051: Writing a Book Through Chronic Illness

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by Dr. Lindsay Branham, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, environmental psychologist, and author of Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees, to discuss what it means to heal our severed connection to ourselves and the Earth. Born out of a years-long journey through chronic illness, Lindsay's book invites readers into an embodied, reciprocal relationship with trees, one that asks us to slow down, pay attention, and remember we were never separate from the living world to begin with.About Lindsay Branham and Heartwood: Lindsay Branham's path to Heartwood began when she got sick at the onset of COVID and spent years navigating a chronic illness that eventually forced her to pause her PhD studies at Cambridge. As she searched for healing, she found herself drawn into daily relationship with the trees near her parents' home on the edge of a national forest in Colorado, an experience that ultimately led her to switch her entire doctoral focus to the relationship between humans and the Earth. Heartwood is the result of both that scholarship and that personal healing odyssey, blending scientific rigor with a deeply spiritual, almost mystical account of what it means to let a forest become, as she puts it, a co-author.In Heartwood, Lindsay calls readers into reciprocity, the practice of recognizing the gifts we're given by the living world and asking what we have to give back, whether that's environmental action or simply sitting in front of a tree and offering it our attention. It's an invitation to remember that the Earth itself is a sacred text, and that healing our relationship to it is inseparable from healing ourselves. Links:Purchase Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees at your favorite retailer https://www.heartwood.institute/heartwoodLearn more about Lindsay's book tour https://www.heartwood.institute/book-tourFollow Lindsay Branham on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lindsaylaurenne/Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/appLearn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.comApply to publish with Copper: https://admin.typeform.com/form/zqBcs2sM/create?block=01HRZD9J9B8XV7VDN759VWM2RTFollow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.booksFollow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge