Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through Writing

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Brett Will Taylor joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss vulnerability, family stories, shamanism, and the importance of leaning into the mystery.

As you listen to this episode, consider the following questions:  What are the family stories that you are living from? Who are your people and who or what do you consider to be your guides? How do you grapple with the things that no longer serve you? How does this work and the work of being present in life help you find and sharpen your writing voice?

Brett Will Taylor is forever exploring the stories we tell ourselves. He does that through his own writing, as a consultant to Fortune 100 companies, and a thought partner to men interested in their own development. Currently, he is writing a one-man show called "Home Free." On the surface, the show is about selling and emptying the family home of forty years. On a deeper level, it's about the stories we tell ourselves: why we create them, why it's so hard to let go of them, and what happens when we do.

Episode Highlights: 

2:00 Family Stories 

8:00 Confronting Your Vulnerability

10:00 Defining Shamanism

12:00 The Importance of Story

17:00 Grappling with What No Longer Serves Us

27:00 Strategies for Staying Present

34:00 Finding Your Voice 

Items mentioned during this episode: 

Wired for Story: https://www.slj.com/story/wired-for-stories

https://www.brettwilltaylor.today/on-letting-the-ghosts-of-love-say-good-bye/

https://www.brettwilltaylor.today/when-a-guest-bathroom-isnt-just-a-guest-bathroom/

https://www.brettwilltaylor.today/on-continuation-indras-net-and-an-old-alabaster-lamp/

Connect with Brett: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brettwilltaylorpage/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Brettwilltaylor/

Website: https://www.brettwilltaylor.today

Connect with your host, Lisa:

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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

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Katie Rose Guest Pryal joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to take a deep dive into what neurodiversity is and how it impacts writers.

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What do you know about neurodiversity? Do you consider yourself to be neurodivergent? If you are, how does that impact the way you set up your writing life, what you write about, and how you see the world?

Katie Rose Guest Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is a bipolar-autistic author, keynote speaker, law professor, and expert in mental health and neurodiversity. Her books include Life of the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education, the IPPY-Gold-winning Even If You’re Broken: Bodies, Boundaries, and Mental Health, and A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education. She writes frequently for national magazines and speaks around the country about mental health and neurodiversity. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Episode Highlights

• 2:00 Defining Neurodiversity 
• 11: 00 The Power of a Diagnosis 
• 15:00 The Problem of Overwhelm
• 20:00 Reclaiming the Word Selfish
• 26:00 Learn to Cope
• 31:00 Fitting into the Narrow Band of “Normal” 
• 34:45 Writing and Neurodiversity 

Items mentioned during this episode: 

Katie’s post about overwhelm: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzbTVgJgc5L/

Compton Cowboys: https://www.instagram.com/comptoncowboys/

Contact Katie: 

Substack: https://krgpryal.substack.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krgpryal/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krgpryal/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/krgpryal

Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/krpgryal.bsky.social

Connect with your host, Lisa:

Get Your Free Copy of Write More, Fret Less: https://lisacooperellison.com/newsletter-subscribe/

Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/

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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

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Athena Dixon joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss the multiple facets of loneliness, how to decide what is for you and what is for the public, and how to create your own definition of success. 

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: How do you define loneliness? How did the pandemic impact the way that you define and experienced it? What does success look like for you? What is one positive association you have with being alone?

Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. She is the author of The Loneliness Files (Tin House 2023) and The Incredible Shrinking Woman (Split/Lip Press 2020). Her work is also included in the anthology The Breakbeat Poets Vol.2: Black Girl Magic and her craft work appears in Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction. Athena is an alumni of V.O.N.A., Callaloo, and Tin House and has received a prose fellowship from The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and a Second Book Residency from Tin House.

