Recommended by Amy Brown
A travel advisor and passionate world traveler, Marielle has visited over 60 countries and is sharing her carefully curated itineraries to take the guesswork out of your own travel planning and give you confidence to explore your dream destinations, on any budget. Plus, she offers customized itineraries for paid subscribers. My go-to travel resource.
Matt Lilywhite offers not only gives smart advice on being a successful newsletter writer and make it profitable, but he also inspires us to take a step back often and remember the reason we are doing this: for the stories we have to share, and the connections we seek to make.
A newsletter from Deb Blum, one of the wisest teachers I know, a soul doula, if you will, founder of The Whole Soul Way program, sharing what it means to be free to bring our whole and true selves into everything we do. Here she writes about ELATE as "a place where you meet a challenge, an opportunity to explore your limits, an invitation to step away from what feels familiar and comfortable and expand beyond your current thinking, experience, or way of being in the world."
Sally Doran inspires me as a 50+ woman who recognizes she is in the prime of her life and inspires other women to live their lives in the same spirit of discovery and continuous renewal.
Cynthia Morris is a generous, fun, insightful writing coach and published author. This program is a great opportunity to awaken your inner artist. Your Artist Knows the Way is a fun, interactive program designed to help you be more creative. She has taken all the practices she's offered to her coaching clients over 25 years. In weekly invitations of activities taking just 15 minutes, you get to know your artist in new ways you haven’t before. I am following along and it's FUN!
Jim believes like me that grief is a teachable friend and he knows, as I do, the particular beauty and heartache of watching a beloved elderly parent fade from dementia. He is a devoted teacher and shares writing, prompts, music, reflections and more.
Nan is one of the most honest, bravest writers I know. She gets real and she's funny and she's a natural storyteller with a huge heart. There's no one like her. Treat yourself to The Next Write Thing.
You don’t want to miss Erin’s sharp, funny, compassionate, honest take (both here and on her podcast) on how women over 40 are reclaiming their hotness in every way, looking honestly at the next half of their lives with a new set of dreams. If you want to feel good in the world and in your own skin and you're ready to change, even if it means blowing up some or all of the lives you so painstakingly built, Erin's your woman. Great insights and great thought provoking guests and content.
Written by Victoria Chin, who has been on a rollercoaster journey caring for both her parents, this newsletter offers a wealth of insights, tools and learnings to help carers on their journey, with great empathy in her writing.
As a voracious reader without enough time to read everything of interest, Tom's Readvault provides a great service!
Lydia Fluitt writes from personal experience as she has a grown son who has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. She offers a huge trove of informational articles, personal stories and resources. She created this newsletter specifically because she found too little publicly available information on dementia that wasn’t associated with Alzheimer’s dementia.
Rosemary's writing is always from the heart--funny, honest, true and searching. Whatever she chooses to write about, I find myself and my experience reflected and validated. It's like having a good friend share what's on her mind, in the most helpful way possible.
This is one of my all-time favorite newsletters, young father Marc Typo's letters to his newborn and now toddler son. Marc writes with grace, wisdom, humor and while he writes from his perspective as a young Black father, he speaks universal truths about love, life and parenting that speak to me deeply as well. If you want to be moved each week by a father's love and his honest searching for answers to guide his son in this complicated world, you'll want to read Marc's work.
I love Dacy's approach to help women uncover their authentic style. She uses principles of intuitive eating and Health At Every Size in her work. She not only encourages women to question everything the culture has taught them about style but also gets into all the adjacent topics like diet culture, mental health, parenting, and more. Plus, great shopping tips and recommendations. Depressed when you open your closet? Dacy's got the answer.
Sarah is not only a terrific novelist but also thoughtful on all aspects of midlife, writing, and living in a reflective and honest way, all attributes I admire and try to convey here on Living in 3D. Sarah's novel, The Wrong Kind of Woman, is about a woman who I think is exactly the right kind of woman, as is Sarah. And don't miss her great reading recommendations!
