Your Words Unleashed

Send us Fan Mail Do you feel like perfectionism gets in the way of your happiness or achieving your goals? Perfectionism is usually seen as a big problem. What if, instead, it was actually a superpower? In this episode, I'm going to give you some ideas on how to do this, based on the book The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power by therapist Katherine Morgan Scha...

Send us Fan Mail What do acquisitions editors do at scholarly presses? What things make a book project stand out? When is the best time to contact presses and editors? Why is it incredibly useful to work with a developmental editor? In this episode, I welcome Jenny Gavacs, a developmental editor who specializes in sharpening arguments and improving the flow of academic books. We discuss all of the...

Send us Fan Mail In this exciting episode of Your Words Unleashed, Leslie sits down with Dr. Angélica  Gutiérrez, esteemed scholar and one of the world's best business professors under 40. Dr. Gutiérrez shares her fascinating journey through academia and her eye-opening research on imposter syndrome and impostorization--a term she coined that refers to how the environment makes certain people...

Send us Fan Mail Writing a book is a daunting task, often exacerbated by our own negative thoughts and beliefs. But what if changing the way you think about writing is the key to getting unstuck?  In today’s episode, I give four mindset shifts that can help you break through writer’s block. These simple but transformative mental reframes can turn a deeply stressful process into a more fulfilling,...

Send us Fan Mail Finding the right balance between work and life in academia can be a never-ending struggle. That's why in this episode I'm chatting with accomplished professor and author of the popular Academia Made Easier online newsletter , Dr. Loleen Berdahl. Loleen has a wealth of knowledge about academic professional development. Her strategies for balancing work and life provide i...

Send us Fan Mail Are you feeling completely exhausted and depleted at the end of this long school year? Join the club! If you're like most academics, you love what you do. The problem is that the work has become way TOO MUCH. Today I will re-air one of my most downloaded episodes. In it, I give 3 actionable steps to heal from burnout so that you can recuperate to the fullest this summer and r...

Send us Fan Mail Academia can sometimes feel like a world locked away in an ivory tower, but what happens when scholarly research breaks free and speaks to the heart of society? My guest in this interview, Dr. CJ Pascoe, does just that in her crossover books, Dude, You're a Fag and Nice is Not Enough. CJ is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon whose research focuses...

Send us Fan Mail When you get negative feedback on your work, do you feel disappointed, hurt, and personally attacked? What if there was a way to avoid taking harsh critiques of your work personally? In today's episode, I'm going to give you five different ways to do this so you can keep moving forward without losing confidence in your work or your abilities.  Support the show Check out...

Send us Fan Mail 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 d...

Send us Fan Mail 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 yourse...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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. Support the show Check out Leslie's website at www. YourWordsUnleashed.com ! The three ways Leslie can help you with coaching & developmental editing: #1: Six-month Your Words Unleashed signature book writing coaching prog...

Send us Fan Mail 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....

Send us Fan Mail 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. Toda...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail I don’t need to tell you how heavy things are feeling across the globe right now. Like most of you, I've been watching disaster unfold in Israel and Gaza from a privileged position of security and safety. In this era of the 24-hour news cycle and the ability to document and share our every movement in real-time, we’ve been flooded with images of human beings much like ourselv...

Send us Fan Mail The scholarly book proposal is truly an art form that is very difficult to master. It's THE most important part of getting a book contract. And yet there’s so much conflicting information out there that it can be hard for people to write one in a way that truly puts their best foot forward. On today’s episode, I talk about the top 5 most common mistakes I see scholarly author...

Send us Fan Mail I've made it to my 40th episode! In fact, podcasting is not something I ever seriously considered before I created my coaching business less than two years ago. It blows me away that I’ve reached this milestone. So this week I want to share with you my reflections about podcasting and the four main lessons it has for YOUR scholarly writing projects. Support the show Check out...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m going to go in-depth about one of the very best and most important things you can possibly do to improve your book. And this is to host a manuscript workshop! If you’ve never heard of these before, they’re like a best-kept secret in academia. These are essentially a half-or-full day event where you discuss a draft of your book with other experts in your field before you...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is focused on something that plagues many of us: procrastination! A lot of the guidance out there on dealing with procrastination is not that useful. This is because it often tends to put all procrastinators into one camp based solely on their avoidance of taking action in a timely way. They don’t address the varied reasons WHY people put things off. This episode desc...

Send us Fan Mail If you want to keep your own mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being at the forefront this semester, this means SAYING NO to things that do not serve you. This episode helps listeners figure out what to say 'yes' and 'no' to and how to do so with grace and dignity. I give four different strategies to help you figure out what to prioritize in your...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode will be focused on how you can consciously design your courses to help you attain your own goals. I’ll talk about why you need to drop your standards when it comes to teaching. I’ll also share some critical questions to ask yourself as you’re planning your courses, along with some different strategies for how you can use teaching to enhance your own research and wr...