Meet the Author Monday: Jen Berlingo 

It’s Meet the Author Monday! Each week we meet a new author and get to know a little about them, their writing process, publishing experience, and tips for other writers. Today we’re talking to Jen Berlingo, author of “Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire”.

About Jen Berlingo:

Jen Berlingo, MA, LPC, ATR (she/her) is a seasoned coach, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Nationally Registered Art Therapist, and a master-level Reiki practitioner. After two decades of midwifing hundreds of women through life’s major transitions and experiencing her own passage through a fiery midlife portal where she more fully stepped into her queer identity, she was inspired to write the award-winning and bestselling book, Midlife Emergence, to accompany others in traversing their midlife journeys. Jen is also a visual artist who makes custom pieces for collectors worldwide and exhibits her fluid, abstract art locally in her beloved town of Boulder, Colorado. There, among the sunny foothills, she can be found making bottomless bowls of popcorn and snuggling on the couch with her unconventional family, her coven of close friends, and her cats, Jinx and Juju.

About Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire:

Midlife Emergence is a revelatory memoir and an inviting guidebook; it is a compassionate companion that belongs on the bedside table of every woman who is burning to reclaim powerful parts of herself that social conditioning locked away. Midlife doesn’t need to be a crisis or an emergency—rather, it’s an emergence, an opportunity to make those beautiful, unexpressed facets shamelessly visible.

Psychotherapist and coach Jen Berlingo guides those yearning to peel back acculturated, adaptive layers of identity as they soulfully construct their second act of life. Many women who have followed society’s prescribed path to fulfillment seem to land in their forties with a dull emptiness and an inner voice that perpetually asks, “Is this all there is?” Underneath the stories of her clients, Jen clearly hears their soul’s longings—each one unique, but all harmonized in their aching for so much more. They feel enticed to explore beyond the familial and social prescriptions, obligations, and expectations they’ve followed, a pioneering act that can be simultaneously terrifying and electrifying.

As Jen traversed her own midlife portal in her forties, she began to live more fully into her queer identity, experimented with ethical non-monogamy, and reframed divorce as an expansive form of love for her family and herself. Outside the specifics of her journey, she became a cartographer, marking the waypoints and pinpointing universal signposts so others would not have to walk this path alone. The vulnerability of Jen’s story ignites a flame of recognition inside those who yearn to illuminate parts they may have buried in darkness. Throughout the narrative, Jen shares enlightening journaling and art prompts and potent, personal rituals designed to support the woman in midlife in freeing her own inner fire.

Midlife Emergence is both an inspiring, tender story and a wise, warmhearted guide for the woman in midlife who feels a gut-flipping longing she may not yet be able to name. It validates the adult in untangling her personal values from those imposed by family or cultural lineages. It embraces the parent ready to break out of habituated martyrdom to show her children how not to abandon themselves. It emboldens the woman who has come of age under the patriarchy to finally claim her sovereignty. It speaks to the person who has been conditioned into compulsive heterosexuality in exploring her intrinsic desires later in life. It empowers the recovering “good girl” and the drained people-pleaser in taking courageous steps toward unfurling into her full integrity for the second half of life.

Author Interview with Jen Berlingo:

1. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes! When I was in second grade, I was delighted to receive a typewriter for Christmas. I immediately began writing and illustrating little chapter books. In fourth grade, I created a zine that I handed out at school. I dreamt of becoming an author, an artist, and a seal trainer – and two out of three worked out!

2. What period of your life do you find you write about most often? (child, teenager, young adult)

My debut book, Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire, is both a memoir and a personal growth book – a genre known as a teaching memoir. While it is about the stage of midlife, because it is a memoir, it spans my life from childhood through the present. I tend to write at the very edge of what I am discovering, which keeps my writing fresh and raw. I wrote my book about my own midlife awakening as it was happening – not afterwards when one would expect things to be “tied up in a bow” (which never happens anyway). The feedback I’ve gotten from readers is that this keeps it relatable and normalizes the sometimes-messy feelings that come up during transitions.

