Big News!

My Substack Undaunted Joy will be a book! I have signed a contract with Zondervan/Harper Collins to turn this exploration of joy into a book!

What if we weren’t intimidated by the task of living with full-throated joy?  

In this collection of short essays, Shemaiah Gonzalez recommends a fresh view on life, through her own experiences and discovery of finding joy in both the ordinary and mysterious. In energetic prose, Gonzalez finds delight in naps, her middle school sons’ morphing bodies, and encounters with strangers—and encourages readers to see the joy present in these moments as well. When we turn our attention to the joy around us, she suggests, we become attuned to God’s constant presence with us and in all these things.

Yet this is not toxic positivity or a Pollyanna complex. Gonzalez is no stranger to the darkness present in the world. Rather, this book suggests, knowing both darkness and light helps us acknowledge the disparity between the two. In Undaunted Joy, Gonzalez dares to stare darkness in the eye and respond in joy as an act of defiance.   

Over the course of 35 essays, Gonzalez entices the reader to join her in this endeavor. Her tender reflections and engaging storytelling beckon us to look at the world through the lens of joy, even when faced with pain and hardship, and thereby revolutionize our everyday. In teaching the reader to see joy as a way of life, Undaunted Joy gives us permission to claim God’s goodness even in a broken world, and to share it with abandon.

This manuscript is due March 1, 2024 and will come out the following Spring!

The Substack will continue as it has been, a place to explore these ideas and talk about them together. It will also be my sole income as I work on the manuscript so please consider being my benefactor for the price of a coffee each month and become a paid subscriber.

Thank you all for believing in this project and allowing it to become more than I imagined.