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Stephanie Apenito, an educator and host of two podcasts, discusses her love for reading and writing. She believes that both activities make life better and spends as much time as she can doing them. Stephanie's podcasts, "Get Literate" and "Kid Lit Love," focus on reading, writing, and connecting with books. As an educator, Stephanie emphasizes the importance of matching the right book to the right reader to ensure an enriching experience. She also discusses how literacy has helped her as a mom and how books offer opportunities to connect with children and have meaningful conversations. Stephanie introduces the term "restorative reading and writing," which emphasizes the positive impact of reading and writing on our well-being. She encourages people to engage in these activities for self-care and personal growth. Stephanie and Becca also discuss their evolving reading habits, including the enjoyment of audiobooks. Welcome back to the Sacred Penny Podcast. I'm your host, Becca Ray. It's wonderful to have the company of Stephanie Apenito tonight. And we have been in this space before, I think last summer, late last summer, I was on your podcast, and boy, I don't meet too many people who love literacy as much as I do. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to continue our conversation. What have you been up to since the last time I saw you? You have two podcasts now, right? I do. I do. I think you've met your match for someone who loves reading and writing and journaling as much as you do. I've always been a reader and a writer, for as long as I can remember, always had a book in my hand, a journal, and a mechanical pencil tucked in somewhere. And I've continued that all the way throughout my life to today, where I really rely on reading and writing to make life better. Plain and simple, I just feel like both of those things make life better. And so I try to spend as much time as I can doing both of those things. And I just kind of surround myself with books and notebooks as part of my work and my professional life, but also my personal life. So I'm an educator, and I work with teachers who want to become literacy teachers and literacy coaches. And personally, I have two podcasts that keep me square in the reading and writing world. The first one that's been around a little bit longer is called Get Literate. And it's about reading and writing and learning our way to a life that we love and feels good and is healthy. And then my newer podcast is such a passion project. It is called Kid Lit Love. And every week, I sit down with a different children's literature author, and we talk about books and how they can help us and how we can not only connect them to children, but to all of the inner children and all of us adults, too. So it's just this, it's just a beautiful podcast. And it's a wonderful mix of things I get to do around books and notebooks. That's wonderful to stay in the know as well so that you kind of have firsthand experience on what to recommend to those teachers. Because as an educator myself, I know I do not want to pass along a book that's going to bore my kids, that the parents that I'm sending it home to read with, that they're going to be bored or frustrated or annoyed, that everybody is getting an enriching experience out of whatever I'm sending home. Yeah. Yeah, it really means a lot to me to be able to match a book to the right next reader, whether that is a young child or an adult. I just love making that connection. I always tell my kids that books are patient, and they're just waiting for you to find the right one. And when you're involved in that, and you can put the right book into the hands of the right reader, and then you think about it, you act on it, you write about it, I just really feel like this kind of magic happens in the process. It certainly does. I'm in the third grade world this year, and it's a world that I've never been in before. Moving from college and high school to third grade has been such an eye-opening experience of the joy of reading, because when students are just learning how to read that little, and they gain the confidence to enter that world and really engage with that world and put that, you know, foreign vocabulary world, word into matching what they're imagining. It's just so beautiful. I had a student this morning bring in her big Harry Potter book. I'm on book two, and I'm like, somebody else is reading Harry Potter all these years later. You know, it's just beautiful to see the excitement of something that, you know, we all know and love, and somebody experiencing it for the first time. It's just beautiful. Yeah, it is a gift. How did literacy help you as a mom and as a parent, besides being an educator? How did that help you enrich your family? Well, I think because reading and writing is so important to me, it really was my form of self-care. So I've noticed as a parent, and it's a really hard thing, I think, to admit and figure out, but we end up realizing that when we take better care of ourselves, we can take better care of everyone else. And for me, the ultimate form of self-care is this quiet time with my books where I can read, and especially my notebook. My notebook is my therapist. It is with me just about every single morning when I open up in my morning pages, and I really feel like I'm a