Introducing Ruby Finch Books!
The first monthly newsletter for those who value intuitive courage, wellness/writing, and creative practices
Hi! I’m Julianne Harvey, an author, educator, and nurturer. I just graduated from UBC with my MFA in Creative Writing, and as soon as I finished with grad school deadlines I decided to start a publishing imprint for some of my work (and it’s also a lovely set-up for the zoom teaching I’m going to do in the fall, and eventual retreats I’m going to host, and a whole lot of other fun things I’m dreaming up!). It’s such a pleasure to introduce my new company and invite you to be part of this adventure!
In this monthly newsletter, you can expect updates on what books we’ll be publishing and launching, how and where to buy those books (including information for librarians and teacher-librarians on bulk-buy discounts), future creative retreats we’ll be hosting in beautiful White Rock, BC, and writing classes on zoom for full-length projects like novels and memoirs starting in September 2023!
We’ll also be offering wellness ideas, writing prompts and craft concepts, book and TV recs, some cat photos and other joyful things! I really hope you’ll subscribe and join us here for this Ruby Finch Books Substack, where we’ll keep things simple, fun, emotionally honest, and intuitively courageous, because these are the qualities we value and feel passionate about.
One-Word Feeling Check In
I learned this practice in Al-Anon many years ago and I’ve been using it in my workshop sessions and teaching since then. The idea is to choose one word, from the feeling spectrum, to capture how you feel. This sounds easy but can be quite hard.
We’re messy humans, having a messy human experience, and we are never any one thing. Right now, I’m excited about Ruby Finch Books, but also low-grade anxious that it might fail or I might be in over my head running a small indie publishing company.
The creative practice of getting quiet enough to identify how we feel at any given moment is the important part, then working toward putting it into a single word. I’d love to know how you feel in one word - please share in the comments and let’s practice naming our feelings together!
Book Corner
I’ve been making my way through the Slough House series by Mick Herron (after watching Slow Horses on Apple TV), but my friend Toby recently recommended Katherine Center’s books to me, and they’ve been exactly what I’m in the mood for. Light, fun, feminist, but also layered and nuanced. I started with Things You Save in a Fire but I’m tearing through her whole list from my local library and I’m enjoying them all.
Writing/Wellness Idea
I hesitate to call this a prompt, because something about that word bugs me, but if you are looking to write something and you aren’t sure where to start, try making a list of what really pisses you off. Bullet points are fine.
Just a free-form list of prime suckage in this world - anything from reckless drivers to the patriarchy to the rising planet temps to your teen spilling a bowl of Kraft Dinner between their bed and their wall and simply ignoring it instead of cleaning it up (TRUE STORY).
Then isolate one thing on that list that really gets you hot around the collar and start writing. Explore how you feel about this subject, why it’s so maddening, and maybe some fresh ideas on how to solve this problem might emerge, which can leave us feeling more hopeful than we did before.
First Book Release!
Jamesy Harper’s Big Break, a contemporary comedic YA novel about a sixteen-year-old actor in Vancouver, will be launched this fall at public libraries and schools. As early as July we hope to reveal the cover that is being designed RIGHT NOW! Exciting times!
TV Recs
I’m still in a period of mourning over the end of Succession and Barry (both excellent examples of why the WGA writer’s strike matters because the complexity of the storytelling in those shows took them to a whole new level) but I recently finished The Diplomat on Netflix and thought it was well done. Keri Russell rocks.
And if you’re in need of joy, skip season 3 of the Apple TV show everyone thinks is about joy and watch Somebody Somewhere on Max instead. Then let’s chat about it.
Upcoming Classes
Ruby Finch Books is delighted to offer zoom classes for writers starting this September! Julianne Harvey will teach, and classes will be small (10 writers max) for mentoring and relationship-building.
If you’ve got an idea for a novel or a memoir (or you hope to be inspired in the planning phase of the class!), please come join us this September! More info can be found at Ruby Finch Books, and in the poster below, but the classes are run on Tuesdays over zoom, 20 weeks in total broken down into 4 sections that are 5 weeks each, with a 2 week break built-in between terms. And by the end, in the spring, you have a completed first draft of a manuscript!
Reach out if you’ve got questions, and registration is first come-first served with only 10 spaces in each class. I’d love to write with you and cheer you on!
Flower & Ted
I have the two best cats in the whole wide world (scientific fact) and I believe the world can only be made better by cute cat pics so I’ll end my newsletter with them. Enjoy!
Thank you so much for reading! Please subscribe for future monthly updates, and let’s connect here on Substack. I also invite you to visit my brand-new shiny website! Spreading the word will help us grow and bloom. I appreciate you!
Libraries forever,
Julianne and Ruby Finch Books