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Do you ever wish someone could just tell you exactly how to find the right publisher for your book? As academic writers, we sometimes tend to make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. In this first-ever guest episode of the podcast, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer, a developmental editor and publishing consultant. Laura and I discussed the practicalities of navigating the book publishing process and finding the best press for a manuscript.

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

This is the third installment of my series on leaving academia. I’m going to share five  powerful, commonly accepted beliefs or assumptions that I think keep academics stuck in place. By stuck, I mean stuck in certain dysfunctional behavior patterns around work and/or stuck in difficult or toxic workplace situations.  I’ll name them so you can start considering ways to free yourself of them and putting your own needs and priorities first.

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

If you’re struggling in your daily life, as many academics are, it’s imperative to take a deeper look at what you believe to be true about your situation. Once you know which underlying beliefs are operating, you can choose to reframe them or to take action to change things for the better. Therefore, today’s episode presents the top 4 beliefs scholars must question and unlearn if they want to be happier in academia or they want to leave it in an emotionally healthier place. 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Who is your ideal reader? It’s a tricky question for academics. Now that I’ve been a book coach for some time, I can tell you that the vast majority of authors never stop to think about who they are actually writing the book for.  If you don’t know who this audience is, or if the default audience is Reviewer #2, then it completely shows through in your writing. In this episode, I share with you a simple set of questions you can use to figure out who your ideal reader is so that your own unique voice can shine through 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Does it feel like pulling teeth to get yourself to work on your book or an important article? Do you find yourself doing just about anything else to avoid writing? Internal resistance to writing is something that nearly every author feels at some point. 

It’s not a problem in and of itself. Where it gets to be a problem is when you realize months have gone by and you haven’t made any progress on your work

In this episode, I give you 4 different strategies to help you stop dreading writing, or at the very least, to bring down your resistance so you can start moving things forward. 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

In this first episode of the new year, I help you connect with a version of your own future self who you can use as a source of wisdom and perspective.

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Many of the writers I work with started off with a bang in September and then their writing slowed down to a mere trickle or stopped altogether. It’s okay and, actually, to be expected given everything going on in the world and in peoples’ lives right now.

For this episode, I wanted to give you something inspiring to reignite your desire to get back to writing, when you are ready. I'm sharing five of my favorite prompts from #AcWriMoments, a writing initiative I participated in during November.

Some are more serious, and some are more whimsical. But they all include strategies and exercises to help you reconnect to yourself and to the deeper purpose of your work. I hope they will fan the flame of desire to help you get back to your own writing after you take a much-deserved break!

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Hi writers! I've been putting off talking about leaving academia for a long time now, but it can no longer wait. My clients are consistently asking for coaching on this, as are participants in my workshops. I decided to record this episode in the hopes of helping more people who may be trying to figure out how to navigate this really difficult career and life transition.

Today I’m going to primarily focus on how to assess whether or not you really want to leave the academy. I give my own story of how and why I left a tenured faculty position. And I end with some questions you can ask yourself to figure out whether it’s your specific job that’s the problem or whether it’s the profession itself that’s the problem.

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Today's episode is inspired by a recent breakthrough I had with one of my writing coaching clients. Incidentally, she’s an article writer and not a book writer, although it doesn't really matter for our purposes. 

But I want to talk about why you need to do less, both in actual practice, as well as on a mental level. In other words, I'm going to try to convince you why you need to stop striving for perfection and let things go earlier. 

Hopefully, by the end of this episode, you will see that striving for 100% in your writing, or in your life for that matter, is never the way to go. 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...

Send us a text

Today I’m going to talk about something that I believe is a really important part of good scholarly writing.

And that is the power of storytelling.

I'll discuss how you can harness the power of storytelling in your own writing, regardless of the subject matter.  

I’m also going to read a few pages from my first book to illustrate some of these points.

And I’ll give you some tips for how you can start incorporating storytelling into your writing in the most effective and enjoyable ways possible. 

Check out Leslie's website at www.YourWordsUnleashed.com!

The three ways Leslie can help you in 2025:

#1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching program. Through 8 hour-long sessions tailored to your own needs and goals, we will pinpoint what’s keeping you stuck. We’ll figure out personalized solutions and strategies so you can create direction and lasting momentum with your book writing. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing throughout

#2: Four-month Career Reset Program for Overwhelmed Academics who want to reconnect with purpose. Over the course of 6 hour-long sessions, we’ll clarify your personal career vision, create space for what matters, overcome internal obstacles to change, and define what success means on your own terms so you can work less and live more.

#3: Group Zoom Workshops that balance personal well-being with writing productivity. Topics include transforming your dissertation into a book; connecting to the deeper purpose of your work; as well as boundary setting.

Check everything out on my website and if you are interested in any of these, please shoot me an email at ...