I’ve been art journaling for eight years, but it was only two years ago that I’ve fallen for written journaling. And man, have I fallen hard.
My journaling journey
For a long time, art journaling helped me say everything that I couldn’t say with words. As Georgia O’Keeffe said, “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way… things I had no words for.”.
I’ve now found the words. And they can’t stop pouring out of me.
I use a Stalogy B6 wrapped badly in fabric. I love the soft paper, and the perfect size (right between A5 and A6). I’m on my third one now.
Going into any new journal is the absolute best, but when it’s purely written, those crinkly pages hit differently.
I wanted to level up my journaling
In an effort to dig even deeper into myself, I started reading books on journaling. It was so difficult to find a great list of recommended books, and so I’m creating this one myself.
I read 22 journaling books so that you don’t have to
I also tracked them meticulously. I photographed them, illustrated each, extracted the prompts, and put them into Notion. This part wasn’t for you, but for my own documenter heart.
22 books about journaling
Here’s the simple list:
(these books link to Amazon and are affiliate links)
- 49 Ways to Write Yourself Well by Jackee Holder
- At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff
- Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick
- The Creative Journal by Lucia Capacchione
- Expressive Writing: Words that Heal by James W. Pennebaker and John Frank Evans
- Heart, Sass & Soul by Greta Solomon
- Journal to the Self by Kathleen Adams
- Journaling for Joy by Joyce Chapman
- Journalution by Sandy Grason
- The Joy of Writing Things Down by Megan C Hayes
- Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender
- Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal by Alexandra Johnson
- A Life of One’s Own by Joanna Field
- Life’s Companion by Christina Baldwin
- The New Diary by Tristine Rainer
- One to One by Christina Baldwin
- Therapeutic Journal Writing by Kate Thompson
- Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider
- Writing Alone Together by Wendy Judith Cutler, Ahava Shira, Lynda Monk
- Writing Alone. Writing Together. by Judy Reeves
- Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner
Here’s a slightly more detailed list. All ratings are my own, very personal opinion. Each book is still worth reading.
49 Ways to Write Yourself Well by Jackee Holder
The Science and Wisdom of Writing and journaling
With the rise of the digital age, writing as a form of inquiry and reflection is fast becoming a forgotten art. Written by an experienced executive coach and writer, this book is full of information and exercises to build and maintain a regular writing practice for enhancing well-being, as well as set up and maintain a journal.
Contents include: Establishing a writing practice; Why writing by hand with pen and paper works; How to write for emotional balance; Using writing to manage difficult feelings and emotions; Therapeutic models and writing practices to challenge your thoughts and beliefs; How to gain new perspectives and solutions to work or personal challenges; Reframing relationships with self and others; Resources, references, and glossary.
Rating: ✍️✍️ (unreadable on a Kindle or in the app, find a second hand copy)
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At a Journal Workshop by Ira Progoff
The basic text and guide for using the Intensive Journal process
What would you like your life to be?
Ira Progoff’s Intensive Journal Process combines one of the oldest methods of self-exploration and expression–keeping a journal–with a structured format that enables you to get to know the inner core of your life on ever-deeper levels and gain a fuller perspective on where you are. The Intensive Journal Process also empowers you to take the action necessary to change the course of your life and unlock your hidden creative potential. This rich, insightful work is a treasure for all those involved in self-inquiry, artistic creation, and spiritual renewal.
Rating: ✍️✍️ (A difficult read, but all encompassing. This is known as the Bible of therapeutic journaling)
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Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick
The Art and Heart of Reflection
‘We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.’ – C. Day Lewis
Journal writing is one of the most powerful and easily accessible tools we have to heal, expand and transform our lives.
In this exceptionally positive and encouraging book, Stephanie Dowrick frees the journal writer she believes is in virtually everyone, showing through stories and examples that a genuine sense of possibility can be revived on every page.
Creative journal writing goes way beyond recording events. It can be the companion that supports but doesn’t judge, a place of unparalleled discovery and a creative playground where the everyday rules no longer count.
Combining a rich choice of ideas with wonderful stories, quotes and her refreshingly intimate thoughts gained through a lifetime of writing, Stephanie’s insights and confidence make journal writing irresistible – and your own life more enchanting.
