In this solo episode Mark reads Chapter 5 (The Beautiful Mess: On Failure, Mistakes, and the Gift of Getting It Wrong) from his book STARK REALITIES: Stacked-up Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know About the Business of Writing and Publishing.
Prior to the main content, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode’s sponsor.
This episode is sponsored by an affiliate link to Manuscript Report. Use code MARK10 at checkout and save 10% off your own personalized report.
In their conversation, Mark and Melissa talk about:
- Melissa’s first book (Dear Ego, Dear Heart), which was published Dec 24, 2024 as a Christmas gift to herself
- The questions that came next, including “What do I do to make this book visible?”
- Being told in high school by a teacher that Melissa had a talent for writing
- The transcendence that came as the results of the side-effects from a horrible car accident
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and how it inspired Melissa to write poetry that explores the inner duality
- Seeing the world metaphorically
- Some of the strategies that Melissa had to employ
- What Book Crawl is and how it first started
- The initial name Melissa had for this show
- What Melissa’s show is like, and how it’s different than a podcast
- A mistake Melissa made leveraging AI to generate images for a kids’ book
- The artist/designer that Melissa ended up using for the final project
- The visibility summit that Melissa was participating in during the summer of 2026
- Advice Melissa would offer to other authors
- And more…
After the interview Mark reflects on the importance of teachers in recognizing the talents and skills of students, and the impact a small gesture can have on someone’s creative life.
Links of Interest:
- Melissa’s website
- The Book Crawl
- The 2026 Aurora Awards (livestream Sunday Aug 9, 2026 at 5 PM Eastern)
- 2022 Aurora Awards Opening Schtick/Cold Open
- 2023 Aurora Awards Opening Schtick/Cold Open
- 2024 Aurora Awards Opening Schtick/Cold Open
- 2025 Aurora Awards Opening Schtick/Cold Open
- Manuscript Report (Mark’s affiliate link – use MARK10 to save 10%)
- Buy Mark a Coffee
- Patreon for Stark Reflections
- Mark’s YouTube channel
- ElevenLabs (AI Voice Generation – Affiliate link)
- Mark’s Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Newsletter (Signup)
- Stark Realities Book
- An Author’s Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries
- The Relaxed Author
- Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
- Wide for the Win
- Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes
- Mark’s Canadian Werewolf Books
- The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
- Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard
- Merry Christmas! Shitter Was Full!: A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
- I Think It’s A Sign That The Pun Also Rises
Melissa Heathers is the author of Dear Ego, Dear Heart, a heartfelt collection that explores the inner conversation between the ego and the heart. Through poetry and reflection, her writing speaks to healing, self-love, emotional truth, and the courage it takes to come home to yourself.
The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0