Welcome. I’m so glad you made it here. This is a place where I hope your creativity is nourished, and you’ll “take heart.”
When I looked up take heart in The Oxford English Dictionary, the grand OED described the phrase this way: to summon courage, or to derive encouragement or comfort from a turn of events, discovery, etc.
I love thinking about offering space for encouragement and discovery. The best way I know how to nurture these things is through stories and through community.
By way of introduction, I’m Jasmin, and I’ve done everything from event production, to workshop facilitation and teaching graduate students, to editing, and writing narrative nonfiction (journalism and memoir) all in the service of using creative energy to craft a more hope-filled world. I hold an MFA in Narrative Nonfiction writing from the innovative program housed in the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia. My essays are at home in Meeting at the Table: African-American Women Write on Race, Culture and Community and the forthcoming Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Bravery in a Time of Pandemic.
I center the stories and experiences of my BIPOC fam’. I cook and bake. A lot. So I’m interested in food stories and the way food can be a vehicle for memory and belonging. I’m interested in mystics and spiritual outliers and people who live in the margins. I want to know how parents manage to do, well, anything for themselves, but more specifically how they engage their creativity in the midst of caring for others. I find solace in nature and historical archives and poets who give language to the sublime. I’m interested in celebrating our every day lives.
So…here at Take Heart you can expect to find book recommendations, writing prompts, recipes, meditations (written or audio), musings on leading a creative life, original writing, and in general, the things I’m finding beautiful and life-giving.
Thank you for letting me share with you - it’s truly a gift.
Why subscribe?
Subscribe for free, and I’ll keep you in the loop anytime I’ve got big news (like new publications, podcast interviews, or speaking engagements…you get the idea). I’ll also share some writing, and the lessons I learned from writing each piece.
Paid subscribers get full access to all Take Heart’s prompts, mediations, original writing, recipes, and occasional surprise goodies. Know that your paid subscription helps support my work as a writer and a mother, which allows me to engage things like 1) my book proposal! and 2) amplifying other BIPOC voices and communities.
Stay up-to-date
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition of Take Heart goes directly to your inbox at least twice monthly.
Join the crew
Let’s grow together! Come be part of a community of people who share your interests.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