Rating: ✍️✍️
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The Creative Journal by Lucia Capacchione
The Art of Finding Yourself
Originally released in 1980, Lucia Capacchione’s The Creative Journal has become a classic in the fields of art therapy, memoir and creative writing, art journaling, and creativity development. Using more than fifty prompts and vibrantly illustrated examples, Capacchione guides readers through drawing and writing exercises to release feelings, explore dreams, and solve problems creatively. Topics include emotional expression, healing the past, exploring relationships, self-inventory, health, life goals, and more. The Creative Journal introduced the world to Capacchione’s groundbreaking technique of writing with the nondominant hand for brain balancing, finding innate wisdom, and developing creative potential.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Expressive Writing: Words that Heal by James W. Pennebaker and John Frank Evans
Using expressive writing to overcome traumas and emotional upheavals, resolve issues, improve health, and build resilience
Expressive Writing: Words that Heal provides research results, in layman’s terms, which demonstrate how and when expressive writing can improve health. It explains why writing can often be more helpful than talking when dealing with trauma, and it prepares the reader for their writing experience. The book looks at the most serious issues and helps the reader process them. From the instructions: “Write about what keeps you awake at night. The emotional upheaval bothering you the most and keeping you awake at night is a good place to start writing.”
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Heart, Sass & Soul by Greta Solomon
Journal Your Way to Inspiration and Happiness
Discover the Life-Changing Power of Freewriting and Journaling
Discover who you are: Writing for yourself is an incredible way to heal your heart, find happiness, and reconnect with the things that matter most. Journaling and freewriting can bring you a deeper level of self-awareness, allowing you to truly know who you are. Heart, Sass & Soul will show you how to develop a writing practice that nurtures inner strength and promotes a rich, fulfilled life.
Recover the joy of creative self-expression: As kids, many of us had vibrant imaginations and our lives were full of creativity. Over time, that self-expression gets lost in the busy routine of everyday life. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The tips, techniques, and exercises for freewriting in this book will help you tap into that creativity deep in your soul.
Writing can be your best self-care therapy: Most of us, at some point in our lives, will lose something we truly love. That time in-between jobs, friends, relationships, homes, or whatever else, is the “great unknown.” Contrary to what some may tell you, this is not the time to make major, life-changing decisions. In the midst of loss and grief, you need self-care more than ever. In fact, the best thing to do in these times is write.
A new approach to finding happiness: If you love self-help books for women like Start Where You Are, Practice You, and 52 Lists for Happiness, you’ll love this new approach. Heart, Sass, & Soul is not a journal. It’s a method for writing freely that will change the way you live.
With this essential guide, you will learn how to:
• Overcome self-doubt and develop a new creative identity
• Transform dark times into something beautiful
• Find moments for healing yourself without judgement
• Become empowered with uninhibited self-expression
Rating: ✍️✍️
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Journal to the Self by Kathleen Adams
Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth – Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life
A nationally known therapist provides a powerful tool for better living–a step-by-step method to personal growth, creative expression, and career enhancement through journal writing.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️ (loved this)
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Journaling for Joy by Joyce Chapman
Writing Your Way to Personal Growth and Freedom
Journaling for Joy enables you to take a close look at who you are and what you want. In an original approach to journaling, Joyce Chapman guides you to write from your heart and soul with the aim of arriving at joy – the joy that comes from knowing yourself as an intimate friend and living the life you have created out of conscious choice. Journaling for Joy is filled with over 200 dynamic journaling techniques
Rating: ✍️ (may be more suited for a beginner)
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Journalution by Sandy Grason
Journal Writing to Awaken Your Inner Voice, Heal Your Life, and Manifest Your Dreams
Studies confirm what avid journalers have always known: that writing about difficult experiences helps the writer move forward. Many self-help books recommend journaling as a way to express emotions and explore past hurts – as well as to simply get organized, make plans, and set goals – yet few of the books show how to do it. In Journalution, Sandy Grason combines the writing guidance of Julia Cameron with the emotional nurturing of Shakti Gawain. With chapters including “Completing Your Incompletions,” “Masterminding Your Destiny,” and “Communicating with a Higher Power,” the book balances basic instruction in the art of journaling with intimate entries from the author and her workshop participants. Activities, such as timed and stream-of-consciousness writing exercises and keeping a dream log, follow each chapter. Throughout, Grason offers guidelines and prompts, encouraging readers to pick up the pen and journal their way to greater self-awareness.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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The Joy of Writing Things Down by Megan C Hayes
The Everyday Zen of Putting Pen to Paper
Whether it’s a speedy note-to-self, a simple shopping list or a carefully penned thank-you note, putting words on paper is a daily habit – and can also bring us great joy and calm.
