BIG NEWS FOR JOY
The House That Joy Built is coming to the UK, US + Canada in March 2026!
Hello dear readers of The Joy Rise,
Before the press release goes out to industry media tonight/tomorrow, I am beside myself to share this news with you here first:
In plain text, The House That Joy Built is going to be published in the UK, US, Canada and more! By the wonderful and passionate team at Batsford! I’m indescribably thrilled and grateful that my little book on courage, creativity and connection is going to be easily available to my British and American readers.
For anyone new to this space, or my work, The House That Joy Built is my first non-fiction book, which I wrote in 2023 to offer and share with readers how I found ways to manage fear, trauma and doubt so that I could let myself write. Despite knowing since I was a child that writing was my creative calling, trauma-based fear stopped me from doing it for decades until not writing started to negatively affect my mental and emotional health. Over ten years ago, in 2013, though it remained terrifying, I finally started writing the stories that had been knocking at my chest asking to be told. The power of allowing myself to write them blew up all the ways I’d been keeping myself small. Instead of making choices based in fear, from that point I started to act from a place of joy, learning how to write purely because I loved it. It has never meant that I’m not fearful while I’m writing. It means that through writing I also feel joy equal to and greater than the fear that stopped me for all those years. It’s changed the way I live.
Having the opportunity to write about this and publish The House That Joy Built, now around the world, is a privilege and honour. Which also wouldn’t exist without my readers – people who’ve given me their time and kindness at events, in book signing lines and on my posts here on Substack or Instagram. Their responses have reminded me that the way fear can shape our lives is universal but so is our capacity to feel joy through creativity if we give ourselves permission.
I hope The House That Joy Built brings readers the solace and fire that they need to listen to the knocking in their chests and to give creativity their time, because the joy of creating is reason alone to do it.
The official blurb:
The House that Joy Built is an uplifting, positive and powerful book that explores how to break through fear and find joy through creativity. A bestseller on publication in Australia, it explores the fears that block creativity and offers a wealth of encouragement for anyone who wants to unlock their imagination and find happiness. It is a book for those who yearn to write and those who find their creativity in other ways: gardeners, carpenters, sculptors, jewellery-makers, florists, songwriters, dancers, cooks, painters. Divided into eight chapters, each addresses an obstruction to creativity with a suggested remedy, including gently challenging ‘provocations’ and generous, conversational advice. It is an exhilarating, empowering clarion call to experience the joy and freedom of creating.
On a personal note, an especially wonderful part of this publishing deal is that it reunites me with James Kellow, who was the CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Australia in 2018 when they published my debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
James was instrumental in establishing my career as an author. To have him now publish my first non-fiction book and bring it to readers in the UK and US through Batsford, where he’s now Managing Director in London, is the kind of full circle magic that I live for.
The House that Joy Built is available for pre-order now through Waterstones, Amazon UK, Bookshop.org, Amazon US, Indigo Chapters, or your favourite indie bookshop wherever you are.
Coming this week on The Joy Rise for all subscribers:
A conversational Q&A with artist and activist Tilly Moses, about creativity, disability, colour, chronic illness, secondhand fashion and the power of whimsy.
Tilly is one of the first people I started to read when I joined Substack nearly a year ago, who I am constantly inspired by. I can’t wait to share our conversation with you all. Subscribe now for free to get our conversation delivered straight to your inbox, or Substack feed.
As I wrap this issue of The Joy Rise up to send to you, I wonder what you’re creating at the moment, if only in daydreams, to make sense of things. If you fancy sharing in the closed comments below, I would love to know what threads are holding your creative heart together at the moment.
And now. Back to my desk. To write the next sentence and make the next scene exist.
Thanks as ever for reading.
With a light left on,
Congratulations Holly! My copy came all the way from Australia
Tres exciting! Congratulations x