The Future of Write the Good Fight with the Fems of Rise Literary

Rise Literary Publisher and CEO ⁠Kristen McGuiness⁠ is joined by CMO ⁠Lauren Porté Schwarzfeld⁠, Creative Director ⁠Vyana Novus⁠, and Content Director ⁠Raya Whittington⁠. In this special episode, you are brought behind the curtain and invited into a ⁠Rise Literary⁠ team meeting. It is here that the future of what Write the Good Fight will look like and be is determined. If you ever wanted to experience Rise behind closed doors, this is your chance!

Automatically Transcribed Transcript

Before we begin, we want to let you know that this episode contains discussions of suicide. This content may be difficult or distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider reaching out to a mental health professional, calling a support line in your area, or texting TALK to 741741.

Your well-being is important to us. Please take care while listening and feel free to skip this episode if you need to. I hear TV or something in the background.

Oh, that's me. Ella, Ella, you have to leave the room. I can't do podcasts with your show in the background.

I told you that before it began. But if you want, you can get you and Brother Dressed for me and close the store.

If we're doing meeting in public, it's honestly so perfect that we're starting there.

I feel like that's... Welcome to Rise Literary.

Wait, we were recording already?

Yeah, we were recording.

That's funny.

From the ladies of Rise Literary, welcome to Write the Good Fight. Welcome everybody to today's special episode where we are previewing and discussing the future of Write the Good Fight, the podcast. We have decided that we want to try to create a new format for next season, and we were going to do a meeting to discuss that format.

And then we said, why don't we just make a podcast of it? Because I actually think this is like the really interesting piece. So usually in a team meeting, I would use ClickUp, commercial break.

Shout out to ClickUp, who we use to organize all of our tasks, milestones and ongoing activities at Rise Literary, including book production, events, private coaching, and all the ways that we are writing The Good Fight.

Okay, so ClickUp sponsorship for next season. We'll start there.

Okay. First note, sponsors. But I mean, I would love by starting to say, like we all talked about really changing the dynamic of the podcast from one that's just interviewing people about writing, which is awesome and amazing, and we want to continue to have guests.

But also really talking about like the behind the scenes and all the things that we work on, because everybody on our team brings so much to the table in terms of their own prior experience, whether as authors, as creatives, as editors, as producers, as songwriters. I mean, we just have such a diverse and incredible team. And as we begin to continue to build this company, it just felt like such an incredible space to talk about all the things that we're doing as a company.

And also, I really love talking about the entrepreneurship side of it, because running a business is fucking hard. And all the things we are doing are incredible and amazing, and also feels like we're jumping off a building every day. So I'd love to talk about the podcast first, though, in terms of what do we want to name it?

Is it still called Write the Good Fight? I know we were talking about this yesterday. And I think it is a great place to start.

I was thinking about it even before we hopped on today. We were talking about in the Rise Room, or do we just call it Rise Lit? So anyway, introduce yourselves, I guess, as you start to speak in them.

We'll just all guess your voices as we go from there. Speak with an accent to differentiate. Don't.

Okay.

I was gonna say, I could totally do that. We shouldn't start that.

I always should not start there.

I'd be an old Southern grandpa for the rest of this podcast episode. So let's not start that.

Vyana will occasionally speak Italian. You can tell when she's very excited.

It's true.

Do it. I can't even do it. I do an Irish accent that very much pisses off Crystal Joy Brown, who's told me, stop doing that accent.

And I'm like, Crystal, it's my Irish accent. And she's like, no, it's not. It's not any accent.

It's not any accent.

It changes.

It changed to something different halfway through.

It's a little whimsical.

It goes outside of Ireland in a way that could be culturally inappropriate. And I don't know why I'd shrill into an Indian accent is what happens.

Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know if we should be allowed to do that.

That's why I'm not allowed to do an accent.

I think Raya might have to cut that. Yeah.

So podcast titles, what do we call this damn thing?

Lauren, you got something?

I don't know. I mean, I don't like to have to remember too many things. That was a silly way to say.

I mean, I can remember everything actually, as it turns out.

You're the iron horse of this team. What are you talking about?

You're not 48 yet, so just you wait. The words start to fall out of your head.

But I mean, from like a branding standpoint, all of our names should just be the same. Not all of our names in the boxes. We should have our own names.

