Break Your Face, Build an Empire – Seizures and Second Acts, With Alisa Kennedy Jones

Bestselling author. Brand strategist. Publisher. Founder of Empress Editions. Survivor of 14 facial surgeries and one extremely rude grocery store floor. 

Alisa Kennedy Jones does not do anything halfway, and in this episode she explains why midlife women — who control 85% of household spending and keep being told their voices are "old" — are the most underestimated force in publishing and this economy, if we’re being honest.

We cover: postmenopausal bliss (yes, really), the salary cliff nobody warns women about, banned-book drama, AI reader companions, taco-truck healthcare activism, and a ghost story involving a Victorian home and a child who was somehow in two places at once.

Visibility is activism. This episode is proof.

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Transcript

Julia 1:16

Are you haunted by the thoughts that show up at 3 a.m.? Good. This is where we follow them. Where science meets ritual, humor meets reckoning, and aging and identity are viewed as evolution. And is where we ask the only question that matters. So if you enjoy what you're hearing, please subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with a friend. It helps more people find the podcast, keeps this little labor of love growing, and reassures me that I'm not spending my evenings talking into the digital equivalent of an abandoned lighthouse. Oh, thank you for listening.

Intro

Julia 2:49

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, bays and thems. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is someone I admire so much that I consider pretending to be significantly cooler than I am for this interview. Unfortunately, that seemed unsustainable. So here we are. Now, today we have Elisa Kennedy Jones, a best-selling author, brand strategist, publisher, and the woman behind not just one, but two Substacks, Gotham Girl and The Empress, both of which stay at the top of my reading list at all times. Now I have been unabashedly fangirling over her work for years. So you can only imagine my surprise when she said yes to this interview. Turns out she is also one of the most gracious people I have ever met. Now, before we get into the interview, I think it's really important that we talk about her origin story because frankly, if you pitched it in Hollywood, someone would tell you to tone it down because it's just a little too unbelievable. But I promise you, it's all true. At 40, an age when most of us are Googling, is this perimenopause burnout, or have I finally lost my mind? Elisa had her first seizure. Out of nowhere. She collapsed and literally, and I mean literally, broke her face in that fall at a grocery store. And because the universe apparently looked at her and said, let's see what she does with this, she wrote Gotham Girl Interrupted, a memoir about epilepsy, motherhood, marriage, and rebuilding a life that is somehow laugh out loud funny, which seems exactly perfect. And here's the other thing about Elisa: she doesn't appear to know how to do anything halfway. Since then, she's become a best-selling author, built a devoted community of readers, and launched Empress Editions, an independent press dedicated to midlife women, because some of us panic by red light therapy masks in midlife, and Elisa launches, you know, entire institutions. And I have said this before in Substack, but I am delighted to say it louder and directly into a microphone. In a world that keeps trying to convince women there's only room for one of us at the table, Elisa Kennedy Jones just keeps pulling up more chairs. And frankly, she's building an entirely new banquet hall if I'm being honest. There is a generosity to her work that I think people feel immediately. She writes about midlife, motherhood, illness, identity, ambition, and what it means to keep becoming yourself over and over again. And she does it with the kind of honesty that makes you feel simultaneously seen and a little mildly called out, which frankly is my favorite genre. I am so excited for everyone to hear this interview. So grab a cup of tea, light a candle, if that's your thing, and settle in. Let's get into the interview.

Interview

Julia 5:50

I'm so glad you're here.

Alisa 5:52

Hi, thank you for having me. Pardon my vocal fry. I've been talking a lot this week.

Julia 5:57

That is rough. I am to support that, I will say I taught, um, I had, let's see, well, it doesn't really matter. I taught for eight hours yesterday, and I'm also a little like vocally fatigued. And I'm there, we're in the same boat. So yeah, we're gonna we're gonna keep it on the you know, we're gonna keep it chill. We're gonna drink lots of water, and we don't have to yell. So that's you know, unless we want to. Unless we want to. So that's the good thing. Yeah.

Alisa 6:18

Or we can put it on our Mary Tyler Moore voices and be like, Rah.

Julia 6:23

Yes, I love that. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'm gonna start by asking you what I ask everybody, and that is I'm gonna ask you to state your name, your pronouns, your age, and what's keeping you up at night. That's my little question there. And if you forget anything along the way, I have it written here so I don't forget, and I will ask you again.

Alisa 6:43

Okay, so my name and everyone gets it wrong, which is totally fine because it's America, uh, is actually Hebrew, and it's Elisa, which means laughter and joy. And everyone goes for Alyssa all the time, but it's Alisa Jones, and that's what I generally go by. I have to do Alisa Kennedy Jones on my books because there's another Elisa Jones who does Chinese like weapons and economic policy, which is wild because you were detained in China, but that's another story for a whole other thing, but weird, but continue.

Julia 7:23

Okay.

Alisa 7:24

So my pronouns are she, her, and because I couldn't make sense of anything else. And and then, yeah, what else is I'm brain fog? No, no, again, the thing that's keeping me up at night is technically my brain fog and the state of the planet, but also the fact that we have this coven of like writers and empress editions, and what I am discovering about them is they're this co-op group of midlife women who are incredibly highly generative creators, they're generators, and once you get them started, they create and create and create, and it's like holy mother!