In this book you’ll discover practical ways to turn the ordinary ritual of jotting things down into a remarkable source of peace, focus and confidence. Learn to take pleasure in your correspondence, find fresh delight in your diary writing and put renewed heart in your humble to-do list.
Dr Megan C Hayes has spent her academic career exploring the links between writing, identity and happiness – and she is on a mission to encourage us all to pick up a pen and reap the wellbeing benefits in writing.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️ (an all-encompassing guide to writing things down)
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Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal by Alexandra Johnson
The Art of Transforming Life into Stories
Leaving A Trace is a practical guide to keeping a journal successfully and transforming it into future projects. Each chapter features both narrative and tailored exercises for beginning and committed diarists. Beginners will turn first to quick ways to overcome inhibitions, get started and stay on course. Seasoned chroniclers will start diaries with a new slant: they will learn how to trigger inspiration with creative brainstorming exercises; how to note patterns in diaries they already have and how to shape their material.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️ (loved this one)
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A Life of One’s Own by Joanna Field
How often do we ask ourselves, ‘What will make me happy? What do I really want from life?’ In A Life of One’s Own Marion Milner explores these questions and embarks on a seven year personal journey to discover what it is that makes her happy.
On its first publication, W. H. Auden found the book ‘as exciting as a detective story’ and, as Milner searches out clues, the reader quickly becomes involved in the chase. Using her own personal diaries, kept over many years, she analyses moments of everyday life and discovers ways of being, of looking, of moving, that bring surprising joy – ways which can be embraced by anyone.
With a new introduction by Rachel Bowlby this classic remains a great adventure in thinking and living and will be essential reading for all those interested in reflecting on the nature of their own happiness – whether readers from a literary, an artistic, a historical, an educational or a psychoanalytic/psychotherapeutic background.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Life’s Companion by Christina Baldwin
Journal writing as a spiritual quest
In this classic book you will discover the intimate journey of personal and spiritual development that is possible through the practice of journal writing. In Life’s Companion, acclaimed author Christina Baldwin offers readers guidance and inspiration to this powerful way of expanding our inner horizons and opening our minds and spirits to a deeper relationship with the world and the people around us.
Complete with enlightening quotations, exercises, sample journal entries, and techniques to nurture and encourage the writer and seeker within you, Life’s Companion will help you transform journaling into a powerful tool for self-growth, heightened awareness, and personal fulfillment.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️
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The New Diary by Tristine Rainer
How to use a journal for self-guidance and expanded creativity
The New Diary is about a completely modern concept of journal writing. It has little to do with the rigid daily calendar diary you may have kept as a child or the factual travelogue you wrote to recall the Grand Canyon. Instead, it is a tool for tapping the full power of your inner resources.
The New Diary is as much for those who already keep a journal as it is for those who have never kept one. It does not tell you the “right” way to keep a diary; rather, it offers numerous possibilities for using the diary to achieve your own purposes. It is a place for you to clarify goals, visualize the future, and focus your engergies; a means of freeing your intuition and imagination; a workbook for exploring your dreams, your past, and your present life.
It is for everyone seeking concrete methods for dealing with personal problems. It is for women and men interested in achieving self-reliance and inner liberation, for artists and writers seeking new techniques for overcoming blocks to creativity.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️
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One to One by Christina Baldwin
Self-Understanding Through Journal Writing
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️
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Therapeutic Journal Writing by Kate Thompson
An Introduction for Professionals
Writing a journal is not just about keeping a record of daily events – journal writing provides a unique therapeutic opportunity for facilitating healing and growth.
The author of this book guides the reader through developing journal writing to use as a therapeutic tool. Keeping a journal can help the writer to develop a better understanding of themselves, their relationships and the world around them, as well as improve skills of problem-solving, decision-making and planning. As such, journal writing can be a powerful complement to verbal therapy, offering an effective and affordable way of extending support to troubled clients. The book includes advice on working with individuals, facilitating a therapeutic writing group, proposed clinical applications, practical techniques, useful journal prompts, exercises and case vignettes.
This clear guide to the basics of journaling and its development as a therapeutic medium will be a valuable handbook for therapists, health and social care practitioners, teachers, life coaches, writing facilitators and any professional seeking personal development in themselves or their clients.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider
The guide that will beat the block, banish fear, and help create lasting work
For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. She has taught all kinds–the award winning, the struggling, and those who have been silenced by poverty and hardship. Her innovative methods have worked in classrooms from elementary to graduate level, in jail cells and public housing projects, in convents and seminaries, in youth at-risk programs, and with groups of the terminally ill.
