Meet Shari Lopatin

We were lucky to catch up with Shari Lopatin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shari, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
I have struggled with anxiety my entire life, for as long as I can remember, and I always processed it through my writing. Creative writing has been a sort of therapy for me, and I believe it helped keep the effects of bullying from wearing on me to a destructive level. This was especially true during the first half of my life, where I wrote a lot of deeply emotional essays and poetry through young adulthood about the search for home, the awkwardness of dating, love and heartbreak, and what I later came to understand were the effects of antisemitism.

In fact, I recently published a lot of these earlier writings in my most recent book that published in late 2023, “The Condemned: A memoir told through selected early works of short stories, essays, and poetry.” People can find it on Amazon, Bookshop.org, or a signed copy at Barnes and Noble Desert Ridge in Phoenix, AZ.

I used to abhor my overly emotional and anxious side but have since embraced it after coming to understand my emotions and anxiety are my superpowers as a writer.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’ve been a professional writer and storyteller for 20 years now, having worked as everything from a daily newspaper reporter and magazine writer to a strategic communications professional and published author. I love stories and believe they are the ultimate human connectors.

Currently, I’m writing a lot of essays about life, culture, and social issues on Medium, as well as my newsletter on Substack, “On Point.” I’ve covered a range of topics, everything from “What It Means to Be an Unmarried Woman in her 40s with No Kids,” to “A Jew, a Muslim, and Israel: Cracks in the Wall,” both of which went viral. If you pay the $5/month for a Medium membership, you can read all my essays unlimited. I’ve grown my audience on there to more than 1,000 followers in less than six months, which I’m really excited about. If you don’t pay for a Medium membership, you can read my essays for free for a limited time by signing up for my Substack newsletter, “On Point.” Just visit my website at www.sharilopatin.com.

I also run my own side business publishing company called BookBooks Publishing LLC. Currently, I use it to publish my own books, but have thought about ways to expand it to publish other people’s work one day. If I do that, I’d really like to concentrate on acquiring impactful and moving stories from underrepresented groups in the publishing industry. A study conducted and published by the New York Times in 2020 found that 95 percent of the more than 7,000 books it analyzed were written by white people. That needs to change.

And finally, my most recent book was published in September 2023 called, “The Condemned: A memoir told through selected early works of short stories, essays, and poetry.” One of its main themes was the effects antisemitism had on me growing up, told through my earlier works. Ironically, I published it one month before the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which preceded the most alarming worldwide rise of antisemitism/Jew hatred in recent history, as reported by Reuters. Obviously, I could not have known this would happen when I published The Condemned, so it’s since carried a timely and urgent message. You can grab a copy on Amazon, or for a hand-signed copy, visit Barnes and Noble Desert Ridge in Phoenix, AZ.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1 – If you want to succeed, you need to fail. It’s the only way you’ll learn how to accomplish what you want in life, whether it be personal (such as marriage and kids) or professional (starting businesses or working jobs). So don’t be reckless, but take calculated risks. Listen to your intuition and allow yourself to make mistakes.

2 – It’s OK to walk away from bad situations, especially in the professional world. We emphasize this in personal relationships a lot, but not enough in the world of work. I think many of us are taught to push through, stick it out, and things will get better. I’ve learned this is not always the case. Try to work through things first, but like personal relationships, the effort needs to be reciprocal. Learn when it’s not. By refusing to leave toxic work situations, you could subject yourself to repeated abuse, thereby destroying your physical and mental health. It’s not worth it.

3 – Apply for the job, even if it seems like a shot in the dark. As the lottery says, “You can’t win if you don’t play.” Let the employer make the call. Otherwise, it’s an automatic “no.” Likewise, if you’re more entrepreneurial, start the business. If it fails, learn what went wrong and do it better next time.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
My parents encouraged my creativity and never tried to push me into a career that didn’t work with me, or for me. I was a weird, quirky kid, and in many ways, I’m still a weird, quirky adult. I like to do things my own way, I can be an unrealistic daydreamer, and I sometimes have an odd sense of humor. My parents let me be that unique person. They encouraged my writing, and when I was stuck trying to figure out a college major, my mom nudged me toward journalism. None of this, “My kid’s gonna be a doctor or lawyer.” THANK GOD! So parents, try to help your kid be who they are, rather than who you want them to be.

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