But I do think we have a company name, and that should be the name that carries through on things. But I do love the intro when Kristen says from the ladies of Rise Literary, I like the idea of the podcast being called from the voices of Rise Literary or something like that. Having it be where if you were to search Rise Literary, the title of the podcast comes up.

I don't like that if you were to search on a podcast site for Rise Literary, we wouldn't necessarily come up. And that feels like, I don't know, people are, most people are kind of stupid, and I think we should make things as easy as possible.

So I have a question about not using ladies, which I want to honor all gender conversations here. And at the same time, as we talk about building this as a matriarchal business, I do think there's something interesting about identifying that this is a Femme-led, Femme-founded business. And I do think it's like, I mean, if we're calling it from the women of Rise Literary, I actually feel like, but I feel like lady almost has a gender neutrality.

There's a weird thing about, or no, Vyana's face is saying no. It feels too gendered.

Femme feels very comfortable for me gender-wise.

Ladies does not.

Ladies does not. I mean, ladies in a casual room, but if we're going to be making a mark and actually identifying and presenting this, it brings up a different layer of the conversation. If we're just sitting in a meeting and that said, that doesn't bother me.

But if it's something that we're really charging forward and branding into, it doesn't feel like it includes me.

Okay. Well, then it doesn't stay on the table.

So then I think it is best that that intro changes to from the voices of Rise Literary because on the off chance that we randomly hire a man.

Which feels so weird.

Which is bizarre and I don't perceive that happening, but let's say we do have a man on the team. I think that they shouldn't be included as much as that hurts me to say. I fear they might have to be included.

So I think that intro should probably be like the voices or the people. Unless we came to the podcast, the core group of individuals.

I mean, I like the voices. I feel like the voices has like a, there's like a women's seat to it.

The voices, that's what it reminds me of. So I don't know, but if that's not how you feel it reminds you of is like not you rocking in a padded room.

But I think we've already established that I have a different, you do view words and I hear voices differently than perhaps the other.

As the only member of the team who has never experienced suicidal ideation when the rest of us were like, wait, isn't that just what you think about all day long? I don't understand.

You don't just think about running yourself off the road? That's so weird of you.

A thousand ways to die every day?

I have a fully scripted death scene in my head to multiple songs. And there are so many moments when they come on the playlist and I think of you, Lauren, and I'm like, Lauren would just hear this song and not even think about flipping the car over in a slow motion cinematic montage that ends with me dying and this song pouring out the window.

She doesn't see every cliff as an opportunity.

And the podcast has just taken a turn.

That's okay.

From the voices of Rise Literary.

I think we should zoom out a little bit. I didn't introduce myself yet. I'm Vyana Novus.

I'm the creative director at Rise. I think we should zoom out a little bit before we get into the nitty gritty because there's a bigger conversation before we distill this piece. And it really has to do with the overall vision of what we're doing here, what direction we want to go in, and kind of some of the things that we've been talking about in these meetings the last week and yesterday in particular, where we're really looking to bring more conversation about the inner workings of the business, about what matriarchal business looks like, disruptive storytelling as a whole across a bigger ecosystem of media, not just books.

So there's something, of course, like tying it into Rise Literary, I agree that for SEO reasons, that seems really important. But also having something that captures the breath of what we're doing feels really essential, especially as we start to move in bigger rooms, because there's something in the conversational aspect of how a name functions and what it does to communicate really quickly with somebody what we're talking about, what we're doing. And if we're in a conversation, like, you know, this event I was just at in LA that was very tech and art focused, but they're talking about books, talking about what we're doing, because the conversation is so much bigger than just publishing, and even bigger than media.

We're really talking about cultural change, systemic change, what it looks like in the intimacy of how we relate to the work that we do, to the people that are in our lives, to our own selves. That's a big conversation, and it really does fit in any room that's willing to be even a little bit disobedient. And I want to be able to walk into those rooms and be in those conversations, and say the name of the podcast, and have some tech guy from the Bay be like, oh, what's that?

I want to listen to that, because it's also a relevant conversation for those rooms. And I think as we are defining what we're doing and we start to look at naming it, thinking about who our audience is, of course, is step one. And I think that's changed a lot.

As we've been doing this in our restructuring in the company as a whole, that ICA, that ideal customer avatar that we're speaking to is shifting. Obviously, we have the foundational client customer for publishing, but we're doing a much bigger thing now. So who is that person?

I think if we can nail in on who that person is, then some of these nitty or gritty questions about naming is going to answer itself.