calmer, present, happier, more put-together person, if you will, if those two things are in my life, for someone else, and maybe painting and gardening, or it can be, you know, two other things that mean something to them. But for me, books and reading have just always been the thing that has been there for me, no matter what's going on in my life. So I think it's helped me to be a better person so that I can be a better mom, a better everything. But eventually, you know, I've realized that in the same way reading and writing can help me, they are really good parenting tools, too. Books offer these wonderful opportunities to connect with our kids in ways that can sometimes be hard as they're growing. The books can bring up topics that maybe you want to broach with a child, but you're not quite sure how, or they offer these entry points into conversations. The journals offer spaces to write. I used to have them when my kids were younger. They each had a notebook, and it would go back and forth every night. So they'd write me a message, and then I'd write back and hide it somewhere, and we would go back and forth. And, you know, they're older now, so that happens, that doesn't happen anymore. Now it's text messages and emails, and that's okay. But I think it's just helped me be who I want to be, how I want to show up. And then it's helped me make those connections with them that I think are so important but can be hard to keep going when so many things are competing for everybody's attention. Right. And I love the fact, you and I were just discussing this, I knew you had a beautiful term for what you call that interaction between your books and your notebooking, and you said it's restorative reading and writing. Is that correct? Yes. I would love to. So I love all things bibliotherapy. Which is basically the idea that books can help you grow through what you go through, books and notebooks. But I found when I would use the term bibliotherapy and bibliotherapist, people assumed that I was a therapist, or I was a counselor, and they were reaching out to me for services that I'm just not qualified for. And so I kept thinking, you know, what is it that I do? I connect people to books. I help them think about the messages they're learning. I help them write about them to take inspired action in their lives. And I just came up with the term restorative reading and writing, which is basically reading that helps us feel good and writing that helps us feel better. I nerd out so much on the research behind how reading and writing can physically, cognitively, mentally, emotionally help us in so many ways. And I really feel like at this point in my life, it's a mission to show people that it's not just a hobby. It's not something you get to do when your work is done. It's not something that you feel selfish for engaging in. It is essential. It is essential to our health and our wellness and our self-care. So I like to use the term restorative reading because I feel like it gives people more permission to do this kind of reading and writing and hopefully remind them that they deserve it. And just 30 minutes, 30 minutes of connected reading. And in my restorative reading approach, I often pair that with writing afterwards. It has the same impact on your parasympathetic nervous system as 30 minutes of yoga, right? Maybe not on our muscles, right? But it's got the same calming self-care effect. And so I really strive to share with people that this is essential. It's not only essential to our health and wellness, but you can learn so much about yourself from the pages of a book and a notebook. Things that can help you reflect, right? Why am I noticing this? Why is this coming up? Why am I attracted to either this book, this genre, this character, this prompt? And then my favorite part is, so what, right? Is that action, that I just say really small micro moments of inspired action that you can take when you're done with the page that really does have the potential to just make you feel better in so many ways and make life feel better in so many ways. That's beautiful. And that's one of the parts that I think, I don't know, so much of education is missing, but hopefully not thanks to teachers like you teaching new educators. But, you know, growing up, I felt like a lot of books were just to plow through and get through and just look at the vocabulary in the sentence section, you know, just all the technical terms where, as the books that I like to teach and I've liked to teach for 20-something years are the ones that exactly what you're saying. What did that teach you to take inspired action to do in your life? Did you get something out of this for life? Because if you didn't, there's no point in reading it, honestly. And that's something I don't miss about pulling and picking apart literature in, you know, upper level AP class, God bless those teachers. But I know I couldn't do it. This is the type of reading that I prefer now. And it's funny, I have become since, I don't know, since kind of COVID era, I've become attracted to audiobooks. I absolutely love audiobooks. As much as I used to love writing on the page and doing all that, now I read differently. I do audiobooks and I have my journal in hand and I write notes. So, I read differently now in my 40s, almost 50s than I did before. So, it's kind of funny that reading and how you enjoy reading evolve. Yes, absolutely. And