If there’d been such a thing at her high school, Pittsburgh’s L.L. Kirchner would’ve been voted “least likely to be seen in a yoga class.” Her parents may have owned a gym, but she was busy working her way to rehab. This was still true years later, when her husband asked for a divorce—over the phone, from another country. And she knew she had to try something different.
Fearing a return to her addictions — relapse was how she’d coped with her first love’s startling death — she went hunting for an answer to the question, “What is so wrong with me that my husband had to run away?”
She tried yoga, meditation, chanting — all the things meant to cultivate bliss. But nothing resolved her dilemma, because she wasn’t asking the right question. It wasn’t until she saw the shame that was at the heart of her search was she able to ask: “What happens when you stop looking for what’s wrong with you and start looking for what’s right?”
In the words of comic and podcast host Ophira Eisenberg, “Blissful Thinking is a refreshingly honest take on the idea of what wellness even means.”
“Pretty near everyone will recognize a bit of themselves in this sharp, often funny, and ultimately triumphant story of learning to sit with one’s imperfect self,” says Lynn Melnick, author of I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive.
In a memoir that’s both rapturous and page-turning, Kirchner captures the terrors and joys of searching for radical honesty — and a second date.
Essays and reported features based on the book have appeared in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Business Insider, and Shondaland.
Kirchner plans to begin a 5-city United States book tour, starting in the fall of 2023, covering Pittsburgh, Chicago, the Bay Area, and south Florida.
Blissful Thinking: A Memoir of Overcoming the Wellness Revolution will be released on September 26, 2023. It will be available in paperback, e-book, and hardcover. It is published by Motina Books Publishing and is available everywhere books are sold. Discounts are available on bulk orders for classroom, book clubs, and other groups. Please reach out directly to the publisher to place these orders.
About the Author
L.L. Kirchner is an award-winning screenwriter and author of the best-selling memoir, American Lady Creature: (My) Change in the Middle East, and the forthcoming novel, Florida Girls. A top culture, politics, and life writer on Medium, her first memoir was named one of Bustle’s “11 Books to Battle the Blues.”
Kirchner’s short play, In A World Where…, premiered in New York City in 2017. Originally from Salem, Massachusetts, she now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she lives with Hartley and her favorite husband.
To her surprise and gratitude, Kirchner represents the health and wellness category for the Home Shopping Network. She holds a journalism degree from Ohio State, and is working on a television pilot. Her first film was accepted into sixteen festivals and took top honors in three, and she’s currently working on a pilot based on her second memoir. Her writing can be found in The Washington Post, Salon, and Insider among numerous other outlets. More at www.LLKirchner.com. For the less committed, she’s on Twitter @llkirchner_.
Media ContactCompany Name: Motina Books, LLCContact Person: Diane WindsorEmail: Send EmailPhone: 303-668-0440Country: United StatesWebsite: https://www.motinabooks.com