Episode Highlights: 

• 4:00 The problem of loneliness
• 8:00 Establishing intimacy between writer and reader
• 11:00 The skills of being honest
• 16:00 Finding the vessel for your story 
• 20:00 Defining success for yourself 
• 27:00 Digital loneliness 
• 35:49 Intentional isolation 
• 42:00 The relationship between loneliness and hyper-independence 

Essay mentioned during this episode: 

• https://gay.medium.com/the-incredible-shrinking-woman-997f50b9e63b

Connect with Athena 

Website: https://athenadixon.com/

Instagram: the_muse_paper
Twitter/X: AthenaDDixon
Facebook: AthenaDevonDixon

Connect with your host, Lisa:

Get Your Free Copy of Write More, Fret Less: https://lisacooperellison.com/newsletter-subscribe/ 

Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/

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Sign up for Create Your Memoir’s Beat Sheet: https://janefriedman.com/craft-your-memoirs-beat-sheet-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

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Sarah Perry joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to talk about the choices they  made while writing their award-winning memoir, After the Eclipse, and how each decision helped them build a book about their mother’s murder that was more than a true crime story. In this conversation, they explore the structure of Sarah’s book, how to build a character based on research, navigating the challenges of memory, and why closure isn’t what some of us are looking for.

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What’s the toughest experience you’ve been through? If you wrote about it, what would you like readers to focus on? How might you need to structure this book in order to make that happen? How would you take care of yourself while dealing with the toughest parts of your story, especially if that meant researching police reports or interviewing other people to bring a character to life? What would you do with all that research? 

Sarah Perry (she/they) is a memoirist and essayist who writes about love, trauma, gender-based violence, queerness, and the power dynamics that influence those concerns. She is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Her second book, a memoir-in-essays called Sweet Nothings, is forthcoming from Mariner in 2024. Shorter work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Off Assignment, Elle magazine, The Guardian, and other outlets. A former Tulsa Artist Fellow and recipient of fellowships from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, VCCA, Playa, and The Studios of Key West, she holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University. She is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.

Episode Highlights 

• 2:00 Framing a tough story
• 8:00 Building a character you can’t interview
• 12:00 Finding a resolution when closure isn’t possible 
• 20:00 Navigating the challenges of memory
• 31:00 Structuring a dual timeline narrative 
• 45:00 Navigating research and coping with tough material 

Sarah’s essays: 

• To the Man I made Into a Stranger 
• A Young Girl Searches for Truth After Her Mother’s Murder

Connect with Sarah 
Website: sarahperryauthor.net
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahperry100
X: https://twitter.com/trickylarouge

Connect with your host, Lisa:

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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

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TW: Mention of Suicide

Eileen Vorbach Collins joins the Writing Your Resilience podcast to talk about living with and writing about grief, breaking free of stigma and shame, how your structure serves your readers, and the importance of humor, even when writing about unimaginable pain. 

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you experienced a profound loss like death, divorce, or something else? What helped you make sense of it? What helped you learn to live with this experience? What are your thoughts on Prolonged Grief Disorder? How do you find the light in the darkest of moments? 

Eileen Vorbach Collins, a Baltimore native, has a BS degree in nursing and an MA in pastoral care. She has written extensively about child loss since her 15-year-old daughter's suicide. Eileen’s writing has received several literary awards and two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her micro essay, “Howl and Whisper,” was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024, and her award-winning essay collection, Love in the Archives, A Patchwork of True Stories About Suicide Loss, was published in 2023 by Apprentice House Press.

Episode Highlights:

2:00: How structure serves your readers

10:00 Roadblocks to write the unimaginable 

15:30 The importance of including humor  

17:00 The problem with Prolonged Grief Disorder 

25::00 Living with grief and dealing with sibling loss 

33:30 Battling the stigma of suicide loss 

39:00 Writing as a way to combat shame 

Resources for this episode: 

• To learn more about the history of homosexuality and the DSM, click here
• To read about Prolonged Grief Disorder, click here; to read about the criticisms of it, click here

Essays by Eileen:

• Howl and Whisper
• A Publishing Contract: When Jupiter Aligns with Mars
• Give Sorrow Words  

Connect with Eileen: 

Website: https://www.loveinthearchives.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vorbachcollins/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evorbachcollins

Connect with your host, Lisa:

Get Your Free Copy of Write More, Fret Less: https://lisacooperellison.com/newsletter-subscribe/ 

Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/

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Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

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Let’s Talk Memoir host Ronit Plank joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss writing about abandonment, the importance of understanding the context of your story, the challenges around writing about family, publishing with small presses and much more. 

