How Women Write

It's November 2017 at 5:00 a.m., and I'm sitting in the dark, on the couch with my laptop balanced on my knees. I wrote 1,667 words every day that month and technically "won" NaNoWriMo. Then I didn't touch that draft for 11 months. In this solo episode, I share why I stopped recommending intense writing challenges years before NaNoWriMo shut down — especially for women and anyone prone to pushing...

What if half your book is already written, sitting in blog posts you forgot you wrote? That's where Karen Marcus started. After 27 years as a tech copywriter, she downloaded about three dozen blog posts, dropped them into a folder, and figured she'd stitch them into a book. Well, it wasn't that simple. It took ten years start to finish, including a few years when she set it down entirely. A story...

This one is a full-circle conversation for me. Amber Heinrich and I met in corporate. We were in the same practice area, both in communications, and both vegan when that was a rare thing to find in a conference room. We've both since stepped away from the corporate consulting world, and now she's written a book. Debug Yourself: Reprogram Your Mind, Body & Spirit for Well-Being is the book Amber wi...

Joyce De Bakker has reinvented herself more times than she can count — international moves, relationship endings, a corporate career that looked successful but felt like someone else's life. In 2026, she stopped watching others succeed from the sidelines. She launched her coaching and mentoring business and gave herself a 30-day challenge: write and publish on Substack every single day — no topic...

Jennifer Ciaramello is the author of Quiet Boil and founder of Quiet Boil Project, a faith-based ministry for women learning to notice the slow-building heat in their lives and step out of it. She's also a licensed aesthetician with 26 years in the beauty industry. In this episode, Jennifer shares how her book began as a box of handwritten notes. She also shares how that box sat untouched for fift...

When Cara Chace was a teenager sitting in a Denny's with her dad, she told him, " I want to be a writer." He shot it down before she could finish her Grand Slam . How on earth would she make a living doing that? It took her 30 years to come back around. Today, she calls herself a writer. In between, Cara became a federal special agent, then the social media manager for Megadeth, and then founded a...

It's my birthday, so I'm doing something a little different. There's no guest today, just me, some gifted Tom Ford Lost Cherry perfume I just spritzed on, me, my mic, and a mascara-free, honest catch-up. You'll hear how I'm spending the day, what this year actually felt like, and the decisions I've made that I'm sharing out loud with you today. You're hearing them here first. I walked away from so...

There's a particular kind of ache that doesn't show up on the outside. You're doing everything right, checking all the boxes with a solid career and a great-looking life. But under the surface, something is off. It's like your current life no longer fits. That's the ache Liz Holtzinger shares with readers in her book Lead Yourself First . Liz spent over two decades teaching rhetoric and compositio...

My guest today is a fellow INFJ who built a writing and business empire from her keyboard — and she did it by trusting her intuition over anyone's idea of what a "proper" writer looks like. As Joanna Penn, she writes practical, generous nonfiction that has made The Creative Penn one of the most trusted resources for authors in the world. It's my favorite podcast on the craft and business of writin...

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being good at fitting in. Nicole Stephenson knows this feeling well. She spent years being told she was "too loud," "too much," "too honest." Then she wrote a book about what happens when you finally stop apologizing for being yourself. Nicole is the founder of Narrativa Consulting, a part-time lecturer at The Wharton School, and the author o...

What I've learned from consistency, guests, and 1:1 conversations. WOOOHOOO! How Women Write is celebrating ONE HUNDRED episodes.  On one hand, I don't know where the time went. And on the other, I wondered why it took me two years to launch the podcast. I didn't know how far I'd make it when I started, and I'm not stopping anytime soon. Three digits of podcast episodes feel special, so it's just...

Leslie Short has lived about four careers' worth of life — classical dancer, theater owner in Japan, FUBU executive, culture strategist, chaplain, UN speaker — and for years, people kept telling her the same thing after every talk: I need to know more. Her new memoir, Someone Has to Be the First , is her response to people wanting to know more. In this conversation, we get into what it actually to...

A writing update on the two books I'm playing with right now, the door metaphor I teach my students, and why I paused one manuscript to follow a nudge toward another. If you've ever been mid-draft on one project and had another idea knock — loud, insistent, inconvenient — this episode is for you. Two weeks into writing The Medicine Pages — the working title of the book I've been sharing behind the...