it's funny because I really, really want to be an audiobook reader. And I just mentally can't do it. My mind wanders. I multitask. I am set on trying to listen to a memoir read by the author, thinking that will hook me. So, it is a goal of mine to keep returning to the audiobook genre. But I, like you, I write more in response to the books that I read now than I ever did. And I think probably as a kid, I definitely railed against it because that's what was required. You have to write the answers to those comprehension questions and have the book clubs or the dioramas and all of the things that are the must-do's to prove to someone else that you've read. And I think as I've gotten older, I've let that go and realized, okay, it's not about proving what I've read. It's not something I have to do. But I can learn more from it when I do my kind of writing, whether that's list making. I love quotes. I collect quotes like nobody's business. The pages just turn when I do that. Or just kind of write about what's coming up, right? Because when something stops you in a book, there's a reason. And thinking about that, giving yourself the gift of the couple of minutes to think about that and just write about it without worry. Just see what comes up on the page. That's been the most powerful kind of writing that I've been doing lately. That's wonderful. I love the fact that you are kind of getting to the heart of the book, the soul of the book, the sacred part of the book. My podcast is called Sacred Penny because I start with a sacred text. And whatever that text is to somebody, it could be a book of Walden or the Bible or to me. Or it could be anything that really, really hits home. Could be a poetry book of Rumi. Whatever it is that a person can really grab and gravitate toward and pull something that brings out the heart of them, to me, that's a sacred text. Once you make that kind of connection with a particular genre or a particular work or a particular author or a particular topic, if there's something going on in your life that you're really digging deep and you're really trying to get to the heart of the matter, the writing that comes forth, I think, really draws from a well of intuition that you're not going to find any other way. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I call finding the books for you that you might need next, whatever season of life you're in, whatever you're going through, I love making up new words. And I call it a book apothecary because books literally can be the very collection of things that you need. And reading a particular book at a particular time and then pausing to capture those messages, it can be so powerful. And it doesn't cost nearly as much as therapy or something. It's a free book from the library and perhaps a composition notebook. And finding those right books or those right texts for you in this moment, it's everything. It can just make things feel so much better. And that's why I love trying to pair those texts with the readers that I think need them. Is there a particular type, and I love the fact that you called notebooking because it's such a beautiful phrase, you know, writing in a notebook is nothing special, but when you make it a special experience, it becomes something more lifelike. And as you said, it is cheaper than therapy. It is a whole body experience. It's why I call what I do somatic journaling because I also include breath work with it. But when you're putting that pen to paper and when you're fully engaged in that metacognitive process, I mean, there's some amazing, amazing things that happen. Do you have a particular way of notebooking right now that's speaking to you that maybe didn't earlier, anything that's really hitting home lately? Yeah, I think the big thing for me that has helped in this particular season that I'm in is reminding myself that the notebook will never judge. And just writing whatever has to be written, whether I want to or not, whether I expected it or not, and just reminding myself that no one will see this and I can burn it if I want to. But just getting the stuff out on the paper in a way that I didn't used to. I used to censor myself, not realizing it because I was afraid someone might see it or I was afraid that I shouldn't be thinking those things. And so I think now my writing, with the help of Julia Cameron's Morning Pages, for sure, has just gotten so much more real. Like, it is truly who I am on the paper, what I'm feeling without worry that what's coming out of the page is bad or wrong or shouldn't be said. That has been a big shift for me, just letting myself go there. Where I wouldn't before, the Morning Pages have just been a game changer for me. And I do them a little bit differently. I don't always write, you know, the three pages that are recommended. My papers are a little bit smaller. It's kind of hard for me to write by hand for that long. And I do experiment with props, which help, because sometimes I find myself getting stuck. And I guess stuck isn't the right word, because if it comes out on a page over and over again, it's trying to tell me something. But sometimes I don't like that it's coming out over and over again. I'm not ready to see it, or I'm not ready to admit what's there. And so I do like experimenting with just different prompts, different sentence starters to take me out of my comfort zone. And as I