Hey there!

The longer I'm in business, the more incredible people I meet—and get to learn from.

I can only speak to a small slice of nonfiction book writing and business, which is why I love bringing people in to my community who are experts in their own slices.

I've lined up a handful of fantastic speakers over the next few months. Some I've known for years. Some I've met recently. All are absolutely incredible—so please mark your calendars!

As a reminder, all of these calls are free to join live, and the recordings will be available for 72 hours. After that, they go into the Story Rebel Club vault.

If you can join live, there will be time to ask questions then. (But you can always email me with questions if you won't be able to make it, and I'll try to make sure we get to them!)

I'll be sending out an invite with the Zoom link before each of these calls, so keep an eye on your inbox!

Here’s what’s coming up:

People As Story: Presenting Real Lives In Media

With Amanda Pisetzner of Documentary Intelligence™

October 13, 2026 at 9am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.

Documentary Intelligence™ is a way of listening, interviewing, and being.

Amanda is a documentary filmmaker who now teaches people to use documentary methods to better tell their stories. Her documentary intelligence approach is incredibly valuable to anyone who is using storytelling in their nonfiction books.

Drawn from the documentary filmmaker’s skillset, Documentary Intelligence™ lets you meet people without extracting from them, so that something neither of you could have reached alone gets generated between you.

With or without a camera.

Weaving Narrative and Research in Nonfiction

With Leah Sottile

October 20, 2026 at 11am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.

Leah Sottile is the author of two books: Blazing Eye Sees All, which won the 2026 Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction, and When the Moon Turns to Blood, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Both books are fabulous examples of a "weaving" nonfiction structure, where she follows a true story while weaving research and context around the plot.

We'll be talking about how she constructed her books, as well as how she conducts research in general.

Because as well as being an author, Leah is also a podcast host (Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine, and Bundyville) and a journalist who's been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Outside, the BBC, The Atlantic and High Country News, where she is an editor and correspondent.

Getting Found in AI Search

With Meg Casebolt

November 18, 2026 at 9am PST. One hour, with time for Q&A included.

Traditional SEO taught us to chase traffic: rank higher, publish more, compete harder. But when getting found (and recommended) by AI is becoming a bigger and bigger part of discoverability, authors need to update their strategy.

Fortunately, we have Meg Casebolt to tell us how.

I will personally be taking so many notes on this presentation!

Fast Drafting Your Memoir

With Rachael Herron

Dec 9, 2026 at 4pm PST. Q&A Style Interview

If you don't know Rachael Herron, you are in for a treat!

Rachael is the author of Fast Draft Your Memoir, where she teaches people to quickly get to the heart of their own stories. This will be a purely Q&A-style interview where I would highly encourage the audience to come with questions about their own stories for Rachael to answer.

Until next time,

Jessie