I will say with naming though, I'm Raya, I'm the content director. I'm Gen Z, the only one.

Officially. That's got to make it. You're like a little crown, a little Gen Z crown.

I think though with the naming conversation, if we could do something like Rise Live, I think we could totally do something like The Rise Room. I think as long as Rise is a part of it in a non praise the Lord manner, I think it works. I think that we're good.

I think we're fine. It's just then the content that we create within under that name is in alignment with everything else that we do.

I agree. I mean, here's what I would say though, is that it could honestly just be Rise Literary too. I mean, I think there's something about the simplicity of keeping it with the brand name.

You know, I was looking yesterday at like podcast names, especially in books and media. And a lot of times the name of the podcast is simply the name of the person or the company. Like, I feel like podcast names have actually gotten less creative as the market has gotten saturated because it's like a cute quippy name is not what is going to draw anybody to your podcast.

And, you know, maybe 10 years ago, like, that was really valuable. But I think now there is something that, like, has become a little bit more Spartan in that conversation where, you know, I'm not against it being something that's just simply Rise Literary. And I'm also open, though, to, I feel like The Rise Room, my only concern with that is that I think there's a certain piece of, like, it's like telling somebody to watch the BTS of something that they don't know the front of the stage yet, right?

And so, there's something, even though there is a real BTS element around what we're creating here. And I love the idea, honestly, like I was thinking about this morning, about it being a little bit of a BTS as we're building this. But I feel like that's the content you find when you get here.

I don't want to get a title that I think maybe implies that too much. Does that make sense?

That it's entirely BTS. Because we're also talking about the ways that we are being culturally disruptive in front of the scenes.

I mean, I just think we're still inviting people to the stage. So like, first, they have to be in the audience before they're backstage, right? I mean, that's so and though the content might feel backstage, there's still an element that's on stage.

But yeah, I mean, I do wonder around like adding something around like the stories of Rise Literary or storytelling from Rise Literary. I mean, I do think story is an interesting word, especially as we talk about a storytelling ecosystem.

Yeah, I like that. I mean, you know, I say this all the time. Like, I love going to author events and book events.

And part of, I mean, it's why I wanted to do the TEDx. And it's why I encouraged the starting of a podcast to things that Kristen loves so much. You know, you can read a book and get all of the information that is inside of them.

But when you go to an author event, you're getting the stuff that's outside of the page. And I think that's also why I love podcasts. Because you're not just getting the stuff that you can get from these people on social media or in the books that they've written or the movies that they've been in or in any other place, you're hearing it directly from them.

And so I think that that's kind of like, that's the whole point of it. You're getting this like, the behind the scenes, but also on the stage part. You're getting more than what you would get in any other kind of avenue.

So what if we did like a behind the curtain or like peek behind the curtain with Rise Literary, like something like that. I will say though, I just was thinking about something, because we had talked about it. If we remove the Write the Good Fight Instagram and have it all be on Rise Literary, we are all aware, though, that that content will no longer exist, correct?

Yeah, but we could always save it to a repost file and then reutilize it if we want to.

Yeah, we'll save it and rebrand it.

All of the just the tips will go away.

I mean, that's fine. I mean, nobody, you know, I mean, there are plenty of... I wouldn't be as concerned about that.

Sorry, screeching.

What just happened?

Because the system...

Yeah, they would also delete the entire pattern of the system. I was trying to communicate that.

Okay, so this is what we do, then. We can leave.

I told y'all, I told y'all, I told y'all.

Yeah, stop trying to make a system where everything has to be so fucking perfectly curated because we are not perfectly curated and this is what happens.

And this is what happens.

We're missing.

Remember, you know how we, 20 minutes ago, we started this 27 minutes late? That's who we are.

I know, but.

We are not perfectly curated. Brown, purple, white, brown, purple, white, brown, purple, white. It's not how we roll.

Occasionally, Instagram accounts have to be deleted and then everything's fucked.

We're gonna talk. We're gonna table that because I have thoughts and we're gonna just put that to the side. But what we can do is just leave it up, untag it from our thing and then we can show the process.

When you're talking about not being perfectly polished, the fact that there's been a process...

Or you can just rename it to the Rise Live Podcast or whatever, the Rise Literary Podcast.

We don't have to continue post there.

And then just stop posting there.

Everybody's talking at once and look, I'm Sicilian, I can handle that, but that is a podcast. So what?

