SPIRITUS BOOKS: Tell us a little about your book, How to Win Friends and Manage Remotely, and why you wrote it.

MCKENNA SWEAZEY: I’d been batting around an idea of an empathy-based leadership book for a while, and when the pandemic hit, I suddenly had both some extra time to do it and a renewed focus on why empathy is really important in digital interactions. 

Please enjoy this Q&A about the book writing process with memoir author Beth Jones.

My book is Becoming an Empowered Survivor, You, Too, Can Heal from Trauma and Abuse, in which I share my story about my healing journey, told through my acronym for HEAL, which means to hope, evolve, and love. In the book, I share my experience with each of these actions. I wrote the book to crystallize my message to other survivors of trauma and abuse, following the subtitle of the book, that they, too, can heal.

Please enjoy this Q&A about the book writing process with addiction recovery memoir author Jorja Jamison, PhD, LP.

JORJA JAMISON, PHD, LP: When I was training in my doctoral program in psychology, I loved getting to present at conferences. But there were usually not a lot of people who attended conference sessions, even at very large conferences. My advisor once encouraged me to write, saying that I could reach a lot more people through my writing than my conference presentations. She was referring to publishing in academic journals. I never found that pathway fulfilling, but her words always stayed with me.