In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with featured author Jody Durand to discuss the lasting impact of writing his best-selling memoir, Country Boy Soul.

While many conversations about books focus on the writing process itself, this episode explores something equally important: what happens after the book is released into the world.

Jody shares how Country Boy Soul opened unexpected doors professionally and personally. Since publishing the book, he has landed numerous speaking engagements, connected with a speaking bureau, created a professional speaker one-sheet, and successfully recouped his entire investment in the writing process. The conversation offers an honest and encouraging look at how a book can become far more than a product. It can become a platform, a calling, and a catalyst for opportunity.

But beneath the practical success lies something deeper.

Jody reflects on the trauma and hardship he experienced earlier in life and how writing the book became a path toward closure and healing. Through revisiting painful memories and telling the truth about his experiences, he found greater peace, clarity, and self-understanding.

Marcy and Alex also explore how healing through story doesn’t stop with the author. Readers of Country Boy Soul have reached out to express how deeply the book has impacted them, and even some of the real-life individuals represented in the story have found healing through the experience.

This episode is about legacy, transformation, emotional closure, and the extraordinary ripple effects that can emerge when someone courageously tells the truth.

• What happens after publishing a book
• How Jody turned his memoir into speaking opportunities
• Creating a speaker one-sheet and building a platform
• Recouping the investment of writing a book
• Writing as a path toward closure and healing
• The impact Country Boy Soul has had on readers
• How storytelling can heal entire communities—not just the writer

In this deeply personal and emotionally powerful episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with entrepreneur and author Zoom Iwuagwu to explore the transformative process of writing his life story.

Zoom, founder and owner of the automotive empire ZZPerformance, opens up about his traumatic and abusive upbringing and how those painful experiences ultimately became the foundation for extraordinary resilience, success, and personal strength.

Together, the conversation examines why the most uncomfortable truths often make for the most meaningful writing. Zoom reflects on the emotional difficulty and immense value of revisiting painful memories to better understand who he has become. Through the process of writing, old wounds are revisited not for suffering, but for perspective, meaning, and healing.

The episode also explores the idea that our past experiences often return later in life with new significance. What once felt like pain and chaos can eventually become nourishment, wisdom, and fuel for growth.

Zoom shares that one of the driving motivations behind writing this book is his daughter. He hopes the story will help her know her father more deeply, understand her lineage, and connect with the journey that shaped their family.

Marcy and Alex also discuss the importance of safety in storytelling. Zoom explains why he chose to work with Working Writers Co., emphasizing that feeling emotionally safe was essential to telling the truth honestly.

This episode is about vulnerability, transformation, legacy, and the extraordinary courage required to excavate the past in search of meaning.

• Why uncomfortable honesty creates powerful writing
• Revisiting painful memories through a new perspective
• Turning trauma into resilience, wisdom, and success
• The emotional healing that can emerge through storytelling
• Writing as a way to preserve family legacy
• Why psychological safety matters in the writing process
• How the past continues shaping the present—and future

In this fast-paced and thought-provoking episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin go back and forth, delivering ten rapid-fire insights about the writing process, covering everything from mindset and fear to creativity and identity.

Rather than offering rigid rules, Marcy and Alex explore the deeper psychological and emotional realities behind writing a book. The conversation touches on topics such as judging your own writing, articulating intentions, sharing fears, embracing identity, and learning to think in scenes rather than summaries.

The episode is energetic, conversational, and filled with practical wisdom for writers at every stage of the process. Some tips are tactical, others philosophical, but all are designed to help writers move through resistance and engage more honestly with their work.

Whether you're stuck, starting, or somewhere deep in the messy middle, this episode offers a refreshing reminder that writing a book is just as much about becoming as it is about creating.

• Why judging your writing too early can stop momentum
• The surprising power of vocalizing intentions
• How sharing fears can unlock creativity
• Identity and its impact on the writing process
• Why thinking in scenes can strengthen storytelling
• Rapid-fire insights designed to inspire and challenge writers
• The emotional side of finishing a book

In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with author, coach, and entrepreneur Cara Krezek to explore the deeply personal and transformational journey behind her book, I Just Got Fired.

What began as a painful and disorienting life event became the catalyst for something much greater. Cara shares how being fired led her to reflect, rebuild, and ultimately realign her life with a deeper sense of purpose. Her motivation for writing the book was simple but powerful: to help others navigate one of the most difficult and often stigmatized experiences in their careers.

Cara also opens up about her recent ADHD diagnosis and how it shaped her writing process. She discusses the strategies, mindset shifts, and discipline required to stay focused and complete her manuscript, offering valuable insight for anyone who struggles with attention, productivity, or self-doubt.

More than a memoir, I Just Got Fired doubles as a coaching guide. Readers will find practical tools, reflections, and frameworks designed to help them move through adversity, reconnect with themselves, and step into a more aligned and purposeful life.

Today, Cara is the founder of The Aipary, a co-working space for women in the Niagara region, and a sought-after strengths coach, living proof that what feels like an ending can often be the beginning of something far more meaningful.

