Meet Deb Heim

We were lucky to catch up with Deb Heim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Deb, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

Sitting on my desk is a piece of art one of my friends created to illustrate the phrase “Everyday I try to erase a little of the outline that has been drawn around me, for me, and fill it with something true.” I think there is a purpose that is innate in us, which can be at odds with the purpose decided for us by circumstances of our birth. I was born with a drive to prove myself, but like many women of my generation, I grew up with a strong cultural message that being a good (female) person meant placing other people’s ambitions above our own. What I love about growing older is learning how to reconcile those conflicting impulses.

So, my purpose has changed at each life stage. As the health promotions services manager of the YWCA in Atlanta in the 1980s, I was trying to expand access to fitness to more women in the region. As spouses and parents, my partner and I tried our best to “work to live” rather than “live to work.” As a public health nurse consultant with the state of Wisconsin, I was pushing the boundaries of what was possible for nurses in public health.

Now, as a newly retired person, I’m pushing the boundaries of what is possible for Quizzical Spirit Press, our LLC. Currently, I’m second author with my partner for one of our book series, and the marketer/business manager/events coordinator for the main book series. What makes someone a great writer, like my partner Ross Hightower, is deep introspection, which makes him quite frankly terrible at marketing. Lucky for us there are at least some parts of marketing I quite enjoy.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am the business manager and one-person hype machine for Quizzical Spirit Press, LLC, the writing collaborative I share with my life partner Ross Hightower. Ross, the main author of the Spirit Song Saga fantasy series, has created the world of Argren, where kindness and community ultimately triumph over selfishness and greed. The tagline for the series is “Witches and Rebels take on an evil oligarchy – a story for our times.” My role is to amplify that message through social media and our events to other folks like us, who are aching to live in a more just world. We currently have six book published, with the next coming out July 2026.

I LOVE creating community around shared ideas. I’m especially proud of Argren Faire – “always faire, always free”, an annual Ren Faire based on the fantasy novels. We partner with The Black Husky Brewery in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood to hold a safe space for all the misfit toys. We bring together writers, artists, performers and other creative folks in a celebration of “Ērtsi kalaola”, the colors of life.

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?

When I was young, I held at times a crippling fear about making the wrong choice, taking the wrong path. Not sure there’s any cure for that except life experience. What helped me find my path were few hard-earned lessons – “Own your fear. Do it anyway”, “Someone else has already done this, so why not me?” and “Nothing worthwhile happens without community.” Resilience in the face of adversity has for me been a combination of allowing myself to learn from mistakes without beating myself up, finding and nurturing relationships with true friends, and sheer stubbornness.

I try my best to apply the Buddhist tenet of radical acceptance. Everyone is molecularly unique and has a combination of skills and experiences no one else on the planet shares. Our worst days, our toughest challenges, have made us who we are. That include me, the people closest to me, people I don’t know, and even people I don’t like at all.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

So many books – on Buddhist philosophy, feminist politics, medical cognitive psychology and history – but one that has had the biggest impact on how I move in the world is “Give and Take – Why Helping Others Drives our Success” by Adam Grant. The author makes the case that helping other people without having an expectation of receiving help in return creates a web of community that paradoxically creates more opportunities to achieve our own goals. I have tried to apply the concept of “otherish giving”, giving to others that supports our own sense of self without being transactional. I firmly believe that the idea of zero-sum gain, when I can’t win unless you lose, is the most corrosive force in our culture. One of the reasons I am so committed to promoting our fantasy novels is the heroes live by the concept that “everybody wins when everybody wins”.

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Image Credits

Deborah Heim, John O’Hara

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