Here’s Why I’m Grateful for You!

As we enter this holiday season as a time for gratitude, I think of how grateful I am for this community—and for you, in particular.

Thank you, Creative One!

Whatever is going on in the world, you are choosing to write, to create, to hold a vision and intention. You are, I hope, prioritizing your creative work and focusing on how you can help move the world forward in wisdom and wellbeing. Together, we are making a difference. Together, we are stronger.

I feel so grateful to do the work I do—sharing practices that support our creativity in profound and fantastic ways, helping you tap into your creative wellspring to do your best work, guiding you in writing a winning book proposal or writing and publishing a book or other writing so that you can have the impact you envision. Thank you for the opportunity to do this sacred work.

Celebrate Recently Published Books with Us!

It’s been an exciting fall season as several clients’ and students’ books were published (or won awards), and I’d love to share a few shout-outs here as part of the celebration and to support them to reach readers and grow in impact. Perhaps one of these books will make a great gift for someone on your holiday list, or serve as inspired reading for you and your book club:

• Gail Beck, MD’s Dope Advice: How to Talk to Your Teens About Cannabis, published by University of Toronto Press, officially launched on Nov 5 (though Amazon will tell you August!). You can read more about her book writing and publishing journey here. 
• Cory McCray’s The Apprenticeship that Saved My Life: Guidebook to Navigating the Earn-While-You-Learn Opportunity of a Lifetime. Kirkus Reviews has called Cory’s book, “A candid, practical, and often inspiring guidebook.” BlueInk Review wrote, “Young people looking for a stable, achievable future will appreciate his message, kindly delivered.” And Midwest Book Review calls it, “A unique story that is both intensely personal and yet universal in its implications.”
• Amy Sosne’s riveting memoir of healing, A World Turned Upside Down, just released, was featured on CBS42. Kirkus Reviews called it, “A nuanced reflection on motherhood as well as an impassioned defense of reproductive rights, the book highlights the ways that traumas compound across time and circumstances. . . Yet the author’s gripping, novel-like prose is rife with dialogue, internal monologues, and other literary elements.”
• The second edition of Colleen Wahl’s textbook, Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies: Contemporary Applications, arrived in the mail the other day. Now she’s working on her trade book in Get Your Writing Done. Here’s to making her somatic knowledge accessible to all!

Gail is a graduate of my Bring Your Book to Life(R) program and a weekly participant in our Get Your Writing Done sessions. Cory and Amy worked with me privately at various levels. And I referred Amy to co-writer Janice Harper.

Book Awards and Business Awards

I’m also grateful for all the attention my clients’ books have garnered. Here are the 2025 (and a few late 2024) awards I’m aware of:

• Lisa’ Shorr’s Your B.R.A.N.D Unleashed: 9 Proven Strategies That Build Trust and Maintain Lasting Client Loyalty, won the 2025 Living Now Book Award (Silver) in Digital Media. Her book was also a Goody Business Award finalist in two categories.
• Deborah Naish’s Level Up Your Leadership: Becoming More Conscious, Courageous and Resilient has won two 2025 Goody Business Book Awards in Leadership: Mentoring/Coaching and Leadership: Motivation.
• Renee Baribeau’s A Pilgrim’s Guide to Walking Wisdom: 11:11 Wisdom won the 2025 Living Now Book Award (Bronze).
• Gillian Stubblefield’s Secrets to Saving Big on College won the Gold Living Now Book Award in 2024.
• Coco Sellman, author of A Force for Good: Empowering Visionary Women to Lead, was named one of the Entreprenista 100 in 2024.

Lisa, Gillian and Coco are graduates of my Bring Your Book to Life(R) Program (which has now been incorporated into my Get Your Writing Done Program. Renee and Deborah participated in Get Your Writing Done, as well as other services (consultation, retreat, etc).

Clients and students: Did you publish this fall or win a 2025 book award and don’t see your book here? Just comment below or email me, and I will add it to this post!

Grateful, too

In researching this post, I was also thrilled to see that my poetry mentor and editor, Nadia Colburn, whose exquisite collection of poems, I Say the Sky, was a finalist for the 2025 Eric Hoffer Award in poetry. And my colleague Amy L. Bernstein, interviewed here about her book-writing and publishing journey, won honorable mention in the 2025 Eric Hoffer Awards in self-help for her book, Wrangling the Doubt Monster.

And, of course, I am celebrating the 2025 book awards of Breathe. Write. Breathe.–from the Gold Nautilus Book Award in Innovation and Creativity to the Gold Stevie Award for Best Ebook and The Bronze Stevie for Book of the Year (from the American Business Awards and Stevie Awards for Women in Business, in that order)–14 Awards from eight different contests in all! Thank you to Melissa Sones Consulting, who supported me and so many of our clients in our awards successes!

Grateful for the Future

I’m also grateful as I look at the year ahead and some upcoming projects:

• A Creative Abundance Retreat that I’m co-leading with Robin Kall to start the year with intention, clarity and fun! (Note: Our official announcements will go out next week, but you can sign up ahead of time if you want to secure one of the twelve spots (out of 15) remaining. We’re also offering $100 off!
• My first book of poetry, which I am planning to publish in 2026.
• More to come…

Of course, I am grateful to my team, my colleagues, friends, family, and all the people I thank each year in my Thanksgiving post, and I look forward to co-creating and engaging with them in the year ahead.

What and whom are you grateful for this season?