mentioned, a big piece of my Morning Pages as well, or a big piece of my notebooking, is writing in response to reading. So I will often write a quote that jumped out at me from a book I've read recently, and I will just write to that quote as if it were a prompt. Or if I'm reading a personal development book, they often have a lot of prompts and questions, and I've really enjoyed reading a little bit in the morning, and then going right to the notebook to see wherever it takes me after that. I've been very curious lately. I've noticed a trend in the last maybe 10 years that a lot of self-help books and professional development books are including journaling prompts. And I always say to myself, did the author write that? Or did some professional go into their content and write it? And I always wonder who wrote this prompt. But the ones that feel authentic, like they came from the heart of the author, are the ones that really move me, for sure. Well, Beth Kempton... Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, it's okay. Go ahead. I was going to say, Beth Kempton just came out with a brand new book called Kokoro. It's not available in the U.S. until the fall, but I purposely bought it overseas so that I could get it as soon as it came out, and it was shipped here. And each section of the book has three notebooking prompts in relation to the concept of Kokoro, which is kind of living with this inner heart wisdom. And I have never, and I write a lot from the books I read, I've never written that much from a single book over time like I did with that book. The prompts were so powerful and so amazing. And I've still been recycling them as I keep working through them. I would say, hands down, she is my favorite for the notebooking prompts to just really go deep. That's incredible. I'll have to look into that. And you said it comes out this fall here in the U.S.? Yes, here in the U.S. it comes out this fall, and it's just, it's gorgeous. I hope they don't change a thing in the publication. I've noticed sometimes differences in books between things that I've gotten from Europe and mainland here. But that's great. Thank you for the recommendation. Greatly appreciate that. I know, speaking of seasons of life, my son kind of really empty nested this year. And boy, getting real on the page this fall, knowing that he kind of wasn't coming back to the nest as much, really helped me through that season. So I greatly appreciate that you mentioned the seasons, because we do go through certain seasons where, kind of like the teacher, if we're looking for the teacher, we'll find her. And if we're looking for the book to speak to us, it will find us. And it's just worth the challenge. It's worth not giving up and looking for the right genre in it. I love how you organize, kind of in your social media feed, you organize literary genres to speak to people so that they can do this restorative process. That's one thing that always attracts me to your page. How did you come up with that kind of process to help people? It was just based on all of the things I did to just help myself. And the more I shared and the more questions I was asked about how exactly I was bringing this kind of reading and writing into my own life, I just started trying to notice it more. And I realized, especially with my reading, in my restorative reading work, I realized that my reading can help me be, do, and feel. So I can try to be someone new through the books I read and how that comes out on the page. I can read books and write to feel a certain way, whether that's gratitude, appreciation, or happiness and joy, or problem solving. And it can help you do things too, right? You can learn something new from a book or you can jot down those dreams on the page and all of the little micro steps that help you get there. And so that framework, that feel, no, be, feel, and do, really is just me getting metacognitive and going up 80,000 feet and saying, what exactly do I do that if someone else wanted to really look at reading in this way and look at notebooking in that kind of way, what would it be? And I literally just got out my notebook and I started listening and drawing and sketching and figuring out what that was. That could, I'm going even further up, but you could take that just as a general journaling prompt and say, who do I want to be, feel, and do today? And set goals for yourself just broadly if you didn't have anything literary-wise to connect to. So that's a great categorization to think about if you think that you don't have anything to write, because it really opens up different postures for how we want to be in the world. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good starting point. Like you said, no matter where you are, no matter what season, if you have books, if you have a strong notebooking practice, those are three things that we could all just sit and reflect on. And then from there, those really guide the choices that I make in my reading and writing life. So I know a lot of people often choose a one-word theme of the year to guide a new year, and I used to do that until 2020. And my one word of the year just was not going to work. And ever since then, I started choosing one-word themes for every month. And so at the start of literally every month, I think about, okay, this month with whatever is going on, who do I want to be, how do I want to feel, what do I want to do? And I choose books to bring that to life. And I tend to attempt to write a certain way in my notebook to cultivate that one-word theme too. That's beautiful. And that's how we found each other is I had a one-word series last summer on Instagram, and lo and behold, we're having this beautiful conversation. And I do more, quote, prompting myself these days from a sacred text type thing. But wherever you find the inspiration, just going with it intuitively and genuinely and knowing, like you said before, when you open up that notebook that you're not going to be judged, see what comes out on the other side. And it's going to be worth the trip through your book. Yeah, it always is, isn't it? It always is, every single time. It's such an adventure. It's a life of its own. It's incredible. What is really exciting you these days in terms of just literacy itself, noticing any different trends or different ways that people are reading? Do you have anything that you've been noticing with literacy in general that is really exciting you? There's a couple of things. I think in the education world, we've had this period of time, well, I guess I shouldn't say a period of time. We tend to go back and forth in a lot of different ways of how we believe kids learn how to read best. And we go back and forth and back and forth. And I feel like right now we've been on a pendulum that's really far in one direction. And in that swinging, I feel like there is a craving for both. We have to teach kids how to read. And we need to do that in very systematic and explicit and clear and intentional ways so that they can read and understand and feel like words matter and that ultimately they can write their own. So I feel like in the education world, there's this wonderful space we're finally getting to where it's like we need to have both. This isn't an or conversation. It's a yes and conversation. And I feel like in the adult world, if you will, are just kind of pleasurable reading. I know there's a lot of statistics on how much of the United States, how much of the world reads and how many books they read, but at least in my circle, which may be a skewed circle because we all love to read and write. And I feel like there's more permission for people to do more of this reading and writing because they realize or they're starting to realize mental health is a serious issue right now in the United and everywhere. Loneliness is a serious issue and books and reading and the connections like the circles we can build around those two practices. That's really lighting me up right now. When I was a kid, I was really sick as a kid. I was out of school for years. I was in and out of, you know, doctor's offices and hospitals and I was lonely. You know, I was alone and books became my friends and my notebook became the way that I felt like I could communicate with others, even though no one ever read it. And so early on, I realized that really powerful connection that reading and writing could bring, even if it was with a fictional character or just a blank page on the other side. And I feel like as an adult, that connection is still strong with me. But I feel like the rest of the world is finally giving mental health, our emotional wellness, our self-care, the attention it needs. And I feel like books and reading, they're making an inroad into that conversation as being tools to really help people just feel good, learn, learn how to be better and, you know, like better in air quotes, whatever better means to someone. So they can feel good about who they are and where they are and connect with other people inside of that work. Because book people and notebook people, we're awesome. Like we are we want to connect with other people who also feel the same. And I feel like I'm either seeing more of that or I'm just searching for it and I'm finding it. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. And I do notice everywhere I go now, and of course, it just lights me up. Journals are everywhere. Journals are being sold everywhere. Every kind of journal, every kind of cute little sticker thing that could go with every kind of system. There is no problem finding a journal with your name on it for what's going to suit you and your style. And that just makes me so happy. I know this year in the social emotional learning program that my school purchases, you know, to use their kids because we want the best, you know, researched methodology to meet kids where they are. There's always journaling prompts, and that makes me so happy that that's included in the book for kids to really go within and sift through what they're learning about how to deal with whatever is being thrown their way. Because no matter, you know, I teach at a private school, it doesn't mean that it's a perfect school. You know, it's and we can talk about the whole child. We can we can touch on spirituality and things like that. So it's beautiful that we can go wherever we want to go with these prompts. But the fact that my kids feel safe and know that I'm not going to be judging their spelling, their grammar, their mechanics, and just letting them talk from whatever comes out on the page to kind of pour themselves into that prompt before engaging in a conversation. I think they feel safer talking about their feelings even and making sure that mental health starts young is so important