Julia 8:08

Oh that's incredible because I feel sometimes in deficit of that, which we are gonna get into in the show. But I boy, do I appreciate that so much. And I definitely get that vibe when I am reading the Substack. I mean, there's such good stuff going on there, and I do wonder, I have moments where I'm like, how is everybody doing so much? But but I will say, I think that when we're tapped into something we really care about, like it flows, right? Or something that's we're aligned with.

Alisa 8:39

When they're in alignment with their voices, you just see it, the pages flowing, you see the alignment with that their sort of their voice and the kind of editorial, you know, aspirations, and you see the creative coming together in the same way with the book covers and the marketing. And suddenly we have an author who's has a book that has a pop star and pop icon in it, and she has managed to produce 12 original songs based on his voice. And they're gonna run, we're actually gonna impress an album for him to be a to be a prize for for um for her launch, like a grand prize. That's incredible. Yeah, and those songs are really, really good. And so it's gonna be part of this whole campaign that she's running, um, like pre-or like a prequel campaign, like life before Gemma. So that's the book just like a movie. And she's she came up with the idea on her own. She's like, What do you think of this? And I was like, Oh my god, let's go for it and let's do let's do a weekly song and story, let's do an IG Live, let's make it like the Eurovision song contest with everything on their favorites. You know, let's press an album. I know how to do that from this one provider that we had at this old agency agency that we that I worked with. Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's 40 bucks, but we can do that. Um so these are the things that the women are coming up with on their own sort of creative in their own creative head spaces. And then you're just like, oh, and then and then we can do we could do this. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, but we could do, you know, a Spotify playlist of all of his work. We could do, you know, there are easy things that we could do to build the fan base ahead of the book's launch.

Julia 10:45

Yeah. I I feel like um kind of like what we were just saying, when things are in alignment, the stuff just it just comes together. And I also want to add that I support any piece of art that comes with a playlist, whether it is a book or an essay or anything. I am very supportive of the music that comes along with it. And I think you cannot go wrong with that ever.

Alisa 11:08

No, like for Are You Their Goddess Me Menopause, which is coming out in October. Yes, there are four characters, there are four friends, and they each have such unique, like singular styles. It's so they need to have their own playlists, they need to like rocket in their own ways, and they need to have their own stories as they come to the book.

Julia 11:29

Yeah.

Alisa 11:30

Like, and to build that, like, we can't wait to meet these women because it's like seeing our our favorite our best friends, you know, on the pages.

Julia 11:39

And I think there's a very visceral connection to music. I think, and and and not to like look, I'm very into intergenerational relationships, and I think that's all very important. But let's be honest, I just think like the 80s and the 90s had some of the best music, and we just need to like let that be the statement, and everybody else can just take it from there.

Alisa 12:00

But it's um there's so many great genres that are there are just, I mean, whether you were a metalhead in the 80s, but or whether you were into the English beat, and you were more into the John Hughes style, like uh soundtracks, which we're gonna do because we have a John Hughes like book coming that is like very like owed to John Hughes, and so like having a John Hughes film festival and having the music, I have to do that with like these are the ways that we can have fun in in the in a way that the big five doesn't get to have fun.

Julia 12:39

Totally, totally. Now, before we go completely off the rails, because that's what's about to happen. I am gonna ask you no, no, this this in a good interview, this happens every single time. So the second question I asked that I'm gonna have you answer, and I'm gonna start with you telling us your age because it's the one thing we skipped. Oh, yeah, 56. 56, yes. All right, where are you right now in the liminal space of aging and identity?

Alisa 13:05

Ah, in the liminal space of aging and identity, I'm very much myself. I am, I mean, I will say aging is very much what Tina Faye says it is, which is puberty in reverse. And I am postmenopausal, which I can tell you is fabulous. It is so great, is the best thing I've ever for the first time in my life. My brain hormones, because when I was in perimenopause, that's when my seizures started, and now they have calmed down considerably. And so to have my all of my brain chemicals in alignment with the rest of my body is the best thing in the world, and not battling each other and to not be fighting intensive periods and just the agony of PMDD or whatever they call it, PMS in America. That was horrific every month to have that kind of mood swing and feel so ashamed of it and feel like my relationships were in jeopardy because of my hormones. And I always had to stop and remind myself, this isn't you, these are your hormones talking and cut it out. So stop it, stop it already, stop it. So right now is like the best time of my life because I'm the most creative and I'm the least uh stressed out that I've ever been. Even when bad things happen, yeah, and you know, your books get lost on the way to the bookstore. I'm like, okay, we'll find that. And and just again, it's like having that layer of anxiety and I want to say it's neurodisregulation. Yeah. Moved away moved out of my life or has you know receded from my life is the best thing in the world. And HRT is rad for those who can do it.

Julia 15:18

Yes. Support that 100%. And I would even add, you know, with the there's the neural part, I feel, and then there is the nervous system part, which we're also interconnected, obviously, but that dysregulation that just presents and continues throughout the entire body, right? So it doesn't just, it's not just the brain and the creation of anxiety, it's everything that comes along with that, where we hold that anxiety. Oh, we're talking jaw tension and everything else going on. Yeah. Has that improved?