Now, in Writing Alone and with Others, Schneider’s acclaimed methods are available in a single, well-organized, and highly readable volume. The first part of the book guides the reader through the perils of the solitary writing life: fear, writer’s block, and the bad habits of the internal critic.In the second section, Schneider describes the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method, widely used across the U.S. and abroad. Chapters on fiction and poetry address matters of technique and point to further resources, while more than a hundred writing exercises offer specific ways to jumpstart the blocked and stretch the rut-stuck. Schneider’s innovative teaching method will refresh the experienced writer and encourage the beginner. Her book is the essential owner’s manual for the writer’s voice.
Rating: ✍️ (rather read Writing Alone. Writing Together by Judy Reeves)
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Writing Alone Together by Wendy Judith Cutler, Ahava Shira, Lynda Monk
Journalling in a Circle of Women for Creativity, Compassion and Connection
Part memoir, part writing practice, part inspiration, this book is a multi voiced creation of three passionate and committed journal writers. Writing Alone Together reveals the depth and complexity that emerges from going to the blank page, transforming the act of writing into a catalyst for meaningful conversation, storytelling, mindfulness, personal growth, creative self-expression and mutual support. Writing Alone Together is a practice of gathering with other women to write, read and create a sense of community through the transformational power of journal writing. This communal practice creates shifts in consciousness, in our lives and in the world. Each time we meet, we bring the intention of being fully present, listening to ourselves and to one another and sharing our words, thoughts, views, visions, dreams and intuition. While we may not always agree or feel resonance with one another’s ideas or experiences, through Writing Alone Together we cultivate acceptance and compassion. Through writing in journals, we discover and remember the stories and poetry of our lives. As we share and reveal these stories within these pages and within our journalling circle, we begin to see new perspectives, gain clarity, find solutions, celebrate accomplishments, notice and change patterns of behaviour and refine our understanding of our life experiences. In this process, we make meaning through our stories, constructing who we are and who we are becoming.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️
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Writing Alone. Writing Together. by Judy Reeves
A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups
The lonely life of a writer need not be. There are ways to break that isolation and find encouragement and support within groups of like-minded people. Sections in Writing Alone, Writing Together include Writing Practice Groups, Creating Writing Prompts, Group Leadership, and even What to Do with the Bores, Whiners, Control Junkies, and Thugs. Whether the group is oriented toward writing the great American novel or a family memory book, this useful book offers an array of effective techniques to help writers achieve their goals.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️ (I found practical ideas, even having hosted an art journal community for 8 years)
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Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner
How to activate and listen to the extraordinary voice within
“I am a writer. Today I write.” Those are the opening lines in the Writing Blessing that author Janet Conner has spoken daily since 2007.
Divine dialogue.
Janet Conner is a writer, poet, and spiritual field guide─but first and always a deep soul explorer. Since she discovered how to activate a divine Voice by slipping into the theta brain wave state (the intriguing border between the conscious and the subconscious) while writing, Janet has dedicated herself to exploring and sharing what it means to live at the vibrant intersection of the visible and the invisible. In Writing Down Your Soul, Janet transforms journal-writing from self-reflection in the alpha brainwave state into divine dialogue in theta.
Life-changing power of writing.
Of all the ways to get in touch with God, as you understand God, why take the time to write? One reason: it works. It works amazingly well. If you want to engage in a vibrant conversation with the wisdom that dwells just below your conscious awareness, write. Write every day, at approximately the same time, with passion, honesty, and the intention of speaking with and listening to the voice within.
Your healing inner voice.
After hitting rock bottom while escaping a terrible situation of domestic abuse, Janet’s inner voice told her to start writing. As she wrote, her inner voice gained clarity and strength, and she felt an incredible connection to the divine. Miracles began to happen. Today, research scientists are providing peeks into what consciousness is and how it works. Their findings give us intriguing clues as to what is actually happening in and through our bodies, minds, and spirits as we roll pen across paper. Writing Down Your Soul explores some of this research and instructs how to access the power and beauty of our own deepest selves.
Rating: ✍️✍️✍️✍️✍️ (this changed everything for me)
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My favourite books on journaling
The books that changed my life and journaling practice the most are:
- Writing Down Your Soul – to change your life
- One to One – for an overview of techniques
- The New Diary – another extensive overview of techniques
- Writing Alone. Writing Together. – to dig into the community of journaling
If you wanted to get started reading a few books on journaling, those are the ones I’d recommend.
If you’re part of Get Messy, I’m in the process of distilling these books for action in the Resource Library.
