Bound Lines and Book Spines

 By Kristi Cruise I’ve just returned from three beautiful days in Charlottesville, and I can’t quite explain why, but it feels like something important shifted in me. It wasn’t just the stunning fall weather or the familiar Downtown Mall. It was the people. Friends I hadn’t seen in 5+ years — faces that felt like home the moment I was with them. We picked up as if no time had passed. I felt so loved, so seen, and so deeply grateful. Being back in the place where I spent four formative years as a news anchor reminded me of something: true friendships don’t disappear. They wait. They hold. And they welcome us back in. This trip was more than a reunion. It felt like a rite of passage. I stepped into the past for a moment, carried my present self with me, and left with a new sense of the future. The younger me who once walked those roads would hardly believe the risks I’ve taken, the obstacles I’ve overcome, and the dreams I’ve followed. And yet, surrounded by old friends (and familiar...

By Kristi Cruise For the past month, I’ve been in a season of nonstop motion. The kind where the days blur and the work keeps pouring out of me in waves—sometimes gentle, sometimes tidal, but always forward. Just when I think this project has reached its highest point, another idea lands, another refinement flows, and suddenly it’s even stronger. It’s humbling, exhilarating, and honestly feels like some of the best work of my life is being born right here, right now. Honestly, it all feels like a dream, like a dejavu, a dream I think I've had before.  I had braced myself for the big meeting to come quickly as was originally. Every ounce of me was prepared to hand it over, ready or not. But life handed me something else today: because of travel schedules, it’s been pushed back two whole weeks! Yea! Two whole weeks for me to breathe and take care of the million and one things I haven't even touched in the last 4 weeks due to this unexpected awesomeness.  I feel… relief. A glor...

Two days ago, I wrote the first draft of a new children’s book. Late last night, after the kids went to bed, I managed to illustrate the entire thing in just three hours. I’m still reeling. I didn't know I had it in me. And it's really good!)  Usually, my stories take months (even years) to unfold. This one came sprinting — as if it already existed and just needed me to catch it. Twelve double spreads, a beginning, middle, and end, all complete in less than a day. I’ve never worked this fast, this free, or this joyfully. This also proves to me one of my favorite quotes, "We can do hard things," meaning we are capable of so much more than we know.   Of course, it’s not finished. The artwork is rough, the characters are only placeholders, and the whole thing will need layers of polish. But the bones are strong. The heartbeat is there. And that’s the part you can’t fake. I can’t share the specifics yet — it’s still too new, too tender, too unprotected. But I’ll say ...

By: Kristi Cruise  There are moments in life when you can almost hear the click of something falling into place—like a cosmic lock turning with perfect ease and you have the Key. You don’t have to force it, chase it, or convince it. The doors swing open as if they’ve been waiting for you all along. "Walk through the open doors," with a set of gold Keys in hand.  Lately, that’s how life feels for me. Every small choice, every leap of faith, every late night and early morning (I am not a morning person) of work and wondering—it’s as though they’ve been stacking in silence, forming a paved path that now suddenly glows with clarity like the Keys I have created. The people I meet, the conversations I have, even the setbacks that once felt unbearable… they all fit together like puzzle pieces I couldn’t see before. It’s humbling. It’s electrifying. And it’s teaching me something profound: when we align with our deepest purpose, the universe conspires to meet us there. It doesn’t m...

Sometimes the universe doesn’t whisper—it shouts. Not through ease, but through resistance. Not by smoothing the path, but by forcing us to choose where to place our energy. Alchemy isn’t magic in the old sense. It’s the process of turning something raw and heavy into something radiant and valuable. It's the ability and the choice to shift focus. And often, the raw material we’re given is discomfort, and that's ok, because the universe is always lining up the greatest good for us.  When we decide to show up fully—clear-headed, present, sovereign and unwilling to numb ourselves—the energy that might have been swallowed by distraction transforms. The weight becomes fuel and the unvierse flows right through you. What once felt like mud underfoot suddenly powers the roots of something bigger, something alive. This is the quiet gift of clarity: it makes space for creation. It says, you can channel what hurts into what heals, what drains into what drives, what breaks into what bui...

Today he would have turned forty-seven. Three days before he died in December of 2018 he called me to say goodbye and to make me promise to leave my position at a company I had created and grown for a decade. Unwillingly, I promised. He promised to help me from up there the way he did from down here. And on his birthday today, I feel his loving spirit wrapped around me like a warm hug.  Birthdays measure more than time. They measure the distance between who we were and who we’re becoming, the people we miss and the futures they still shape. I didn’t plan it this way, but I spent today, his birthday, drafting a sponsorship package that could become the most meaningful partnership of my career—a financial literacy arm that helps kids feel confident with money. I don’t think it’s an accident. My north star is simple: give kids tools they can actually use—short lessons, approachable stories, quick games, books (obviously) and small actions they can try the same day. No lectures. No ...

By Kristi Cruise People assume writing comes easy for me. After all, I’ve been a journalist, a health reporter, an author for nearly 30 years. (Wow, that's a long time.)  My days of pretending to be older than I am to be taken seriously have long since passed. And my writing has changes so much over time. I’ve written thousands of stories in my life—but most of them weren’t mine. That was the job. You learned to strip yourself out of it. You knew that the story was never about you. You didn’t cry on the copy. You didn’t let your voice shake. (Expect that one time when I was coming the house fire that swallowed 2 firefighters. they were moving across the living room floor, the fire was in the basement and when the crossed the unknown inferno, it swallowed them whole. That the only time I remember in my TV career where I had a difficult time keeping it together.)  But those days of writing hard news. They are long gone. And now? Now, almost everything I write is me. It’s weird,...

 By Kristi Cruise This picture was taken six years ago. And in true cliché fashion—it feels like just yesterday. But not because time is passing normally. Because lately, time feels like it's collapsing . Every week feels like a month. Every month feels like a chapter I used to live over the course of years. My life has been moving at warp speed —and I don’t say that casually. It’s as if the universe is compressing a decade of growth into a single, breathless season. And the truth is... I think I’m in it. A full-body upgrade. An awakening. A timeline collapse. All of it. Some days I feel like I’m grieving and birthing at the same time. Like I’m being dismantled and rebuilt in the same breath. Old stories falling away like ash, New identities not yet fully formed—just flickers and fog. But still, I create. Still, I show up. Still, I write and teach and love and mother and try. Because this isn’t just ordinary living anymore. This is a  full-spectrum existe...

By Kristi Cruise Maybe They Hope It Will All Implode Sometimes, deep down, I wonder if the world is quietly rooting for me to give up. That one day I’ll burn out, break down, or just finally say, “You know what? I’ll just be a full-time mom and devoted housewife.” And truthfully? Part of me would love that. The softness. The simplicity. The slow beauty of ordinary days strung together with snacks and laundry and always being there when someone needs you. But the truth is… that life would require two of me . And there’s only one. So I keep going—not because I don’t want the slower life, but because I feel called to something more expansive. Something messier. Something braver. And I’m doing what I believe is best for my children: Showing them that women can do both . That we can juggle family and creativity, dishes and drama. That the house may be messy, but the impact is lasting, or at least I hope.  I want them to see me create. To know I didn’t just talk about books—I...

By Kristi Cruise I can feel it in my bones. I’m writing like someone who finally found the door in. Not the voice I’ve trained or tempered. Not the “professional” tone I’ve polished to perfection out of fear of being too much or not enough. But my real voice. The one that’s always been waiting just beneath the surface, hands pressed against the glass, whispering.  It’s strange and beautiful. I used to think I was being authentic, sprinkling vulnerability like Celtic sea salt. But this? But this isn’t high-mineral-content seasoning. This is the whole damn meal. And for once, I’m not cooking it to be liked.  I think my throat chakra has been blocked for most of my life. Not by accident, but by survival. By the fear of being misunderstood or rejected.  I made “articulate” my armor. And as a trained, professional journalist, I was so good at it, and I forgot I was even hiding. Because the stories I told were never mine. But not anymore. Author Kristi Cruise Now the wor...

  Why I Do This (Literacy Innovation) Work By: Kristi Cruise If we’ve just met, you might know me as the woman behind the books that flip, a.k.a. the "book lady," the literacy activator, innovator, the one with the golden Keys. Maybe you saw me on the news once a million years ago. Perhaps you’ve heard about Living Libraries, a reading yoga that helps kids focus on literacy, or my first literacy rodeo known as Promising Pages. Or maybe you’ve stumbled here by divine accident. Whatever the case is, I want you to know something: This work more than a brand. It’s my life’s breath. I don’t do this because I love books (though I do). I don’t do it just for the kids (though they’re everything). I do it because I believe, in the depths of my being, that a better world is possible — and I’ve seen how story can be the spark. I’ve seen what happens when a child who’s never loved reading opens one of our books and smiles. I’ve felt the stillness when a class tries a LiYo Litera...