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you ever written about someone who's abandoned you? What kind of feedback did you get? Do you wonder how to do this without making them a monster or abandoning yourself? Ever wonder what it might be like to publish this work, or where you might publish it?

Ronit Plank’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches memoir workshops and is working on her next book.

Episode Highlights:

8:00 Lessons on writing about abandonment

14:00 The power of context

20:30 The challenges of publishing stories about complex characters 

29:15: How to tell if your project is complete

35:01 Finding your story’s emotional truth 

40: Publishing with small presses 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Courtney Maum post on hiring a publicist. 

Hot Sheet Article on Books Being Sold by Word of Mouth

Ronit’s essay “How to Approach Family and Friends About Your Memoir

Ronit’s essay “I want to heal my son so badly”

Connect with Ronit:

Website: https://ronitplank.com

Instagram: @ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Connect with your host, Lisa:

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Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

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Laura Davis joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss the healing power of writing, the difference between writing to heal and writing for a public audience, and  the challenges she faced while writing her memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars.

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: What role has writing played in your life? If you have been writing for a while, which piece has healed you the most? Have you ever received feedback that something should be taken out of a piece of writing only to have a burning desire to keep it around? How do you know if a piece of writing is really ready to be published?

Laura Davis is the author of The Burning Light of Two Stars, The Courage to Heal, and five other groundbreaking books. In addition to writing books that inspire, the work of Laura’s heart is to teach. For more than twenty-five years, she’s helped people find their voices, tell their stories, and hone their craft. Laura has been published in Publisher's Weekly, Writer's Digest, CrimeReads, Brevity, and The New York Times, featured in Los Angeles Review of Books, and on QWERTY, Write-Minded, The Only One in the Room, and dozens of other podcasts. She's a featured speaker for The National Association of Memoir Writers and a popular teacher at The San Miguel Writers’ Conference and at Esalen in Big Sur. Learn about her workshops, classes and international retreats, and read the first five chapters of her memoir at www.lauradavis.net.

Episode Highlights 

• 8:25 Dealing with the emotional rigors of memoir writing
• 12:45: Writing to heal 
• 21:00 Writing for yourself versus an audience
• 34:45 Beginning your book 
• 46:50 Structuring your book and including primary sources 

Connect with Laura Davis:

Website: www.lauradavis.net 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurasaridavis

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewritersjourney

Free Ebook: Writing Toward Courage: A 30-Day Practice. Click here to receive this beautiful, thought-provoking creative gift. 

FEATURED RETREAT: Writing as a Pathway Through Grief, Uncertainty and Change - May 7-13 - Northern California.

THROUGH FEBRUARY 2024: Purchase The Burning Light of Two Stars for 70% off here. Insert the code BURNINGLIGHT70 when you get to the final step on the shopping cart.

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Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

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Zebib Abraham joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to discuss why she writes fiction, the relationship between writing and mental health, and tools writers can use to cultivate resilience, self-compassion, and radical acceptance of themselves and their work. 

Here are a few questions to ponder as you listen to this episode: Have you ever considered whether something should be written as fiction or nonfiction? Do you wonder which genre might be the most compassionate to you and allow you the freedom to explore your emotional truth? Do you know what self-compassion actually means and what it takes to cultivate it? 

Zebib K. Abraham (she/her) is a writer and psychiatrist. She is a graduate of Cornell medical school and completed a Master’s in Creative Writing with distinction from the University of Edinburgh. Zebib has been published in FANTASY Magazine, The Rumpus, The Chestnut Review, Podcastle, and Necessary Fiction, among others. She is a full member of the Science Fiction and Writers Association and has been a commissioned storyteller for the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Zebib publishes under the name Z. K. Abraham, and writes film criticism in addition to her work in fiction and creative nonfiction. She is represented by C. L. Geisler at ArtHouse Literary Agency.