Alisa 15:48

Oh, yeah. Tremendous. Also because technology has improved in terms of so now they know, like with the types of TMJ, if you have broken your whole face, there are things that they can do now to help you realign your jaw every quarter with tiny neurotoxin. And you are not grinding your teeth a hundred times a day. And your face actually looks like a face instead of you know, one of your I used to look like one of those little dogs you picked up from the pound that was like this. So that was hard to be that way for such a long time. But, you know, to grow into yourself and to grow into a kind of more regulated nervous system where you're not carrying every anxiety in your upper thigh or yes, upper back, the top of your butt, those types of things is new and it becomes new and each day. So it's like, oh, I don't have that anymore. And guess what? I don't need readers anymore. My eyes got better. I only need a distance glasses. So amazing. Yeah, things change. The other it doesn't stop changing. Yeah, so like, yeah, I don't need my readers anymore. I still need my distance glasses if I drive. I don't drive a lot because you know, Boston.

Julia 17:16

It's got the tea. Who needs it? Who needs who needs to drive? And you've got the tea.

Alisa 17:20

It's like a plate of spaghetti here, also, that was dropped by a toddler.

Julia 17:24

You can't it's my least favorite city to drive in, I'll be honest with you. Seriously.

Alisa 17:30

If you grew up in a grid like San Francisco, forget or New York.

Julia 17:34

Yeah, forget it.

Alisa 17:35

Or New York. New York was I drove in New York for forever, for 20 years. Yeah, can't drive here. So menopause is fantastic. I recommend it to everyone.

Julia 17:44

Super. I'm again, I'm looking forward to getting on the other side. I'm really looking forward to that. Now, listen, you are a best-selling author, a brand strategist, a publisher, a nonprofit founder, a prolific Substack writer. The New York Times called you one of America's funniest and most singular voices on the platform. You speak five languages, and you recently launched an independent independent press for midlife women that's already making the publishing establishment sweat. So before we get into any of that, I have one question for you. What in the actual fuck? Are you doing this on purpose to make the rest of us feel painfully lazy? No.

Alisa 18:28

I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Julia 18:30

I'm kidding.

Alisa 18:31

I'm only doing one thing at a time because I'm a single tasker. So that's my that's my like path for like my whole life. Like I started in branding in my early life because I got out of film school and quickly realized that no one was gonna let me work in film in the roles that I wanted as a writer or a producer or a director. I got to direct a little tiny bit of like commercial stuff, and I got to work on some films as a and TV pieces and great stuff, but mostly as a punch-up girl, which is are you funny? And that I was able to get that kind of work and rewrites. So I'm very good at punch-ups, but I wasn't the most solid living that I could make for myself and my children was always on the corporate side for branding. So I spent a lot of time there. And you know, I just love languages. And my uh husband at the time, we'd lived in France. He's terrible.

Julia 19:35

I mean, I hate cheese and wine, what an awful place.

Alisa 19:39

And actually, we regret moving back. I think I regret significantly moving back every single day of my life. I don't know what we were thinking. We made a profound mistake in that. I will go on record for that forever. And it was, I think it was we were both young and dumb. We've all been there, and we thought we could do whatever we want and come back anytime.

Julia 20:05

Yeah.

Alisa 20:05

And so the thing is it's all a matter of like playing out your life and doing the things on your journey. And the latest in the journey has been, well, I love Substack because it makes me it forces me to write in the short form, obviously. And it forces me to exercise comedic muscles, which I think are really important.

Julia 20:27

Which you're really good at. Your muscles are strong. Your muscles are extremely strong.

Alisa 20:32

But I also love the community and literary companionship that you find there. I think it's wonderful. And I love showcasing other writers' work there, like our authors, writers. And we started Empress almost like an accident. It was we were on a book, we were all on a book club meeting together for the Empress, and we had Kristen Miller of the change on the book club with us that day. And we were all kind of looking around at each other and bemoaning the state of midlife women and this the fact that their unemployment rate at that time, the globe, the national unemployment rate was something like 3.4%. And the when you hit age 50, it jumped to 13%. Now that has changed, like most the most current figures are that a woman stops, she stops seeing her salary rise at age 45, and it decreases 9% every 10 years, such that by the time she retires, she's seen a salary decrease by 65 of 18%, which is absolutely untenable. Also, half of the women who are unemployed are unemployed long term, which is over 27 weeks, which is enough to lose your home and not be able to eat and to and lose your medical care. And and that's really important when we're getting into an age where you need extra screenings and you need support potentially for long-term care or chronic health issues. Yeah. So these were these things we were lamenting about on the call. And Chris.

Julia 22:14

Well, and I would and I would add to that, and sorry to interrupt, but you know, not to mention that women outlive men. I want to say by maybe 10 years or yeah. And so, you know, as we age, we it's very possible if you are partnered with a male presenting person that you're gonna outlive them. Yeah.

Alisa 22:33

Yeah.

Julia 22:34

There's no extra support.

Alisa 22:35

And you need you might need extra long-term care insurance, you might need to for in-home care or you know, assisted living or some sorts of things. So they're different insurance products that you need as a midlife woman. And you're so grown up.

Julia 22:53

Adulting so, so hard. Yeah. Yes.

Alisa 22:57

So we were on the call and we're like, and Kirsten and I just looked at each other, and and she had been part of this program for Lyft in Mexico to hire only female drivers for safety, which I adored. And I and we had gotten it started, and it had just been started in San Francisco. Francisco, which I just think like we have to, and she's like, we just have to hire each other. And then I went out for a walk and I was doing my walk in the park. And I was like, okay, what do we know how to do? How can we hire all the women we know from the Empress? And I was like, oh, well, we know how to make books. That's really easy. Because it is actually from a production standpoint. It's not hard to make a book. And I was like, oh, wow, we could start a press. We could do it with the writers we already have on the Empress who've been trying to break through for forever, but they keep being told they're old voices and they're not interesting anymore. But we could help them be interesting. And you sure can. And we know how to make books. And we could create a kind of collective whereby, you know, they own all, they own the bulk of their royalties. They own the bulk of their data, not the publishing house. So they actually know what's selling, where it's selling, how it's selling. And that's something that I've been working on pretty hard. Just building that report type of infrastructure. But it's really hard to do because the publishing industry doesn't want you to have any data.

