The release is the stage when writers share the soul of their project—its gift. Here’s how to thrive and best serve your work once the writing is done.
Here’s what early readers have to say about Elizabeth and this new book:
“Whenever I have lost my way as a writer, Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew arrives as a trusted companion. Whether I’m drafting new material, revising, or sending my work out in the world, I can always find just the right words I need to hear in Andrew’s books. I’ve recommended her writing guides to countless students in my two decades as a creative writing professor, and always they respond with immense gratitude for her insights.” —Brenda Miller, author of Tell it Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction and The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World
“I’m a major fan of this book and believe it will offer sustenance, guidance, relief, challenge, a healthier way forward, and a route to healing, for many writers. This was the book I needed so long ago, and the book that can change my trajectory moving forward.” —Susan Power, author of Council of Dolls and Grass Dancer
Pre-Order The Release Today!
Or from your independent local bookstore!
Free In-Person Book Launch Event!
Hosted by Literary Witnesses and Eye of the Heart Center for Creative Contemplation
Releasing The Release:
A celebration of the gifts in writing
Friday, November 8th, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Guild Hall, Plymouth Congregational Church
1900 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403
Join Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew to celebrate the gift’s movement in and through her new book, The Release: Creativity & Freedom After the Writing is Done.
There’s a marvelous mystery at play when we write—what the Greeks called the Muse, what Elizabeth Gilbert calls Big Magic, what workshops call inspiration, and what Elizabeth calls the gift. This gift is the source of transformation in the writer, on the page, and in a reader; it’s what gives creativity its life-spark. Elizabeth will trace the gift’s movement from The Release’s origin to the present, sharing how gifts thrive within vast webs of reciprocity and what it means to release our gifts into the world.
The event is free, but registration is encouraged!
Online Book Launch Event!
If you can’t make it in person, join us online to celebrate The Release as well. Both the in-person and online event will feature Elizabeth tracing the gift’s movement, and then also time for questions, answers, and, of course, a writing prompt as well. This event is free as well!
November 14th, 7-8:15 CT
Full Description of The Release
In The Release, award-winning author and teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew invites writers to lift their heads out of the product-oriented sandbox and find an alternative way to play. By returning writers to their original delight and guiding them in an ongoing creative practice, Andrew helps form habits of mind, heart, and body to support a project’s final flourishing, free from the burdens of seeking validation and measuring worth.
With the same skill and compassion she brought to her other resources for writers—Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir and Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice—Andrew writes with deep empathy for the emotional journey when a work is done, through celebration and grief, decisions around publication, the angst of receiving negative feedback or rejection, and the sometimes surprising challenges that come with success. for the emotional journey of celebrating and grieving when a work is done, deciding whether to publish, the angst of absorbing negative feedback or rejection, and the sometimes surprisingly difficult emotional reactions that can come with success.
Anyone—amateurs and professionals alike, those who intend to publish and those who do not, those with book length manuscripts and those with haiku written on paper scraps—can do this practice. This book is for anyone who wants to release their work with love.