About Kelly Martinsen
As a publisher, mom, wife, laid off pharmaceutical executive, friend, sister, PTA drop out (don't worry she's back in!), SUP surfer, daughter, green smoothie drink maker, closet sugar addict and basic "everyman", Martinsen uses her life roles to share what it means to live inspired. Her first book to be published is a result of trying to reset her own life. Martinsen was not always an entrepreneur who owned a magazine that nationally caters to the healthy living culture. No, prior to purchasing Natural Awakenings Long Island, Martinsen found herself, laid off from her job as a pharmaceutical executive, struggling with a husband’s cancer diagnosis and a son’s rare epilepsy disorder. Her “house was on fire” and Martinsen describes that when one flame would go out another would pop up, “I was so busy putting out fires rapidly over the course of so many years that the chronic stress took its toll.
I suffered my own personal health issues, went to numerous doctors and finally realized I felt the most healthy and calm when I would write my publisher letters each month", Martinsen has always been aware that she feels better when helping others (don’t we all?) and has now made it her passion to help people slow down and live more conscious lives.
Recognizing all the things that opened up to her each month when she slowed down and wrote her letter she recognized that slowing down allowed her to have a career she was passionate about, a family and friends she loved and she also found time for “sudden adventure”. Inspired by a few years of her own inspired living Martinsen set out to connect with others and help them slow down. The result, her new book A Year of Inspired Living. With it she hopes to help people slow down and live conscious and inspired lives!
A Year of Inspired Living
As publisher of Natural Awakenings Long Island magazine, each month Kelly Martinsen writes a letter to readers that sets the tone of that issue's unique editorial theme. Four years ago, within two days of publishing her first letter, 'You Only Regret the Things You Don't Do,' a reader called to thank her for the thought-provoking piece that spoke deeply to her. Month after month, topic after topic, responses to Martinsen's editorial letters grew and readers were connecting with her words in life changing ways.
A Year of Inspired Living is a monthly chapter book with weekly sub-chapters, compiling and expanding on Martinsen's letters leaving the last page of each week for the reader to write their own letter. Chapter topics include: love, commitment, faith, challenges, death, freedom, middle age, children, cancer, dog poop and more. Written in a familiar voice, A Year of Inspired Living speaks with wisdom, tongue-in-cheek self-effacing humor, and raw honesty to help readers reach into the hidden corners of their lives and develop a greater awareness of their own personal relationships and journeys. To help them reap the maximum benefit of their experiences, a reflection question and blank page follows each weekly entry, guiding and inspiring them to record their own life-story.