Julia 24:33

No.

Alisa 24:34

So, you know, these are things we're learning in the wake of all that. But in the same at the same time, we've been able to bring like 19, 20 authors to market. And so I'm I'm I'm excited for that. The model isn't this type of model that is big five model.

Julia 24:55

Yes, but it's not traditional.

Alisa 24:57

It's not traditional, it is very sponsor-driven. Where if you are a book like, oh gosh, if you're a book like Beth Lizigorsky's book, So This Is Happening, which has a lot of themes about missed connections, and they actually work for a wireless provider, and they're doing all of this creative work and like campaign building and all of these campaigns, and it's like madmen meets, you know, that kind of environment. But we actually do go get a wireless sponsor to help us produce that book. Amazing. Well, that's what we go and do.

Julia 25:36

Yeah.

Alisa 25:36

So, and then and that Beth is in control of those funds and how they're allocated because I want that for our authors. I want them to have the actual control of how they're spending their money on their books. But it shouldn't be it should be considered a hybrid because we're not a hybrid. We do submit our authors for publishers. Our authors have won five publishers' weekly reviews, editors' picks. We want them to have access to all those things. We do want them to own their marketing so they can push it in the way that feels right for them and doable and get what a novel idea.

Julia 26:19

Ha ha.

Alisa 26:21

It gets them the most traction in the marketplace. So we do have a sales team of 200 field reps out in the space. So they do advise, they're like, here's what you need to do from an indie sales perspective. Where I found my accidental gift is in metadata. And I think it's just I'm a nerd. And so when it comes down to figuring out the way that women talk and the way that they enter their keywords into Amazon and Barnes and Noble, our group seems to have a good like finger on that pulse because if you look at my um one of our other authors, Heather Robertson of Are You There God, It's Me Menopause, you know, she's a physician and she's talked to women for, you know, 30 years now, and seeing them as an O V GYN, she's had every conversation you could ever possibly have. So when she, I'll pick her brain about metadata and what keywords we should be in key phrases, because it's not about a word, it's the phrases women use when they're searching for a book. And if we get that right, what that does is it makes the algorithm discover us. And so we will see a sale that is or a pre-order that is phenomenal and that gets our book discovered. So it's that accidental data science piece that has kind of worked in our favor. And we didn't know midlife women had such a gift for it.

Julia 28:03

Yeah, I I think about that a lot. And I also think about economically how this demographic is very untapped because we for the most part, and despite and we just talked about unemployment, but there's a large group of people or who are very wealthy, who are at at the they're at the pinnacle of their careers. They know what they want, they are the decision makers in their relationship, in their life, and they need things, and you just have to know what it is they're looking for. So all of that makes a lot of sense to me.

Alisa 28:36

We have a tr we have a slide on one of our decks that we use to present about the global wealth held by midlife women, and it's something into the trillions, and I think it's like oh gosh, 2.2 trillion or something crazy. It's this crazy number, don't quote me today because brain call. We believe it. It's a it's a badass number. And and then they have they control 85% of household spending. And to ignore that market is just leaving money on the table, leaving so much money on the table. They need their stories represented, they need products that are specifically for them, like like curated and custom. And so all and they need to be story driven. It's not about pushing product at them. Yeah, because they're very they're they're oversaturated with brands. What they need is to feel seen.

Julia 29:39

Yeah, I could not, I could not agree more, especially, and I know that you know this, and I think our listeners know this too, and I've mentioned this before, within particularly like the menoverse, as we sometimes call it, given that's this is the world that I also work in, you know, there is people see marketing opportunity and they take advantage. And so there is this aspect of taking advantage of a vulnerable population in many ways. So whether it's with, you know, supplements that don't do anything or very expensive, I don't know, light ones for like badge, yeah, gummies for your badge, light ones to like help with the you know, plasticity of your vagina, like all of this crazy stuff, you know, it's like you have to really be able to tease out the stuff that is not worth it from a buyer's perspective. And so when you really see the authentic stuff that you need, I think that's very important.

Alisa 30:38

It has to be vetted. I mean, there was a time where we were focused on one product a week that actually worked on the Empress newsletter. And it wasn't the Kyle, it wasn't the Kylie Jenner or whatever, whoever Jenner. I was like, your vag already deserves a Michelin star. So do not buy these. Um yes. Oh yes. Like please stop. Please don't waste your money. All the supplements is, you know, it's really dodgy. And so you've got to be, and they can actually do more harm than good if you're not really working with your physician. And so, you know, there's there's just a lot to vet and to run through your clinician and say, and you've got to have that means you actually have to have alignment with your clinician because a lot of people don't at the trail.

