Welcome.
This newsletter is a place to share my creative work with you, my Compañeras de Camino. This is Spanish for “companions on the road,” but what it really means to me is fellow travelers of this life.
Traveling Companion. That’s how I think of you, as a reader of my writing and a viewer of my artwork. I believe in the healing power of community, and the healing power of the arts. Together, we can move the pendulum of this world back toward acceptance and love.
After more than 30 years as a working creative across 20+ countries, I find myself returning again and again to something Ram Dass said: “We are all just walking each other home.”
I hope you’ll walk with me and share your own stories and artistic visions along the way.
🧿 May it be a blessing,
-Emily Lupita
Free Subscriber Benefits
Artist Travel Memoir 💌 Illustrated Letters Project
A monthly writing project I started for myself as a way to recover after my lifetime of handwritten travel journals (and their online backup files) were destroyed. A year later, I finished my first spiritual memoir.
✈️ Sent once a month. * New letters for Year Two starting in January 2027.
Read the Travel Letters for free: All the letters are up on my Substack here.
Buy the printed softcover book on Amazon: Artist Travel Memoir: Year One, A Spiritual Travel Memoir in a Series of Illustrated Letters
The Story Guides 🧿 How I Wrote My Travel Memoir
Get a close look at how I built one of my Artist Travel Memoir letters. Think of it as the writing course hidden inside the memoir.
✈️ Sent every other Wednesday for the rest of 2026. Then once a month.
Creativi-Tea Time 🍵 Writer Interviews
A series featuring a letter from me offering words to nurture your creative spirit, followed by a brief writer interview sharing about their current projects, encouragement for fellow creatives, and their favorite quote.
✈️ Sent once a month or so - on a rolling basis when I have a guest artist interview.
Memoir In Progress Excerpts & Creativity Desk 🎨 Project Updates
✈️ Sent once a month or so - on a rolling basis when something new and exciting is on the horizon.
Paid Subscriber Benefits
Travel Reflections 🗺️ Memoir Club with Emily Lupita
Write your travel memoir one letter at a time using the Inward Eye Method 🧿.
A monthly memoir club for women to write the book they’ve been carrying.
I wrote my travel memoir. Now let’s write yours.
Twelve letters. Twelve months. One way to begin your travel memoir, written one letter at a time.
I know it works because I did it myself. Artist Travel Memoir: Year One is based on my twelve travel letters, written over a year, proof of what my Inward Eye Method 🧿 can do. Now I’m sharing the creative process itself, so you can write your own memoir alongside me. One new month, one new letter, at a time.
Begin where you are standing.
Don’t wait for January. Start today. All you need is this month’s letter and an hour to yourself. Either all at once or a few moments each week.
Once a month you’ll receive an invitation. A way into your own memoir. Start with this month’s letter, then revisit earlier months whenever you like. Everything stays open to you as a member.
This isn’t a workshop with strict deadlines. It isn’t a course you fall behind on. It’s a year-long companion for the memoir only you can write.
By the time the year turns back to the month where you started, you won’t just have twelve letters. You’ll have the foundation of your travel memoir, written one letter at a time, in your own words, alongside a community doing the same.
You write when the moment calls you. You keep what you like, add to it, and build your story. And once a month, we check in with the community and chat about what’s surfacing.
How it works.
Travel Reflections with Emily Lupita is a workshop for paid subscribers. Each month brings a new theme and prompts to write and workshop together in our private online space. Join us and start writing your memoir one letter at a time. Just like I did.
Each month I’ll send out a Workshop Guide, written using my Inward Eye Method 🧿. The same method behind my new book, Artist Travel Memoir: Year One.
Inside each guide:
• A message — a creative reflection from my own years of travel and writing, setting the month’s theme
• An invitation — a specific memoir-writing prompt using the Inward Eye Method, meant to open a door into your own material
• Space to write — pages built for you to draft directly into as you create your letter
• A closing reflection — a short practice to carry the month’s theme past the page
Over the year, you’ll write twelve new letters of your own inside your Workshop Guides. These become the seed of your own memoir.
No live calls to add to your busy calendar. No falling behind. Just twelve honest turns at the page, on your own schedule, in your own hand.
What’s included.
Membership — $8/month
• Each month’s Workshop Guide, delivered digitally
• Access to revisit past months’ guides for as long as you’re a member
• A monthly Substack Chat thread with me — a private online space for our group to ask questions, share what you’re writing, or just listen in
The proof.
Artist Travel Memoir: Year One is my own twelve letters, written one month at a time using this exact method. Read it first, or start your own letters and read alongside. Either way, it’s yours to keep as both a memoir and a model for the pages you’re about to fill.
Read the Travel Letters for free: All the letters are up on my Substack here.
Buy the printed softcover book on Amazon: Artist Travel Memoir: Year One, A Spiritual Travel Memoir in a Series of Illustrated Letters
Buy the book’s digital PDF version: in my Stan Store here.
Who this is for.
This is for the woman who has a travel story she keeps circling back to and hasn’t yet let herself write. For the wanderer, the letter-keeper, the one who fills notebooks on every trip and never shows anyone. For midlife women ready to turn a journey outward into a memoir written inward.
You don’t need to have written before. You don’t need a plan for your memoir. You need one month, one letter, and an hour to yourself. By the last letter, you’ll have the foundation of a travel memoir you wrote a month at a time. And you can keep on writing.
Your book, one letter at a time.
Twelve letters. Twelve months. One new start to your travel memoir, written across a year. All yours. These are the themes for 2026-2027. We start today.
August 2026 — The Long Stretch
September 2026 — Walking Into Arrival
October 2026 — The Road Home
November 2026 — Retracing Your Steps
December 2026 — Between Two Journeys
January 2027 — The First Step
February 2027 — Choosing the Way
March 2027 — Setting Out
April 2027 — Finding Your Stride
May 2027 — The Road Underfoot
June 2027 — Deep on the Way
July 2027 — Your Personal Waymarker
FAQ
Do I have to start in a particular month?
No. Join anytime. You’ll begin with the current month and receive each new one as it arrives, with past months open to revisit whenever you’re ready.
What if I miss a month?
Nothing to miss. There’s no live component to schedule, and your guides stay accessible for as long as you’re a member. Join the monthly Chat anytime that’s best for you.
Is there a live class or Zoom call?
No. This is entirely self-paced. The monthly chat is text-based, on Substack, so you can join in whenever suits you.
Do I need to identify as a woman to join?
No. Everyone is welcome. I reserve the right to cancel the subscription of anyone who does not adhere to my community communication standards: Be kind. Be encouraging. Be human. 💜
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. You can cancel anytime under Substack’s subscription policies.
Join Travel Reflections 🗺️ Memoir Club with Emily Lupita
$10/month
About Emily Lupita
Emily Lupita is an American Latina artist & writer with 20+ years of experience as a working creative and a creative writing teacher. She grew up on a self-sustainable homestead in rural Monroe County, Iowa, and has a BA from Central College and an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. She teaches a memoir writing workshop on her Substack using the Inward Eye Method 🧿, which she created to write her first nonfiction book, Artist Travel Memoir: Year One, A Spiritual Travel Memoir in a Series of Illustrated Letters.
Emily Lupita’s writing awards include the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Gold Medal in Poetry, the Atlanta Review International Publication Prize, the Lepke Endowed Graduate Award, the Pearl Hogrefe Recognition Award in Creative Writing, and the John Allen Writing Award.
Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Horse Review, Thin Air Magazine, Poetry International, North American Review, Portland Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Border Crossing, and International Poetry Review, as well as in the anthology Poetic Voices Without Borders 2. Her artwork grants include two Community Art Grants from Iowa National Heritage Foundation and a Public Art Award from the Knoxville Public Library. In 2026, Emily Lupita was awarded a scholarship to the writing salon “The Stories We Tell” with GoodWorld Journeys in Patmos, Greece.
Emily Lupita is also a professional copyeditor and the author of four children’s books (and coloring books) made from her Lupita portrait artwork. She has two sons and lives between her hometown in rural Iowa, USA, and Ankara, the capital of Türkiye.
For more, visit Emily Lupita’s website at: Emily-Lupita.com
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