Jocelyn Lovelle is a natural storyteller who writes about the big questions of life beautifully and searchingly, with humility, grace and wisdom. It's an invitation for all of us to see our beauty, even when, especially when, life tips us toward the hard stuff.
Julia Hubbell week after week reminds me how to age with a sense of humor, adventure (physical, emotional and spiritual) and a firm grip on who we are and what we won't put up with anymore at a certain age. Always bracing, always funny and always thought provoking.
As Jan writes in her bio: "Exploring the third act of life with creativity, courage, curiosity — and a few laughs. Life's a wild ride. Buckle up." If you're a woman like me also in your third act, you'll want to be part of Jan's world. I am always finding something to inspire me when I read her work.
David Whyte's poetry is profound, beautiful and universal in its simplicity. In every poem, I recognize myself, our shared humanity, our connection to the earth, to the past, present and future, and to possibility. When I want to connect to destiny--to my dharma--I always turn to David's poetry.
Louisa Wah is one of the most honest, authentic, real voices here on Substack, writing candidly on a deep soul level from her unique Asian immigrant experience living in the US. I learn something new each week about how to get in touch with a deeper part of myself.
This invitation to love ourselves better couldn't come at a better time for our society and it doesn't surprise me one bit that it came from the magnificent Liz Gilbert, as generous with her heart as any human I know. I would love to see all of us adopt her practice of writing love letters to ourselves.
I love Kristi's honest and compassionate space for growth-minded women who are done with diets and defining their success by their appearance.
Rebecca Makkai is funny, honest and so sharp about the writing process. She brings compassion and so much knowledge and her incredible talent to help us hone the art of writing novels. One of my favorite writing teachers here on Substack.
One of the best creative writing teachers on Substack. Her own writing shimmers on the page. She is also incredibly generous and interactive with readers in the comments. It's a warm and welcoming community.
Amanda Hinton is that rare bird: a heart-led, compassionate and whip-smart editor with in-depth understanding of the Substack platform, devoted to helping us find and trust our authentic voice as writers. She offers encouragement and practical steps to grow as writers while protecting our soft, supple, creative center. If you're a writer, you want her in your inbox.
I learn so much from every conversation Michelle Hoover has with the writers she invites to share their craft with us. Both Michelle and the authors are so generous, and open and encouraging about the process of writing a novel. She has helped make first pages less daunting for me, among other tricky parts of writing a novel. Highly recommend!
I love Emma's prolific writing, her smart and fresh takes on all kinds of topics but especially on wellbeing, creativity and the nature of modern-day work and why being a "hypenate," that is, being lots of different things at once, is so much fun.
Jane is such a source of inspiration to me, giving a platform to writers with deep and fresh insights on their craft (and life) and a wonderful Q&A in the Beyond Questionnaire.
The Midst is a media and lifestyle platform for women in their 40s and into their 50s. We are transforming the conversation about these decades in women’s lives: no one is "over the hill" — they're in the prime of their lives. I like their thoughtful content that empowers women in their 40s, 50s and beyond to reimagine this period as a time of growth, exploration, and possibility.
Everything you need to know about publishing in Courtney's wise and compassionate voice.
For generous, incisive creative writing teaching and inspiration from a NY Times best-selling author and memoirist, check out Jennifer's Flight School, which has a lively, interactive writing community. Plus, she is serializing her latest memoir, Summer of '72!
For generous, insightful creative writing advice from an experienced MFA instructor and author, Aimee's newsletter is a great place for mentorship, advice, encouragement and craft tips that make me think in new ways about my novel in progress.
Christine is an author and memoir coach who explores life through essays, interviews, tips, and raw vulnerability.
My teacher, my guide, my inspiration for how to love ourselves and this life better, Love Story captures everything about what makes Laura McKowen a beacon of continuous growth for me. And her Dig List is not be missed!