3. Do you hear from your readers much? What do they say?

Thankfully, I hear from several readers several times a week. Putting a memoir out into the world can feel incredibly vulnerable, and all I could do was hope that my story of stepping more fully into my queerness in midlife (and all the intricacies of compulsory heterosexuality, peeling back layers of social conditioning, experimenting with open marriage, divorce as an expansive form of love, and claiming my authenticity) would touch others in some way. I receive heaps of gratitude from readers via Amazon reviews, emails, DMs, and social media comments, saying things like: “I saw myself in your words;” “The exercises at the end of each chapter were enlightening and created so much space for growth;” “I felt seen and known and companioned by your story;” “This act of bravery nudges others to keep their eyes wide, their hearts true, and their minds open;” “This book helped me understand my own longings.”

4. What have you found is the best way to market your books?

Both because I am an introvert and because I’m a new author whose marketing efforts are self-funded, I haven’t engaged in extensive (and expensive!) book tours or in-person events. I think authors can get overwhelmed trying to do all the marketing suggestions out there, and I found it easier and more fun to focus on what I genuinely enjoy. That said, I am a person who loves one-to-one, deep conversations that bypass small talk, so being a guest on various podcasts has been my favorite way to market my book. I’m also a very visual person who has loved posting daily on Instagram for over a decade, so I reach out to my community there about my book. Being a writer, it also felt natural to create a Substack about women in midlife, which points readers back to my book for more. 

5. Describe a typical writing day.

Through experimenting, I found that I write with the most ease and flow in the morning. In the past, I’ve loved writing in cafés, but I wrote the bulk of Midlife Emergence during the pandemic, so I made my home office as café-cozy as I could. Every weekday morning, after my teenager is off to school, I sit down at my desk and open the shudders so my twin kitties can climb into the windowsill to watch the birds. I usually have about three drinks beside me – water, a smoothie, and my English breakfast tea with vanilla oat creamer. I play instrumental jazz very softly on my office Sonos speaker, to mimic that café-esque atmosphere, and now that music cues my mind that it’s time to write. I try to write in 90-minute bursts – whether I’m only able to have writing session that day or taking a break in between these bursts to stretch, make a snack, refill my drinks, or get some sunshine on my porch.

6. Who is the author you most admire in your genre?

Glennon Doyle. I started to write Midlife Emergence a few months before Untamed was published. I devoured her book the day it was released. As I read it, I worried that she had written my story of coming out later in life before I had a chance to — and with a ton more clout and resources. It quickly occurred to me that each story is unique and that we need as many of our voices in the world as possible. Especially since publishing my book and receiving reader feedback, I deeply feel the importance of having more visibility for sapphic stories. I was so fortunate to have met Glennon earlier this year and to give her a copy of Midlife Emergence, with trembling hands and all. It’s my secret (not-so-secret) big dream to be a guest on her podcast, We Can Do Hard Things.

7. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work?

If I didn’t write, I’d still be doing all the other pieces of my vocation – which is to be a coach, a psychotherapist, an art therapist, a Reiki master, and a visual artist. I’m multi-passionate, and over the past two decades, I’ve creatively woven together my love for supporting others in a meaningful way, creating art, and writing into a soulful and rewarding career.

8. What is the best part of your day?

After the dinner dishes are done and the sun has set, I love spending the evening cuddling under a fuzzy blanket on the couch with my cats, my girlfriend, and my teenager. I make each of us (humans) our own giant bowls of popcorn, doused with olive oil and nutritional yeast. We watch TV and chat about our days. It’s my happy place.

9. If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Tender. Honest. Visionary.

10. Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

My website, jenberlingo.com, is the hub where you can access all my offerings, such as individual coaching, groups, online courses, writing, and art. Midlife Emergence is available anywhere you like to buy books online or you can request it at your local bookstore or library. Amazon carries it in paperback, eBook, and audiobook (narrated by me). If you read my book and want to know how the story continues (or you just want an inspiring dose of creativity, queerness, and truth), you can subscribe to my Substack newsletter titled prism. On social media, I hang out most often on Instagram.

To learn more about Jen Berlingo, here’s where you can find her:

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