Image: Back to Me Book Cover. 

By Sammie Garrity for Boreal Community Media - February 5, 2024

In such a small community it is rare to find so much talent that spans many diverse areas. However, Grand Marais is chock-full of it. Carly Puch is one of those people who possesses the rare ability to self-reflect about personal issues and turn them into an art piece that serves to inspire others to find themselves. Carly is a podcast host of Consciously Clueless, a conscious living coach, and a yoga/mindfulness instructor. Now, she can add an author to that list. 

Carly’s book, Back to Me, is a book that “shows readers the reality of healing” and encourages people to dig deep to find their truest selves. The book is about the inner workings of a woman who needed healing in the midst of trauma. What is so raw about this book is that originally the thoughts Carly was writing down weren’t meant to be a published work. They were her unfiltered words and reflections. So, any words that a reader consumes come from a place of pure honesty. They weren’t written to sell copies, but instead, were shared to try and make a positive change in the lives of others. 

“Books are magic. One sentence on the page of a book can change your life, and if one of mine can make someone else feel seen, then it was all worth it,” Puch told Boreal Community Media.

Carly started writing in third grade and that assignment was what prompted her declaration of her future career as an author. As a child, she always had a book in her hand, even if it was one she couldn’t read yet. She recalled carting around a backpack full of them. That habit stuck, too. For Carly, even as an adult, writing has been a tool she uses to process what is going on in her life. 

“Reading poetry and short pieces from other authors has often been a beacon of light through dark times. I realized that hearing about how others navigate these unique yet unifying experiences, helped me heal. I thought I could do the same,” she said.  

The process of actually being able to share these thoughts and pieces of wisdom wasn’t easy. Not only emotionally, but logistically. Carly’s book is self-published which means she had to take the reigns to be able to make her book become a physical reality. She chose this path because she wanted to be able to better control the aspects of the process. 

She mentioned how she had to do a ton of learning; everything from finding software that could format the physical book to customer interaction and gathering new readers. She garnered the help of Rae Poynter, an author and book coach, to assist her in the process. 

“If you google “how to publish a book” you’ll get over 5 billion results. In the actual nuts and bolts details of publishing, overwhelming is an understatement.”

Despite being a difficult process, it was the road that solidified Carly’s words to be exactly how she worded and phrased them. It is “her” book, not her edited thoughts. She reflected on how the entire process didn’t even feel real until she had her first copy in her hands. She advises anyone interested in this process that though the work you publish should be something you are proud of, it’s never going to be exactly what you expected. The important thing, I gathered from her words, is to create something you take pride in. 

“The process taught me to be proud of past versions of myself in ways that I hadn’t felt before. Instead of looking back on the version of me and feeling sad or even angry at her, I now look back with admiration for making it. I have the process of publishing this book to thank for that perspective,” said Carly.