Claire Gallagher was here back in episode 15, where we chatted about Mercury, the SFD (The  Surrendered First Draft ), and the importance of moving her body to keep the words flowing. Last year, she told me that she was working on a second book about how astrological cycles "wake up" different parts of your chart at different times. That book is Cosmic Year , arrives on August 18, and it's availab...

When I met Hazel at a networking event, she introduced herself as a photographer. When I checked out her website, I learned she did so much more. Two books, workshops, and a whimsical yet practical outlook on life, parenting, and creativity … I had to get to know her! Hazel didn't set out to write the books she wrote. Her original idea was something different entirely. And when she sat down to cre...

I said something out loud a few weeks ago that I can't take back … I'm writing my next book in public. And honestly, it's a little scary. In this episode, I walk through what led here: finishing my fourth book, Writing with the Moon and feeling the pull toward something a lot more personal, the three words I wrote in my journal back in 2023 (medicine, woman, writer), and the moment a client's inst...

Pippa Wilford named her business after Dagaz — the rune for daybreak, that instant when everything finally becomes clear. It's a fitting name for a woman who didn't set out to become an author. She was a civil servant, then a corporate recruiter, then a mother inside a neurodiverse household — and somewhere in the middle of life, writing kept finding her. Now she's the author of The Nurtured Nest...

Nadine Maldonado didn't set out to write a book. She was only trying to survive the tragic loss of her daughter. It turned out that a gifted journal and metallic pens became the place she could finally put down the brave face and begin healing. Years later, those pages became Lemon Seeds: When Life Squeezes You, Faith Grows You , her testimony of grief, divorce, and rebuilding around faith. In thi...

Kara Vaval is an attorney, speaker, two-time author, and founder of The InPowerment Institute. She's also the woman behind the Laptop Lifestyle Lawyer brand — and one of the most honest voices I've had on this show about what it actually takes to write through the hard stuff. In this episode, we get into her Main Karacter™ framework — what it means to stop living a clearance rack version of your l...

Finding Your Signature Story — The One You Keep Almost Telling In this solo episode, I'm sharing my own signature story — the one I almost didn't tell. The deeper story with all the details lives in my book Unfussy Life. This is the first time I've talked it out like I did here. Every writer has a story they keep almost telling. A moment they mention in passing, then move past like it's not a big...

Want to start listening to Writing with the Moon from the beginning? Start here. In this series, I'm reading my entire book, Writing with the Moon, for free. In this episode, I read the final section — what to do when you're finished reading, how to keep your writing practice going, gratitude, and where to learn more about the author — me! Links Grab the book: https://theintuitivewritingschool.com...

Want to start listening to Writing with the Moon from the beginning? Start here. In this series, I'm reading my entire book, Writing with the Moon, for free. In this episode, I continue with PART TWO: PISCES. When to listen to this section: At the start of Pisces season:  February 19 to March 20 During a Pisces moon Then, navigate using timestamps below to the current moon phase: new, waxing, full...

Want to start listening to Writing with the Moon from the beginning? Start here. In this series, I'm reading my entire book, Writing with the Moon, for free. In this episode, I continue with PART TWO: AQUARIUS. When to listen to this section: At the start of Aquarius season: January 20 - February 18 During an Aquarius moon Then, navigate using timestamps below to the current moon phase: new, waxin...

Want to start listening to Writing with the Moon from the beginning? Start here. In this series, I'm reading my entire book, Writing with the Moon, for free. In this episode, I continue with PART TWO: CAPRICORN. When to listen to this section: At the start of Capricorn season: December 22 - January 19 During a Capricorn moon Then, navigate using timestamps below to the current moon phase: new, wax...

Want to start listening to Writing with the Moon from the beginning? Start here. In this series, I'm reading my entire book, Writing with the Moon, for free. In this episode, I continue with PART TWO: SAGITTARIUS. When to listen to this section: At the start of Sagittarius season: November 22 - December 21 During a Sagittarius moon Then, navigate using timestamps below to the current moon phase: n...