Julia 31:35

So true. And I, you know, there's more, luckily, there's more options out there. You know, I work for a practice that is we're affiliated with Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai finally is, they've got their shit together. They're doing, they have a menopause, you know, department now dedicated to midlife women. New York Lane Gone has had this forever, and you can't even get in there. I mean, if you are they're booked, they're not even taking new patients. And so we just we need more opportunity, more access, and we need access that is also covered by insurance because absolutely thinking about that, thinking about the Substack, and you know, I I do I remember you sending this stuff out where you were covering certain products, and I was like, this is great that someone's kind of telling us where to go and what to do because we need things to be vetted from a source that we trust. So it was a very interesting time. And I was so I was just I was thinking about that, but then I was also thinking about your questionnaire because the questionnaire that just came to mind started a little bit later because I feel like the Empress was like 23. Was that is that right?

Alisa 32:37

23 started like 23, 22, 23. I think I have to go back and look. It was yeah, it's too long or it feels like it.

Julia 32:47

Yes, same. And I'm like, because I was trying to think of like when I first started seeing you and like when I subscribed, and I think it was like it was probably around 23. And I think and I think I noted, let me look at my notes. I think I noted the questionnaire was 2024, so it was probably like a little bit later.

Alisa 33:04

Yeah, we wanted to start getting more voices involved instead of just me talking all the time.

Julia 33:10

Yes. I mean, I love listen, listen, that is not a bad thing. I just want to be really clear about that. But I I was kind of like revisiting this as I was like prepping for the interview. And I was looking through it and I was thinking, does that in retrospect, because of the people that you had involved through the questionnaire, like Kimberly Warner Warner and Alicia Dara, Eleanor and Struther, all these people are eventually people you published or kind of partnered with? Was that intentional, or did you, or are you realizing kind of in retrospect that this was like a pipeline?

Alisa 33:42

It was all organic. All organic. Those are people who I had come in contact with. Alicia and Heather and I had been interested in bringing health care, telehealth care in particular, by any one of the providers that would work through insurance, because a lot at that time, so many didn't. And we were interested in bringing it to rural areas. We had this whole plot and plan, which we were unable to because of the regular, because of I will not say his name, but because of the regulatory issues and issues around ice and problems but uh around that, to do a lot of rural outreach through what we call the CLAM Jam, which was a which was the CLAM van, which was a mobile midlife menopause care center, which would involve a mammogram and heather seeing patients and doing menopause care and then signing them up for ongoing care with a menopause provider who could fulfill all their prescriptions and doing it in these rural areas where women had might be on Medicaid or Medi-Cal or those types of places and not have access to care. And then using organizational and trust funding to uh underwrite coupons that women American women are terrible at they're they're great at using coupons, but they're terrible at taking care of themselves. So we thought, like by being out there, by being in the street with a taco truck and literally taco truck and lots of tacos as get and talking to them. We could get them to do, you know, like, hey, why don't you do some labs and get some health care? And then follow up on your phone or your computer a month later with, you know, one of the big providers out there and get your care delivered to your home. And here's, you know, a voucher so that you can get free care for the year or something along those lines to fund it, to make it happen. So then I went to Chicago, met with some different party, different providers, and they were like, yes, we need to get this to we need to get this to the outer lying areas because there's one provider for every 34,000 vaginas. And so we we've got to embrace new technologies to make it happen.

Julia 36:26

So I mean, access is so important because it's so difficult.

Alisa 36:32

And if they don't have a computer at home, can they access it at the library? Libraries do more than just books. And so, can they get a private space at the library to do a medical appointment? That is something, you know, that we, you know, we can talk about, we can find out, is there any way possible that they can put headphones in and do something? That they can log in securely to the portal and say, refill my prescription, please. A lot of them are housing insecure. So, you know, how do we help the most vulnerable people? So that was the Women's Future initiative, which you know, we've we failed to deliver on that front, but it's primarily, I wouldn't say it's lack of will on our part. It's the circumstances with NHS and with the current administration that made it so hard to do things. And we're sort of, you know, the plan is to wait until there's such a time when you know we could potentially at least make the voucher system possible and underwrite those vouchers through either through whatever donation uh funds that we can raise through women's women's futures or through Empress. So these are the types of things that we love to see happen because women need them.

Julia 38:01

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up. So just to let listeners know, you you co-founded the Institute for Women's Futures, specifically to fund menopause, physician education, care for low-income women. And I whether look, we all know this is not easy. There are many challenges and barriers, not only for people, but for the people working in this business, as I am one of them too. And you're working on the difficult end, which is that non-for-profit side where you're trying to raise funds, do all the things, and it feels sometimes like everything is working against you. But I am so glad that you are out there doing this work because we need it.

Alisa 38:36

It's easy to get a mammogram truck to come by for an afternoon. And there are some things that are really easy to get a pancake truck to come for a breakfast and get women to come for brunch and say, come out with your kids, we'll help, and just get seen and let us help, let us help. But you know, there are there's HIPAA and all the stuff that we have to do from a regulatory standpoint, yeah. Registering them as patients of Heathers or otherwise. We, you know, these are the kinds of things that they're not easy from an execution standpoint. And I think we knew that going in, but it was something that I know Alicia felt very deeply about because she also sees a lot of women on the rural side of things where where she is in Seattle.

Julia 39:31

I'm sure. And again, it's so hard to bring care to these areas and and there's a there's a rejection and a fear of care.

Alisa 39:40

That too. And there's a patriarchal rejection of you don't need that. Why do you need that? Where are you taking the kids? What are you doing? And we have to create permission spaces for them to come out, and we have to say, oh, it's just a book club, oh, it's church, it's Bible meeting.

