Book Launch Celebration: The Joyful Practice Handbook

About this event

Atrium. What if play, not discipline, is the key to unlocking your creative work? Olympia authors Jennifer Berney and Sarah Tavis celebrate the launch of their co-created book, The Joyful Practice Handbook: analog play for dark times. Written on typewriters and illustrated by hand, The Joyful Practice Handbook explores the challenge of being creative in the age of AI. Tavis and Berney present an approach that centers play, experimentation, connection to nature. They see this work as an antidote to grind culture and digital imperialism. In this talk, the authors will read and share images from the book and tell stories about their collaborative process and the evolution of the work. Author Bios: Jennifer Berney and Sarah Tavis are writers and teachers with over 40 years of combined experience working with writers of various ages, backgrounds, and levels. Together, they write a weekly newsletter about healing and creative process, The Scrap Heap, and their book, The Joyful Practice Handbook: analog play for dark times, will be released in September 2026. Jenn’s book, The Other Mothers, a memoir of queer family-building, was a finalist for the Washington Book Award. Her essays have appeared in Longreads, Outside, Wired, The Offing, and many other places. Sarah’s hybrid novella, Beyond the Pull of Gravity, will be published in Cosmographia Books’ ‘Famous Orphans’ short book series in September 2027. She is a founding member of The 3rd Thing, an independent publisher of necessary alternatives.