Flourish Anyway® Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls Weekly Roundups & Creative Souls Checkup Series

Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ provides a landing place for people who care about encounters with art, faith, doubt, and mystery.

Subscribe to stay in the know about opportunities to connect with others in the Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ community, engage with a wide range of nourishing offerings, and feel less lonely and isolated in your art, work, and spiritual life.

Keep reading to learn more about Charlotte Donlon’s background and training, as well as Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ subscription options and perks:

1. Stay in the Know with Flourish Anyway® Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls Updates + Roundups (Free to All)

2. Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ Checkup Series (Free to All)

3. Connect with Other Creative Souls & Feel Less Alone in Your Creative Practice with Group Chats & Co-Working + Co-Writing for Creative Souls (Paid Subscriber Perks)

Charlotte Donlon is a writer, spiritual director, creativity coach, and faculty member for Alma College MFA’s spiritual writing pathway. Her writing and work have woven together themes of belonging, art, and soul exploration for more than 25 years. With a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing (2015-2018), a certificate in spiritual direction (2018-2020), and a life coach certification (2026), Charlotte guides writers and other creative souls in developing sustainable and nourishing practices so they can make their art, do their work, and love their people.

A Christian in the Episcopal church who believes the tenets of the Nicene Creed, Charlotte employs a universal framework of belonging and connection in her spiritual direction work. She fosters meaningful, soulful conversations and gatherings that are welcoming to all—regardless of faith tradition or spiritual inclinations.

In 2020, Broadleaf Books published Charlotte’s first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Here Below, a new imprint of Eerdmans, published Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life in 2026. Three volumes of Charlotte’s “Guidebooks for the Soul”—Take More Retreats, The Great Belonging Project, and Belonging Through Art—will also be published in 2026 and 2027.

As the founder of several initiatives—including Spiritual Direction for Writers®, Parenting with Art®, Belonging Through Art™, and Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™—Charlotte is an established thought leader and authentic presence at the intersection of creativity and spirituality.

Subscriber Options & Perks

1. Stay in the Know (Free to All)

Flourish Anyway® Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls Roundups are updates from Charlotte Donlon at the intersection of spirituality, creativity, and everyday life.

On most Sundays (or Mondays!) I share updates on offerings and gatherings, reflect on something from the past, give shoutouts to what I’m loving right now (books, essays, art, and more), and provide details on what I’m looking forward to across my writing and work with writers, artists, and other creative souls who want to flourish anyway move toward more goodness while acknowledging the current reality.

2. Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ Checkup Series (Free to All)

Inhabiting our creativity and spirituality can be lonely endeavors, especially if you have no interest in folding yourself into any of the usual boxes out there. If you hang out on the fringes of certain art and faith circles. If you are too spiritual for mainstream spaces and too “worldly”—or whatever word they use now—for religious spaces.

My hope for the Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ Checkup Series is for people to feel less alone creatively and spiritually. Those who are willing to respond to the questions below will gain clarity as they take some time to thoughtfully share where they are at. And readers will see what others are navigating and experiencing, helping all of us have a broader view of the creative process and spiritual life.

The questions below touch on portions of the framework introduced in my book, Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life, exploring:

• Belonging

• Becoming

• Beholding

• Bestowing

While my ultimate hope is to also have a podcast series with one-on-one conversations featuring the questions below on my All of This & More podcast, this Substack series at Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls™ is a lovely way to begin.

> > > If you’d like to participate and be featured in this series, please complete the Google Form here.

3. Connect with Other Creative Souls & Feel Less Alone in Your Creative Practice (Paid Subscriber Perks)

Become a paid subscriber to participate in Group Chats for Creative Souls with at least two prompts and facilitated group chats each week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. (Coming soon!)

AND

You will have access to Co-Working + Co-Writing for Creative Souls at least six times most weeks. Co-Working + Co-Writing schedules will be sent out every Friday for the upcoming week. The typical schedule is:

Sundays at 6 p.m. CT
Mondays at 7 a.m. CT
Mondays at noon CT
Wednesdays at 6 p.m. CT
Fridays at 7 a.m. CT
Fridays at 3 p.m. CT
Plus a 2-hour session on one Saturday each month.

I’ve been leading co-writing sessions on Zoom for more than three years using a liturgy created for Spiritual Direction for Writers®. The free SDW Co-Writing sessions are going away on August 31, 2026 and this Co-Working + Co-Writing for Creative Souls will take its place on September 1.

Our Co-Working + Co-Writing for Creative Souls will follow a similar structure and rhythms and is open to all creative souls who are paid subscribers.

Here’s a full list of my email offerings:

—Flourish Anyway® Spiritual Direction for Creative Souls Weekly Roundups will go out most Sundays. This replaces the former general update email newsletter sent via my charlottedonlon.com website.

In addition to this Substack Weekly Roundup, I have two more email newsletter options:

—Spiritual Direction for Writers® updates go out once or twice each month to people who have subscribed via spiritualdirectionforwriters.com and focuses specifically on SDW offerings and announcements. You can subscribe here for all things SDW.

—Take More Retreats updates will start going out once or twice each month to people who have subscribed via takemoreretreats.com and will focus on Take More Retreats offerings, book announcements, and pitch and submissions windows. You can subscribe here for all things TMR.