Julia 39:58

Yeah. It's all connected. And again, to your point, you know, this administration and we're not going to say any names is not helping. But my, you know, my hope is that my hope is that it's not forever. And that there is light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel that is, you know, fingers crossed, fingers crossed. Yeah. Totally taking a turn here back to something different. Back to the Substack and sort of the and the not even sort of, but the work you're doing with the Empress. It felt really important because I wanted I wanted to share this with you. That I I remember back in the day, I remember you posting this piece about the Egyptian queen Hatshapsit. Okay. And I and I went back because I did a lot of revisiting the things. I told you this on the pre-show. I was, you know, looking again at Gotham Girl Interrupted. And then I was like, I need to look into Substack and kind of look at the things that have resonated with me over the years and see like where they're landing right now. And one of the things I loved about that essay, I mean, first of all, it felt like it was a blueprint in retrospect, kind of for everything that is going on now. But there, you ended it with this quote that I want to, I just want to read to you. You said, You're like, oh God, it's great. I promise. You said, the through line with all of this, you're like, in summary, you know, the through line with all of this, how do we make room for the rest? How do we move away from the hustle culture towards a life that yields more joy and more meaningful engagement with friends, family, art, and worthwhile work amid the complexities of menopause? This is the mission of the Empress 2024. And I feel, well, I think I feel like the mission stands.

Alisa 41:48

The mission is the mission stands, you know.

Julia 41:51

So there's that aspect, but from a personal point of view, when I reread this, I was also thinking about a quote. It connected directly to this quote from Gotham Girl, where you said it's this the idea of working with the body and not against the body. And as a person who lives with chronic illness as well, I am wrestling with that all the time. And in the book, you say, I need to work less, save more. And I feel like this is all connected to that. And I, when I reread that this week, I had this moment because I am struggling with this in this moment right now, where if I am overworked, I am all fucked up and I can't do my job. So it becomes this dance of like trying to show up and do the work, get the paycheck, but can I get rest? Can I find time in between? Can I make space for the things that I love and still oh my god, deep pockets of joy. You have deep pockets of joy, but also of money because I like money and I need it.

Alisa 42:54

So we everybody needs money.

Julia 42:56

So yeah, where do you feel like you've landed on the other side of all of that?

Alisa 43:00

Well, I've landed definitely. I wouldn't start a press because you do not end up with money. You end up spending a lot of money. For sure. But where I've landed in terms of showing up, I love showing up with the person and the people. So I try to invest more in showing up for the person that I'm showing up with. And I don't show up in the same massively energetic way that I might used to when I was a newbie branding strategist who was tap dancing for her life. I show up softer, and that conserves my energy, which means that I'm not shouting, I'm talking more softly, I'm conserving, I'm preserving my peace. If someone's coming at me with a million questions, I might answer them with three words, but I've answered them. And and if they're upset about that, I let them adult their way through their upsetness about I know isn't a word, but it is today.

Julia 44:08

It tracks, I like it. I will use it.

Alisa 44:10

With their upset, I let them. I'm gonna let you adult your way through that because I've got to do 1800 other things over here. And it's not that you're not important, you are. It's just that I have to balance everything. I don't want to risk another seizure because breaking your face hurts. And it and it also follows that you end up having 14 surgeries over the course of 10 years to get back to being a person.

Julia 44:37

Yeah. Which so that is incredibly difficult and challenging and dramatic. And again, not to diminish.

Alisa 44:46

So you don't want to go on about it and bother people, so you just shut up.

Julia 44:50

And oh my goodness. Well, God, that's I mean, I could talk about that forever. The whole idea, you know, being a person, whether you are living with chronic illness or anything you've gone through, the idea of living with pity, I think is almost worse than anything else. Yeah, anything else. Yeah, we don't like that. Just treat treatment like I'm normal. I'm still me. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, and I would even add also that. Humor is so important, and humor as a form of resilience is also a thing.

Alisa 45:22

It's the only thing, it's it's it's essential for these moments of high tragedy. Of high tragedy. Yes.

Julia 45:32

Yes.

Alisa 45:33

When you've finally gotten over your sad divorce and you're ready to date again, and you break your face in the grocery store. How stupid is that?

Julia 45:42

I invite all of you. I mean, this will be, you know, in the show notes and so forth and so forth. I will leave a link for Gotham Girl Interrupted because it's such an incredible book, incredible book. And we don't have, we just don't have two hours to get into every single amazing thing that Elisa does. But yes, I want to talk about one last thing here. And that is in March, you wrote that you're building the first AI native and protected storytelling empire designed by and for midlife women. Please tell us more about that.

