Grab your journal, a cuppa tea, and settle in for this week’s inspiration.

 

Our Guest: Jamie Cat Callan

Jamie Cat Callan is known for her French lifestyle books, mostly recently, Parisian Charm School from Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of The Writers Toolbox from Chronicle Books. She is currently finishing her novel about an American girl in Paris during the tumultuous month of May 1968.

Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, American Letters & Commentary, Story, Sun Magazine and The Missouri Review. She is a recipient of grants from the New York Council on the Arts, the Pen American Center, The Massachusetts Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. She has been awarded residency fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation, the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, Dorland Mountain Artists Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Arts (in Virginia, as well as international residencies in France and Germany).

She taught creative writing at Wesleyan University, New York University, U.C.L.A., the Low Residency MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, Fairfield University and she served as a teaching fellow at Yale University.

Jamie received an MFA in Film, Theatre and Television from UCLA, an MA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and a BA in Literature with a focus in poetry from Bard College. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley on a small working farm with her husband, William G. Thompson, a retired Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist.

Find Our Guest

• Website

• Instagram

• Substack

• Facebook

• Past Podcast Episodes: #289: finding your ooh la la, #414: Parisian Charm School

Mentioned in the Show

• Year of Tranquility digital course: 52 weekly lessons aligned with midlife

• Join my Substack Private Collection for five monthly tranquility tools, my month in review with resources, and occasional extras for only $1.90/week ($99/year)

• All Tranquility du Jour offerings: work 1:1, salons, digital courses, and more