because we want adults who are self-aware and know when they're not having a good day. You know, it's it's OK to not have a good day, but to have some place to go to take that day is really important and it's accessible. It's not expensive. Yeah, yeah. And it's available instantly and pretty much everywhere. I I have been, you know, in in moments where I needed my notebook and I don't have it. Right. It's grabbing the back of the it's grabbing the receipt at the bottom of my purse and writing something down. It's it's for me, it's just so calming. And sure, it's great if it's in the notebook, but it doesn't have to be. I think it's just the the physical act calms me down to and listening to that sound of the pencil go across the paper is just so calming for me as well. I'm so glad I learned them as tools when I was when I was younger, but I definitely rely on them on almost a daily basis now. And I noticed the difference in how I feel for sure. Yeah, I've I've taken my journaling super seriously since Covid and I don't even question if I don't start my day with an hour, a solid hour reading and writing and breathing and going through my little routine, it's not going to be a good day. Not to say that I'm overly dependent on it. Of course, spontaneity is fun, but it's just a preventative self-care tool to make sure that I'm ready for the day, whatever I'm waking up with. And I love that it's always there for me and it doesn't cost a thing. Yes, and other beautiful tools. If you could leave my listeners a special journal prompt, something that maybe has spoken to you or something reflecting your conversation or just a gift to them, what would be the journal prompt that you would have them write? I think because I really value my own notebooking from the books that I read, from the media I consume, I would I would urge listeners to just give yourself a few moments and and sit down and think. What you know, what pulled at your attention today, what made you stop? What was a moment where something just caught your attention and lean into it? What was it? Why was it? I'm all about trying to figure out the messages that are being sent to me that I tend to ignore until they're too big not to ignore. And so some of my favorite prompts in the morning are just thinking about, you know, what needs to get out on the page? What have I been noticing that I've been paying attention to or has got my attention? And can I figure out what it might mean or what it what it might send to me? Those kinds of open-ended prompts have just been really helpful because it gets me to think and reflect and to try to notice those little those little pulls and the intuitive messages that sometimes we just kind of gloss right over and it just give us a chance to think about it. So like what's grabbing my attention? What's stopping the scroll? What stopped me from turning that page? What am I constantly thinking about? And and just spend a page or as long as you need, just trying to figure out what that might be and why. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything new and exciting that you have that you're offering to your readers and writers in the work that you're doing these days? Yeah, I am so excited for my summer series of my restorative reading course. I'm kind of doing a summer version where it kind of launches at the end of June and it's all about growing a restorative reading practice. So first, why does it matter? How can I get behind it? How do I find more time to read? What do I read? How should I read it? What about the writing piece? What kinds of inspired action might I take? I've, as I said, just tried to get a handle on my own process so that I can share it with others. So that course, it's a series of videos that integrates how yoga can support our reading and writing, how aromatherapy can support our reading, writing, truly make it a 30 minute restorative reading session. And there'll be some live events to help us connect and come together as a community, share books. We'll do some writing together. I'm really excited to create that space this this summer. I did do it over the winter-ish season and learned so much from the community there, as we often do when we get together and do something that we love. And so I'm excited to just bring as many people as I can to this idea that reading and writing is essential and can help us just grow into whoever we want to be. Wow, that's exciting. You're making me eager to sign up for what sounds like restorative reading and writing camp. It just really invigorates me to know that that's out there and that's serving people because a lot of people, you know, other than, I hate to say it, beach reading, will neglect that kind of important practice during the summer. So that's gorgeous that you're offering that when people may have a little more time or, my goodness, may be so overwhelmed with the kid's home that they need that time. Super important. Yeah, so thank you for reaching people in that way. It's been so nice hanging out with you again. I appreciate all your wisdom and all the hats that you wear. But most importantly, I appreciate the joy that you bring to reading and writing. And thank you so much again, Stephanie. Oh, thank you so much for having me, as always. I loved our conversation. And it just keeps me thinking about the directions I could go into. So thank you, Becca. Thank you.