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

We're just gonna keep the Instagram, okay? So the pattern stays. We'll rename the podcast Instagram to what the new one is.

And then we just will stop posting on the podcast account and we'll put like a goodbye post of like, we're moving over to Rise Literary, but we wanted you to still have the content if you want to go back and look at it.

We don't want to fuck with the girls. Perfect layout.

No, and we're not gonna tangent off in the pattern, but I will just say we have so much content that the system is what allows it to be digestible when somebody is just popping in, because we can't have it be utter chaos. Otherwise, nobody gets anything. We need to have some amount of breath and structure.

But there is a space between utter chaos and like, and don't sneeze or you're gonna fuck up the mood.

No, but listen, there was a night, there was a night that Raya and I were talking at like midnight. And I was like in bed and I was half asleep, and there was an issue and she was texting me. And then she's like, wait, here's, it's already resolved, it's already solved, because the system solved the problem.

Okay?

It works.

But it didn't happen.

But we understand we're like cats, okay?

Too many problems. Anyway, we won't, we will, there's a whole Instagram fight. There's a whole Instagram fight.

It's the olds and the youngs are feuding.

Yeah, it is. It's gonna, we're good. We're just, we're just waiting.

Don't worry, y'all. We're just waiting. But that said, so I did run through some ideas with ChatGPT to tell it to the Podsic girlfriend.

I know. I know. Sorry, Gen Z.

Raya just broke out in hives.

Yeah, Raya did, but that's okay. I wanted to get some ideas from it, and it did offer, it actually offered less Christianity that I anticipated.

I feel like it knows you well.

He has risen.

Yeah, it did stay away. It offered like just a straight Rise Literary, the Rise Literary podcast, Rise, a podcast for writers, Rise, stories that matter, Rise, the writer's journey, Rise and Write, Rise Literary Studio, Rise Literary Voices, Rise Literary Sessions.

Studio, I like studio.

I like studio. Rise Craft, Rise Story Lab, Rise Pros.

Oh, Story Lab is cute. I like that. Que cosa carina.

Rise Through Story, Rise Through Writing, Rise To Your Story, Rise and Become. This is what it likes. Rise Literary, the Rise Literary Podcast, Rise Through Story, Rise and Write, Rise Literary Voices, and Rise Story Lab.

I like the Rise Literary Story Lab. I also like the studio because it gives us wide breath, but it also, I mean, one of the things we were talking about yesterday was this idea that, you know, we're sitting in rooms with people that not everybody has access to. You know, we're sitting in rooms with people who are creating the media that we consume, shaping the technology we use.

We're with the intimate storytellers and the big thought of what shapes our culture. And what we are doing and what we envision doing as we're moving forward into this new phase of the company is being able to make those conversations accessible to people who aren't able to go sit in a room with producers in LA and talk about, you know, disruptive storytelling and cultural repatterning. I like the idea of studio because it feels like that invitation.

It's like, come in kind of in the way that I was saying, I liked the Rise Room yesterday because of this, that it feels invitational. I like studio because it also carries that and it also has that wider breath of media.

That bigger ecosystem. And then the Instagram would be TRL Studio.

The what? TRL Studio.

Wait, are we TRL? I'm sorry.

I know, Gen Z, do you understand what that means?

I think Carson Daly might fight us for it. You don't know what TRL is? Why are you five years old?

Oh my God, Vyana just fell out of her chair.

Wait, like the channel?

Like Total Housewives Live?

Like the thing I would rush from school to see?

Wait, I feel like this is me having the conversation with Raya at the movies last week when I was like, you mean you've never seen Reality Bites?

Oh my God, that was the other one.

Wait, what?

Oh my God.

Yes, while Ethan Hawke was 15 feet away from us.

You've never fallen in love with a man named Troy? Is that humanly possible?

Yeah, Troy Bolton from High School Musical.

Yeah, no, wrong. Definitely the wrong Troy. Love Zac Efron, but no, definitely the wrong Troy.

Raya is like, I've never seen Reality Bites. I'm like, then why are you sitting in the second row of this Ethan Hawke?

I've actually never. That was the first Ethan Hawke movie I'd ever seen in my life. It was fantastic though.

It was great.

Oh my God, it was so good.

My brain is melting. I'm sorry.

I watched Britney Spears on MTV. That's what I came home and watched.

The TRL on MTV.

Okay. I'm not sure we can do. Okay.

Yeah, we could still do TRL Studio.

I don't know if we can do totally.

Getting the nostalgia is so rich. It's so rich.

We can do it too. No, we can do it too.

It's so good.

I mean, is it taken? Is it available?

It should be available. It's the Rise Literary Studio, TRL Studio.

Great.

I feel like that just answered it because I can't... So I will say, I did ask Chav for some other ideas, and I'm gonna... And we have a hard stop in three minutes, at least for me, but you guys can continue chatting.

So we have Rise Literary Collective, the Rise Literary Room, Rise Literary Sessions, Rise Literary Voices Studio, and Rise Literary Workshop. I don't like those last three. The Rise Literary Room would be TRLR.

TRLC with Collective, but I think Studio does too.

I like Studio.

Yeah, I like Studio.

I like Studio and I wanna pin Story Lab because I think we could do some event stuff with that.

I feel like Story Lab feels cool. I like Studio because it feels like it almost answers that question of like, what do we call our media empire?

Studio. There's a little foreshadowing in it.

It has a little Rise Studio lab. Yeah, I just didn't like the abbreviation which is RLSL.

I didn't love it. Yeah, I think TRL Studio is great.

RLSL. TRL Studio is so good.

My little 10-year-old heart is so delighted, and my 34-year-old heart is so utterly sad and confused that Raya doesn't know TRL.

Can you Google Carson Daly and TRL?

Have you never seen Josie and the Pussycats? And they go on TRL and they almost get killed because it's not actually TRL and all the TVs are cardboard? Can we have a movie night?

I'm dying.

I feel like we need to have a multi-generational movie night. Also, we need to bring a classic from all of our generations and be like, now you can understand me finally.

Yeah, I know him. We're going to have to wrap this because I can't be left with the youngs. I'm intimidated when they outnumber me.

You're going to end up with a grid that's a weird color.

To be fair, Lauren, I'm a real cusper here.

I'm a company cusper. I was born in 1981.

She's on the cusp of Gen X millennial, and you're on the cusp of Gen Z millennial.

But culturally speaking within the company, we've got you and Kristen and Elena with kids, and then Raya and Sienna without kids, and they're squarely holding down the fun. We go out and we dance and we do stuff.

You're still a youngs girl. I've seen your thighs.

And I'm still a youngs, but I have a lot of olds in my blood and responsibility.

It's just because you're an old Italian woman too.

So like the fact that you're a nona.

You're a nona. You're a 34 year old nona.

I'm a 34 year old nona. That is actually probably the most accurate description of me.

I at the very least do know who Carson Daly is. So that makes you feel a little bit better.

Okay, good.

Yeah, but you had to Google it to determine that.

I did, but that's not because it's him. It's because I'm actually really bad with names. And I actually don't remember people when I meet them.

Or if I've known them, it's really sad. It takes a lot of effort.

Yeah, we're from a generation where Carson Daly is like probably like he's our Roman Empire. Like he just fleets. He just scampers through our head randomly while we're doing the laundry.

And we're like, oh, Carson Daly.

Welcome to the new Rise Literary Studio, TRL Studio. Kicking it on MTV in the afternoon. Get home from school, kids.

We got Britney Spears and JT up next. We can't wait.

Oh my God.

I'm actually so delighted about the branding opportunities into this nostalgia.

And you just got a little sneak peek of what it's like to be at a Rise team meeting.

I'm so sorry for anything we said.

We did get the name of our podcast and we are ready to launch. All right folks.

Because we're a little chaotic, but we are efficient.

And we only use the same branding colors over and over again, because that's how we create order in the chaos. Yeah. Strict adherence to branding.

Thank you for being here. We're super excited about all the things we're going to do next. And that's it.

Welcome to the Rise Literary Studio, everybody. See you soon.

Hey, ciao! This has been Write the Good Fight, brought to you by the ladies of Rise Literary. Thanks for tuning in.

If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to rate us five stars, follow the show, and leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to share this episode with friends, family, or anyone who might find it helpful or fun.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Rise Literary to stay up to date with upcoming events, courses, insider info, behind the scenes fun, and so much more. Or you can check us out at www.riseliterary.com. We appreciate you listening, and we hope to see you next week for another great episode.

Until then, remember, it's your time to write the good fight.

From Write the Good Fight: The Future of Write the Good Fight with the Fems of Rise Literary, Nov 28, 2025

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