Welcome to Brunette Gardens (to Heal)

Personal essays on healing through faith and science as an adult survivor of child rape and sexual assault.

What is Brunette Gardens?

Lisa Brunette, award-winning writer of books, games, and other work, writes this weekly newsletter, Brunette Gardens (to Heal): Personal essays on healing through faith and science as an adult survivor of child rape and sexual assault. She is also currently seeking agent representation for Rootless: Memoir of a Child’s Survival, a finished manuscript of 88,000 words, which she hopes will help other survivors like her.

Hi! I could tell you how I got here, to a place where gardening is a balm from the trauma of my early life and then the times we live in adding layers on top of that.

And I will, in my newsletters to you, which will come to you as an email or as part of the Substack app. Yeah, there’s an app for that.

But right now, I want to talk about you—because you’re here for a reason.

• 💀 Maybe like me, you’ve sometimes struggled with thoughts of suicide. If these spirals often happen in the wee hours of the night when you’re beset with insomnia, you’re not alone! Nope, not even if deep pain (and shame) from childhood trauma seems to be at the root of your dark nights of the soul.

• ✴️ Speaking of your soul, perhaps you were drawn here by my openness on the subject of Christianity. I’m admittedly new to writing about my walk with God, but if that’s you, too, then let’s discover our faiths together. If you’re a longtime believer, I’m here to learn from you, and maybe you can see God anew with me.

• 🥗 My garden chronicles might’ve brought you here, from the archive of nearly 250 posts going back four years. You’ll like these posts if you’re a huge fan of vegetables and you think farm animals are an important part of the food paradigm.

Free, paid, and founding memberships

Everyone gets:

✅ Free posts and chats

Paying members get:

✅ The above + members-only posts and chats

✅ Archive content (~250 posts) since the 2022 launch

Founding members receive this additional perk:

✅ A PRINT copy of any of my books (US) or an ebook boxed set (international)

My background

Through a lifetime of frequent moves—a military brat childhood and nomadic adulthood—gardening has been one of my few constants. Whether working a community tomato patch in the inner city or managing storm-water runoff in my small-town, rural forever-garden, my love affair with growing things has been lifelong… and complicated. I’ve been wordslinging all my life, as you can see from my website.

Win something before you go

If you’ve already signed up, you might share this email with a friend. Besides building goodwill, it’s one way to win a paid membership for free, and you can track your progress on the leaderboard.

Thank you a ton of tomatoes for your support of my work to help others heal and thrive in their own backyards and beyond.

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