Alisa 46:12

So we did because so what we're doing, what we started to do was to build AI plus human reader companions, which means that with Heather Bartos' books, her book, Quickies, which is a hundred little lessons for living happily sexily ever after in midlife, which is a hundred chapters about midlife's sexuality and how to have it not suck. And it's meant to be which was called pornographic. Am I wrong? Like where there was a whole initially banned by Ingram, and we got it unbanned by working with Simon and Schuster, God bless them. And so what we built around this book with some help was a was an AI clone of Heather, so that her voice and all of her knowledge as a doctor. And we developed it so that, and I can share it with you and for the show notes, that if they want to buy the book, they can keep talking to the doctor long after they've finished the book and they can ask her questions, they can make comments, they can say, What about this? Is this a really a thing? Do you have any new information about this? And the clone, she'll keep, she'll answer you, she'll come talk to you. If it's a question that the clone can't answer, it'll funnel it up to Heather and she'll be able to take, but there are guardrails around it. It's all consent-based, it's all private to the reader. And so what this does is allows the reader to keep talking to the book, keep having a relationship with the author, and and it allows for the author to actually have all this anonymous data about what their readers respond to, what they care about, and what they could what they should write about next for the next volume. And this is so important for authors to have. And they should be able to take this data and if they want to license it at some point to say, hey, I want to make a you know device or that really accommodates my readers who are suffering from this condition, say it's a pelvic, pelvic floor condition or something along those lines. Then she has the material data to back up the development of the device. And it becomes a more useful circle of life for the for the book and for the author and the reader. And so that's what we were starting to build. What we recently found is there's a really interesting group out of the Netherlands that is about, because we didn't accept funding, like big-time funding, to keep building it. We've we've instead focused mostly on our books because people in America are still very afraid of AI, let's face it. Um, and authors are too. But Heather was willing to take a risk and to pilot this with us. What we've recently found is there is another group out of the Netherlands called Bookpacked AI, and they have built essentially what we were building. They're just six months ahead of us. And so I'm I think we should just reach out to talk to them because they're so smart, and they're they're managing all the licensing for, and 250 publishers have signed on with them. Wow. And they're managing all the authors' consent rights so that they get money, they get everything that they're if their book is ever used, it's traced and attributed. And I think their tool set may be stronger than what we could build. So I'd rather have our authors have access to you know a better version if that's what you know, we have to vet their version.

Julia 50:17

And they're they're they're Dutch. So I feel like they're up for this, they're up for collaboration.

Alisa 50:24

Well, yeah. And the thing is, so like two, it was 250 UK publishers signed on with them. And and Wiley actually has recently they've made 49 million in licensing rights this way, and I think there's a lot for the authors to benefit from, but it is just a shift of mindset and it will take some time. I don't want to force anything on our authors, I want them to enjoy their launches and not sweat. I do see by 2030, AI companion readers and different companion readers that are like AI enabled with humans will be standard across every book. Lena Dunham, Roxanne Gay are already doing them with classic books. So through Rebind, which is a company that does AI companion readers, and even Salman Rushdie is doing them. So if these massive writers, literary figures are uh experimenting with it, then I think we need to pay attention.

Julia 51:36

I agree. And yeah, we're in a it's we're in a weird time. There is a lot of fear around it, uh, but there's also, you know, just for example, and you know, I am a one-person show, literally. I do every single thing. I have a podcast, I have a Substack, I run my own business, I teach Pilates. I'm also a menopause coach, and I work with, I'm an affiliate with a practice, but I've also got my own, I mean, so much. And then like the marketing aspect of all this. And without Claude AI, I would not be able to get everything done. It is my administrative assistant, it is my research assistant. Do I use it to do? I'm not, I don't use it in a nefarious way. I use it ethically, but without it, we wouldn't be listening. You wouldn't be listening right now. Let me tell you.

Alisa 52:25

My thing is, I can tell you the exact rules for copyright and AI. And they're they're in there because Jane Friedman has to keep her pulse on it, takes the pulse weekly on it. And for operational tasks and even in brainstorming, all that is protected under copyright. You're allowed to do all of that.

Julia 52:45

Yeah.

Alisa 52:46

Whether you are um I'm using it for a literary literary fiction, I would never do that because who would take that joy away from a writer? Write your own stick. Yeah, you know, hey, if you're gonna write a book, use your own per childhood trauma.

Julia 53:02

And we all have enough of it. I mean, do you need it to have somebody make it up for you? Come on.

Alisa 53:05

Yeah, I got plenty. So it just, you know, the operational stuff I think is perfectly reasonable because you need a second brain in this day and age to keep you on schedule.

Julia 53:17

Yeah. Yeah, I would be, I'd be, I'd be in a ditch, honestly, without it. So yeah. Yeah. Alisa, we have reached the end of this show, and we've got our two remaining things that I do with everybody. And the first thing that I'm so excited about is I'm gonna ask you to tell me a spooky story. And as discussed, it can be literal, it can be like a literal haunting ghost story, or it can be something high strange or like a moment of kismet. But I know you've got something, and I'm very excited to hear it. So when you're ready.

Spooky Story

Julia 53:48 Alisa 53:56

And we weren't sure about the neighborhood at all because my dad and my parents were like, What are you doing? But it was a gorgeous house. And my daughter was still really little, and she liked to sleep with me in the big bed. And I rolled over and could look down the wood floor of the hallway all the way to the Victorian bathroom. And I saw her in her little nighty heading toward it when it was also near the front door. So I called out to her and said, Sophie, what are you what's up? Are you okay? And then there was silence. And behind me, she said, I'm fine, mommy. What's up?

Julia 54:43

Uh-uh. They're the scariest. And what's weird is that I feel like they are prevalent in San Francisco. For some reason, a lot of the good haunting stories that I get are doppelganger doppelganger stories.

Alisa 55:00

Look just like her, like a little Victorian nymph. No little blonde, sweetheart. And I freaked me out. I rolled right over and I was like, I have to hug you.

Julia 55:13

And did she disappear? Did the like the other the apparition like go way? Oh my god. No. I I'm I'm obsessed with the Victorian era and Victorian houses, and it's my dream to own a Victorian house. But I also was like thinking to myself the other day, okay, fine, but you got to be prepared for the haunting because they're all haunted. They're all haunted. You just know what you're gonna get. You don't know.