Episode Highlights:

• 10:00: Choosing Fiction Versus Nonfiction 
• 20:30 Writing and Mental Health 
• 30:00 The Inner Work of Your Writing Life 
• 35:00 Understanding Radical Acceptance  
• 39:30  The Challenge of Oral Storytelling 
• 49:00 Tools for Being a Resilient Writer 

Resources mentioned during this episode: 

• Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff
• “How Can You Tell If You’re Starting Your Story in the Right Place?” by Susan DeFreitas: https://janefriedman.com/how-can-you-tell-if-youre-starting-your-story-in-the-right-place/
• “What Is Wise Mind” by Dr. Paul Green: https://www.manhattancbt.com/wise-mind-dbt/

Connect with Zebib:

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/pegasusunder1
• Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/pegasusunder.bsky.social
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pegasusunder
• Website: https://zkabraham.com/

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Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

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Melanie Brooks joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to speak about her book, A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All. This is the book she once struggled to write about her father's death.  In today's episode, we'll explore the powerful impact silence has on you and how to break through it. 

Before we get to this conversation, I have a few questions for you. What role has silence played in your writing and in your life? Has it ever been helpful? Has it ever held you back? If you could learn one thing about it, what would that be? How could learning this help you become more resilient? 

Melanie Brooks is the author of A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All (Vine Leaves Press, September 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches professional writing at Northeastern University and creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Bay Path University in Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program. She recently completed a Certificate of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today, the HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from college), and two Labs.

Episode Highlights

• 2:55: The pain of living with secrets
• 5:54: Navigating anticipatory grief 
• 15:45: The transformative power of finishing your story 
• 20:00 The magic of timing and the stories we tell ourselves 
• 26:00 The influence of narrative medicine on Melanie’s story
• 30:00 Marrying two stories into one 
• 37:00 Melanie’s best writing advice 

Connect with Melanie:

Website: melaniebrooks.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melanie.brooks.1690

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melaniejmbrookswriter

X: https://twitter.com/MelanieJMBrooks

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/melanie-brooks-504826121
Get Melanie’s book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-hard-silence-one-daughter-remaps-family-grief-and-faith-when-hiv-aids-changes-it-all-melanie-brooks/20151761?ean=9783988320209

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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

Connect with your host, Lisa:
Get Your Free Copy of Ditch Your Inner Critic: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/
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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production

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TW: Mention of Suicide 

Get to know your host Lisa Cooper Ellison. Whether she was working to stay safe in an abusive home, running away from it, or navigating her brother’s suicide, Lisa has always turned to the page. She had no idea that losing everything while Battling Lyme disease would transform a hobby into an essential tool that helped her reignite her resilience and rewire her nervous system. 

Resilience has always played a huge role in Lisa’s life, and through this podcast she wants to help you learn how to become a resilient writer. She’ll help you do this by teaching you the concepts that can help you flourish, sharing stories from writers and mental health professionals who’ve done this work, and inviting you to flip the script on the stories that no longer serve you. 

This season on the podcast we're going to look at how silence, loneliness, self gaslighting, and trauma impact the stories we tell ourselves. You're going to learn how self-compassion, seeing the big picture, and claiming your neurodiversity can help you become more resilient and a better writer. 

Plus, we're going to look at how to navigate difficult research when you're working on a trauma-filled story, how to portray difficult characters, and how to care for yourself when you are writing the toughest of stories. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison is an author, speaker, and trauma-informed writing coach with an Ed.S in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She has spent the last two decades helping clients and students turn difficult experiences into art, and the past seven specifically teaching people how to write their resilience. She currently teaches courses in memoir, the psychology of writing, and the book proposal. Her essays have appeared in Huffington Post, Hippocampus Literary Magazine, and Kenyon Review Online, among others. She’s represented by The Bindery and recently completed her memoir Please Stage Dive Carefully: How I Survived My Brother’s Suicide and Forgave Myself

Connect with your host, Lisa:

Get Your Free Copy of Write More, Fret Less: https://lisacooperellison.com/newsletter-subscribe/

Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisacooperellison/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UColPDzpoQlVktIv7-f7ObRg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisacooperellison/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-ellison-b5483840/

Sign up for Find the Memoir Structure that Works for You: https://janefriedman.com/find-the-memoir-structure-that-works-for-you-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.

Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/

Connect with your host, Lisa:
Get Your Free Copy of Ditch Your Inner Critic: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/
Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | LinkedIn

Produced by Espresso Podcast Production