This episode is about resilience, reframing failure, and the power of turning life’s hardest moments into something that can help others.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• The story behind I Just Got Fired
• How being fired can become a turning point for growth
• Cara’s experience with ADHD and its impact on her writing
• Strategies for maintaining focus and finishing a book
• How writing can be a tool for healing and clarity
• The intersection of memoir and coaching
• Building a purpose-driven life after a major setback

In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin explore the powerful connection between editing, perspective, and identity.

They dive into the idea that editing, whether it’s self-editing or working with an editor, is more than just refining words on a page. It’s a process of revisiting, reinterpreting, and ultimately reshaping the way we see ourselves. Through writing, we are given the opportunity to examine the stories we’ve carried, question the assumptions we’ve made, and consciously choose what those experiences mean.

Marcy and Alex discuss how perspective can soften our interpretation of past events, allowing space for compassion, clarity, and growth. They explore how reframing the past doesn’t change what happened, but it can fundamentally change how we relate to it, and how we move forward.

The conversation also touches on the relationship between past and present, and how our stories continuously inform who we are becoming. At its core, this episode is about doing the hard, meaningful work of writing your story, and why that process is one of the most fulfilling and transformative things a person can do.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• How editing becomes a tool for rewriting identity
• The role of perspective in reshaping past experiences
• Why reframing your story can change how you see yourself
• How the past informs the present (and future)
• The emotional and personal value of writing your story
• Why doing the hard work of reflection and writing matters

In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin sit down with author Mila Maxwell, a member of the Working Writers Co. community, to explore the deeply personal journey behind her novel, Finding Lady Baltimore.

Blending fiction with real-life inspiration, Mila’s book draws from the people, places, and experiences that shaped her upbringing in Canada’s Maritimes. At its core, the story is a mystery, but beneath the surface, it’s a powerful exploration of identity, self-discovery, and the unraveling of long-held assumptions.

The conversation moves beyond the page and into the transformative power of writing itself. Mila shares how telling this story became a path toward healing, helping her reframe past experiences, release false beliefs, repair relationships, and cultivate a deeper sense of self-love.

Marcy and Alex reflect on their role as book coaches and editors in supporting Mila through this journey, and how writing can become a mirror, a release, and ultimately, a tool for profound personal change.

This episode is a testament to the idea that sometimes, the stories we set out to write end up rewriting us.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• The inspiration behind Finding Lady Baltimore
• How fiction can be rooted in real-life experiences
• Writing as a tool for healing and self-discovery
• Letting go of false beliefs and reframing the past
• How storytelling can repair relationships
• The role of coaching and editing in transformational writing

In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin take listeners inside the often unseen, and sometimes messy, world of editing a book.

They explore the unique challenge editors face: maintaining sharp focus while working within a manuscript that is still evolving. A draft is rarely clean or complete, and the ability to stay grounded amid that uncertainty is a skill in itself.

Marcy and Alex discuss how iterative writing can either slow the editing process down or deepen the editor’s engagement, depending on how it’s approached. They also dive into sequencing. This is the art of structuring ideas and narrative flow, with Marcy embracing it and Alex openly wrestling with its challenges.

At the heart of the conversation is the idea that editors must “hold belief” in the writer, in the process, and in the eventual outcome. Without that belief, it becomes difficult to guide a project to completion.

The episode wraps with a rapid-fire exchange on what editors truly need from authors, offering practical insights for anyone navigating the editor–writer relationship.

This episode is an honest look at the discipline, patience, and mindset required to transform a work in progress into a finished manuscript.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• Why editing requires intense focus—even in messy drafts
• How iterative writing can help or hinder the editing process
• A candid discussion on sequencing (and why it’s not for everyone)
• What it means for an editor to “hold belief”
• A rapid-fire list of what editors need from authors
• Insights into making the editor–author relationship more effective

In this episode of We Love Everyone, Marcy Barbaro and Alex Morin talk about transformation, inspiration, and how creativity can spill into every area of life.

Marcy asks Alex about his recent eight-week family trip to Spain, a journey that didn’t go as expected. With five or six weeks of bad weather, the trip could easily have been disappointing—but instead, it became a meaningful experience filled with discovery, culture, and new perspectives.

Everything shifted in the final two weeks, when Alex met a music teacher who reignited his lifelong love of music. That moment sparked a creative reawakening that didn’t stop with music. It carried into writing, work, family life, health, and overall energy. By reconnecting with something he loves, Alex found himself more productive, more inspired, and more alive than he has felt in years.

Marcy and Alex connect this experience to the work they do with writers at Working Writers Co., where coaching is about more than finishing a manuscript. It’s about helping people rediscover their voice, their creativity, and their sense of possibility. When inspiration returns, everything changes — and that transformation often spreads far beyond the page.

This episode explores how creativity fuels life, how passion creates momentum, and why the role of a coach is often to help someone remember who they really are.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

1. The unexpected lessons from an eight-week trip to Spain
2. How rediscovering music led to renewed creativity
3. Why inspiration affects every part of life
4. The connection between art, writing, and personal energy
5. How coaching writers can become a transformational process
6. Why creating something meaningful can change everything