Alisa 55:34

Yeah, all the doors open by themselves. And yeah. Fantastic.

Julia 55:41

I don't know. Opening doors, fine. Someone that looks like my child or my husband, I say no to that. I say no, thank you. I will skip that.

Alisa 55:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and my other daughter, Olivia, is quite magical in her own way. She's got this spiritual kind of ju like juju going on. Like, I would totally expect that from her. But the younger one is much more like mispractical.

Bibliomancy

Alisa 56:06 Julia 56:06

And you're like, this doesn't track, but okay. Yeah. No, thank you. All right. The last thing we do here is my between the lines segment, and that is the bibliomancy portion of this episode. I have two books for you to choose from. And in the theme of the Victorian era, I have floriography, which is an explanation of flowers and their meanings in the Victorian era, which is one of my most favorite books. My other favorite book is ornithography, which, you know, birds, right? So we've got birds or we've got flowers. Those are the two choices. What would you like to use?

Alisa 56:45

I'm doing a lot of gardening this week. Let's do flowers.

Julia 56:48

Let's do flowers. All right. So you're gonna pick a question. You're gonna hold this question in your mind. You are gonna think about it, and I am going to pick the page and we'll see where this leads. Let me know when you're ready. Okay, I've got it. I've got it. Okay. Okay. So you got the gladiola. The meaning is you pierce my heart. And this is the second time I've gotten this on the show. So this is very interesting. In Latin, gladius translates to the sword, hence the common nickname sword lily. Both the name and meaning of this large and imposing plant derive from the sword-like shape of its leaves. You would pair it with yarrow or yarrow to heal a broken heart, anemony, sure, that sounds right, and daffodil for an unrequited love, or hemlock and marigold for a friend in grief. So it always tells you the pairings. But the translation is you pierce my heart. And I I think of like the suit of swords in a terror deck. So I'm I have I have thoughts. Tell me what your question was.

Alisa 58:01

What's next for the empress?

Julia 58:03

What's next for the empress? I think you wield the sword because you are the empress. Jeez, Louise. That's the way I interpret that.

Alisa 58:14

And like you pierced my heart.

Julia 58:16

Well, and again, with like the sword suit in the tarot card, it has many, many different meeting mean meanings. And what's interesting to me is that I have been pulling a lot of the sword suit for the past two months. And I'm like, how much of this is does it have to do with me and with you? So very, very fascinating. But I would say, so my interpretation is that given it is the Empress, in my mind, I see the Empress wielding the sword and piercing the heart of its readers as it does day in and day out.

Alisa 58:46

I hope we make them feel and feel good at something or feel something.

Julia 58:51

Um as a fan, I can say 100% this tracks for me. And the I mean, the Empress is a tarot card. The Empress means so many different things. There's so many beautiful meanings behind that. And then with the sword, I'm into it. Yeah.

Alisa 59:06

The Empress tarot card is is what we were also we're like, oh, this tracks. This is 100% creative generator. Yes, this is all the women. It's perfect.

Julia 59:18

You're gonna wield that sword and pierce all the hearts. Yes, I'm into it. I'm so tired. Can I not? You've got people to do it for you. This is what my hope is. There are people to do it for you. That is my hope.

Alisa 59:30

Yes, there are. We have we have a couple people that are great. The two people that help me. No, we have we have a very good little team. They're rad. What can I say?

Julia 59:44

Yeah. Oh, we're all working so hard. Let it get easier. Let it get easier. Before we wrap it up, I want you to tell everyone how and where to find you, especially where they can pre-order your new book, which you wrote called Ellery, Ellery Goes Dark. Yes. And other books that are coming out. So tell us where to find you and all the things.

Alisa 1:00:04

So I guess the best place to find all our books is at EmpressAditions.net. And you can find Ellery Goes Dark on, you know, I hate Amazon. Barnes Noble wants us to press to push all of our readers to go to Barnes Noble because when you order it there, it really helps our authors reach the best seller list. And so if you just go to Barnesandoble.com, BNN.com or BN.com and just type in Ellery, it should pop right up.

Julia 1:00:39

I would add you can go to the Empress Substack if you go to the edition, Empress Editions, and you follow like what about what we're publishing, and you just click on the book like I did and pre-order it there.

Alisa 1:00:49

Yeah, and you could it goes through bookshop.org. And then the Empress Substack is just the Empressage.com. And then if you want funny writing, I recently I wrote a piece called The Button last couple weeks ago, and that is at Gothamgirl.me. So that's where I am.

Julia 1:01:10

Incredible. Love it. So many wonderful places. All right, listeners. As usual, I will post everything in the show notes. Alisa, thank you so much for doing this. This was such a pleasure and so much fun. I really appreciate you being here.

Alisa 1:01:24

I really appreciate it.

Julia 1:01:25

Thank you for having me and for you know everything. Everything you do.

Alisa 1:01:29

All right.

Julia 1:01:30

Amazing. Agecraft after dark is written, produced, and edited by me, Julia Brunaki. Theme music Bernard Bernard Brunett by Ivy Virus. Have a question or a spooky story? I want to hear it. Leave me a message at speakpipe.com forward slash pagecraft. And you might just hear yourself on the show. For more agecraft content, join me in Substack at agecraft.substeck.com. If you'd like to work with me and learn more about all of the things, head to Julia J Wellness.com. Thanks for listening. Remember, visibility is activism. And until next time, stay curious and stay a little bit of a table. And I'll see you in the time.