Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley Kate Hanley

In this second part of my interview with Lisa Tener–award-winning book coach and author of the brand-new “Breath. Write. Breathe.”--we get into the squishier parts of writing.
Warning, this part of our conversation is super juicy! Not in a sexy way, but in a “wow I’m really thinking differently about stuff that’s been plaguing me forever” kind of way.
You’ll learn:
Her least favorite part about promoting her work, and how she works with that resistance
Finding the right balance between taking on work for clients to pay the bills and saving time and energy for your own work
Practical ways to get out of the fear of not making or having enough money
Tipping your internal scale to be more weighted toward surrender, and less weight toward trying to control everything
Her ninja trick for dealing with difficult people
How she’s used Family Systems Constellation Work to work through blockages both in life and in her mind
Visit Lisa at listener.com.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I am talking with award-winning book coach and award-winning author–of the books The Joy of Writing Journal and the brand-new Breathe.Write. Breathe.--Lisa Tener.
Lisa served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School’s continuing education course on writing and publishing books for over a dozen years. And she has helped hundreds of experts and thought leaders write and publish their books and secure five and six figure book deals.
I was so happy and honored to write the foreword for Lisa's new book, which draws a lot on Lisa's in-depth studies and practice of qigong. And if you've been with me since the “How to Be a Better Person” days, you may remember Lisa when she came on as a guest and walked me through her “meet your muse” exercise, which helps you get in touch with your intuition and receive messages from your subconscious that can help you move forward in your creative work or get insight into anything you may be facing, where you could use a little guidance.
And lest you think Lisa is all about the woo, she also, I just found out while researching her for this episode, has her bachelor's and master's degree from MIT.
We covered:
How getting sick put her on the path to becoming a writer
How writing down her dreams helps fuel her writing
Working with the difficulty of earning a living from your writing
A peek inside the small village of people it takes to publish a book
The easy but powerful qigong move Lisa teaches to get you loosened up and ready to write
A look at the tools, places, and times of day that help Lisa get her writing done.
Visit Lisa at listener.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this third and final installment of my interview with Donna Russo, author of “Vincent's Women, the Untold Story of the Loves of Vincent Van Gogh,” as well as 10 other award-winning and internationally bestselling historical novels, we get a peek at what’s coming up next for her and she answers my fast five questions about what she’s stayed up too late reading and watching.
How she’s feeling now that she’s on the verge of becoming a grandmother
A sneak peek at her next book, which is already in the works–as well as how she’s challenging herself in new ways with this project
The great authors she learned the importance of descriptive settings from
The screen play she wrote that got tabled by COVID and the writer’s strike, despite winning awards
The music that gets her going when she needs a boost
Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second part of my conversation with Donna Russo, author of “Vincent's Women: the Untold Story of the Loves of Vincent van Gogh, as well as 10 other award winning and internationally best selling historical novels, we explore the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that influence her work.
We talked about:
Why the time period just before your book comes out is the most nerve-wracking, “like walking out naked and the world gets to comment”
The thrill of being in the same room as a group of your readers
How she takes her mind off the anxiety that comes pre-book release
Her biggest fears as a writer
Why being 66 is an asset to her writing
Her best advice for young writers
How historical fiction reminds us that there are always multiple points of view to every story
Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Up this week is Donna Russo, an internationally best-selling author of 11 multiple award winning historical novels, including “Gilded Dreams” and “Gilded Summers”, a trio of books about Leonardo da Vinci, including “Portrait of a Conspiracy,” “The Competition,” and “The Flames of Florence.” Her newest book, “Vincent’s Women” is just out, and tells the story of everyone's favorite tortured artist through the lens of the women in his life.
(I have to point out Vincent's women managed to get 4. 3 stars on Goodreads, which is not easy to do. Goodreads readers are very sparing with their five star ratings.)
Donna is also an award winning screenwriter, a ghostwriter, and an editor. And she's an actor who appeared in Martin Scorsese's “The Departed,” as well as Showtime's “Brotherhood.” And, she's a painter” I’m so thankful she joined us, because she clearly has a lot of things that take up her time!
We covered:
How reading “Gone with the Wind” and “The Thorn Birds” as a kid sparked a devotion to historical fiction
How a ‘grand pity party’ after yet another bad date led to the idea for “Vincent’s Women”
How meeting Diana Gabaldon (author of The Outlander series and historical fiction OG!) at a conference spurred Donna on
Her first gig as a writer–that happened in sixth grade
How she sold her first book quickly and easily–and pretty much everything since then has been a struggle
The truth about why she does so many different things
The brass tacks of how she writes her book, from which chapter she writes first to how she lays out her computer monitor so that her research is always right at hand
How she wrote her friends into one of her books
The food and drink the fuels her writing
Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part three of my interview with Marlon Weems, author of the prize-winning essay "How Starting an Investment Business Almost Landed Me in Federal Prison" and founder of The Journeyman Substack, where he covers American culture and anti-Black racism, we get a peek at where his throughline is leading him next.
I had to leave out the meandering and enlightening and fun conversation we had about the upcoming presidential election, but now we're thinking about starting a separate podcast on that! Who knows if anything will come of it, but all I can say for sure is, I loved chatting with Marlon and know you will love hearing him, too.
We covered:
- Marlon's unexpected detour into becoming a voice actor in his 60s
- Being your own role model
- Manifesting an appearance on "Good Morning America"
- The AMC TV series Marlon's currently bingeing, based on books by one of his favorite authors (that he listens to as audiobooks because they are read by his favorite voice actor)
- The two songs from wildly different genres that get Marlon going when he needs a pick-me-up
Visit Marlon at thejourneyman.substack.com.
Thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter and get a free 3-year warranty ($84 value).
For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices