Hiya Heroine

I’m Lisa-Marie Cabrelli. I’m a novelist, essayist, PhD, and woman who has never been good at staying in one lane.

I live between Scotland, Italy, The Bahamas, and South Carolina/Brooklyn with my table-dancing husband. He keeps me adventuring. I keep him out of jail.

I write about the structural gap between the life you’re performing and the life you’re meant to be designing, and how to close it using the oldest tool we have: story.

Because here’s the thing nobody tells midlife women: you are not in a crisis. You are between chapters. And every chapter (your work, your marriage, your creative life, your body, your money, your purpose) is running its own arc. You are not one journey. You are a stack of them. The map for designing what’s next is the same map every great character has used to become who they were meant to be.

I’ve built businesses and sold one for seven figures, published seven novels, earned a Master’s in Crime Writing and a PhD, and rewritten my story more times than I can count. Not because I’m some reinvention expert. Because I’m kind of addicted to choices, changes, and what happens next.

That map is what I publish here, three ways.

Tools. Company. Craft.

Tools

Journal Prompts & Reframes (free). Outward-facing essays and guides for women reclaiming their identity, creativity, and agency. The structure of fiction is the structure of transformation, and we write through it together, one prompt at a time.

Company

Midlife Elsewhere (paid). A weekly dispatch from a midlife in motion, with the thinking still wet on the page. The present, the unresolved, the messy middle. For paid subscribers who want access to the workshop, not just the gallery.

The Story Room Book Club (free). A monthly live conversation with Julie about the books we're reading and what they're doing to us. Live and unscripted. For readers who want company, not just commentary.

Craft

The Story Room Magazine (mostly free). Fiction and essays from inside the room, annotated and recorded for audio, with quarterly submission awards and an annual prize. The kind of magazine that still takes the work seriously.

What you get when you subscribe (free)

• All Journal Prompts & Reframes

• The Story Room Digital Magazine and Submission Opportunities

• The Story Room Book Club (view only)

• The free Heroine’s Guide to Designing an Extraordinary Life

What you get when you go paid ($9.95/month or $90/year)

Everything above, plus:

• Midlife Elsewhere — the weekly dispatch

• The Heroine’s Adventure Course — 7 chapters, 40+ videos, the full framework

• Questbooks™ — pen-and-paper self-curation workbooks, released across the year

• The Story Room Book Club (live chat & view recordings)

• The participatory layer of The Story Room.

  • Early Submission Window

  • Access to Paid Prize level

  • Access to Annual Prize

And then there’s the rest.

The paid subscription is the door. What’s behind it is bigger.

Retreats — small, in-person, designed by me. Deep-work weeks in beautiful places for women who need a room of one’s own and a week of one’s own to remember what they actually think.

The Build — a one-time strategic engagement for women building a business idea. Plan, brand, financials, roadmap, and a custom AI advisor trained on your strategy. Not coaching. Construction.

I retired from building my own business, but I still love architecting other people’s. If your idea is stuck in your head, if you’ve hired coaches and taken courses but still don’t know what to do Monday morning, I can help. One intensive engagement, one complete business architecture, then you’re free to execute. No ongoing coaching, no monthly retainers. Enquiries by email only.

Who This Is For

This is for you if:

• You’re done performing the “good woman” everyone expected

• You want intellectual discourse, not just cheerleading

• You’re designing yourself, not reinventing or “fixing” yourself

• You’re craving community around ideas, not obligations

• You want to practice being fully human in an increasingly artificial world

• You’re navigating your 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond with intention

This is NOT for you if:

• You’re looking for quick fixes or 5-step formulas

• You want perfect, polished inspiration (I’m messy and honest)

• You’re not ready to do the actual work

What You’ll Find Here

Real stories from someone living her version of an Extraordinary Life (which might not be yours; my sister thinks my life is a nightmare).

If you want soothing affirmations, this probably isn’t your place. But if you’re ready for some real talk about what it actually takes to rewrite your story?

Welcome. You’re in good company.

This isn’t just content you consume. It’s a community you join. We think together. We challenge each other. We practice being present with our own minds and each other’s wisdom.

We’re cat people and have fostered kittens and cats worldwide. Here’s a collage of some of our babies...