Emely Rumble, LCSW Literapy NYC

41. 🎂

I think one of the gifts of getting older is realizing that a beautiful life doesn’t have to be a finished one.

There are still things I’m figuring out. Things I want. Things I’m changing. Things I’m learning to release.

But when I look around, I also see so much of the life I once imagined.

I see my family. My books. My work. My students. My readers. My communities. A career I’ve allowed myself to keep reinventing. And a version of me who has become much less interested in performing a life and much more interested in actually living one.

So I’m entering 41 without a giant list of goals or declarations.

I want to read slowly. Love my people well. Make things that matter to me. Protect my time. Stay curious. Keep changing my mind. Keep becoming.

And today?

I’m going to eat my (second) cupcake, blow out my candle, spend a few hours wandering around the library, and celebrate being here. It’s crazy how the Bibliotherapy app I created StoryHeal even knew the poem I needed to read to set the tone for my day 🙌🏾

Hello, 41. 🤎📚🎂 Let’s get it.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I’m entering 41 feeling very full and grateful📚

Last night, I had the privilege of sitting in conversation with Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor about her work, history, language, family, and the stories we inherit at rumspringabooks NOSH RESTAURANT & CAFE ♥️

And today, Wale l HTX, Books + Mental Health and I gathered with Cohort 2 of Prose in Process for our bibliotherapy session with Kennedy Ryan Score—making space for reflection, creativity, conversation, and all the ways a book can bring us closer to ourselves and each other.

There’s something about spending the weekend before my birthday doing the work I spent years imagining for myself.

Books. Community. Conversation. Reflection.

Tomorrow, 41. 🎂

Today, I’m just grateful for this life I’ve been building.

Thank you for being a part of it.

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The tabs tell the story. 📚

I annotated my way through Something We Said—marking passages about language, Black and Jewish identity, the classroom, family, memory, and Richard Pryor’s rich and complicated legacy.

Now I have the honor of moderating a conversation with author and historian Dr. Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor about this powerful blend of memoir and scholarship.

Join us:
📅 Sept 18 @ 6pm
📍 rumspringabooks Main St Location

I can’t wait to celebrate this powerful book with you all in community. Share with a friend local to Western MA and surrounding areas ♥️

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Latiné Heritage Month is here and I’m celebrating through the stories that hold our histories, question what we’ve inherited, and imagine something different for the generations coming after us. 📚🤎

As a Black Puerto Rican reader, therapist, author, and bibliotherapist, I’m always looking for books that reflect the beautiful complexity of Latiné life. Not one story. Not one country. Not one way of being Latiné.

These recently published and forthcoming books span graphic storytelling, literary horror, family healing, motherhood, friendship, mental health, migration, identity, and the courage it takes to disrupt generational patterns:

🦋 In the Time of the Butterflies: The Graphic Novel by Julia Alvarez, illustrated by Krystal Quiles

👻 Something Followed Us Home, featuring stories from some of today’s most exciting Latiné writers

🤎 Chancla by Leslie Priscilla

💐 Take What You Can by Naima Coster

🗣️ What Will They Say? by Denise Soler Cox

🌎 No Place on Earth by Andrea Beatriz Arango

And, of course, Bibliotherapy in the Bronx by yours truly 🤗🇵🇷

Together, these books remind me that our literature can preserve memory, name what has gone unspoken, challenge what no longer serves us, and give our children new possibilities.

This month—and every month—I’m celebrating the storytellers who make room for our contradictions, our grief, our joy, our ghosts, our families, and our full humanity.

Which of these are you adding to your list? And what Latiné-authored book should I read next? 📚

Save this post for your Latiné Heritage Month reading list and share it with another reader.

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Thank you Crown Publishing for the bookmail. This one arrived at exactly the right moment in my life.

I used to think saying “no” required a long explanation. Or at least something carefully worded enough to make sure no one felt disappointed, offended, or inconvenienced.

But the older I get, the more I understand that every meaningful “yes” depends on knowing what deserves a “no.”

In The Power of No, Anna Holmes examines why so many of us, especially those who haven’t traditionally held power, are taught to value agreeability over our own boundaries, desires, and bodily autonomy.

This book is part cultural analysis, personal meditation, and part patriarchy-defying manifesto about what can change when we stop negotiating against ourselves.

The Power of No releases tomorrow, September 15 and it packs a powerful punch- bc why are you saying yes to everything friend??? (By friend I mean me 👀) lol

What are you learning to say no to—without apologizing for it?

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What can literature help us say about motherhood that ordinary conversation sometimes cannot?

This month, Readers Who Run with the Wolves is reading One Leg on Earth by Pemi Aguda. This is a book that opens space to think about motherhood/caregiving as longing, identity, belonging, inheritance, and transformation.

For helping professionals, the novel offers meaningful entry points for exploring what it means to desire motherhood, prepare for it, feel ambivalent about it, grieve it, or imagine becoming a different kind of mother than the one you experienced.

These conversations require care.

Motherhood should never be treated as every woman’s expected path, and a child should not be positioned as solely responsible for giving an adult a reason to live.

If a reflection raises concerns about suicidality or safety, pause the bibliotherapy intervention and follow the appropriate assessment and safety protocol.

Inside Libros y la Curación | Healing Through Books online community, we practice using literature with intention. We are asking not only what a story means but what it makes possible for the people we support.

Save this carousel for your next bibliotherapy session, and join us as we read One Leg on Earth together. All 🔗 in bio.

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