Read Together · July 2026 · Wrap-Up
On What We Made
A celebration of what July held — and a quiet look at what's coming next.
July is almost behind us.
And before we turn the page I want to take a moment — not to close it, but to celebrate what this month actually held. Because I think something happened here that's worth naming before we move on.
We came into July asking a question that felt simple on the surface: what would I make if I gave myself real permission?
And what I found — what I suspect a lot of you found too — is that the answer was already happening. Before you finished the book. Before you gave yourself official permission. Before you felt ready.
The making was already underway. It just didn't always look like what we expected creativity to look like.
What these books left behind
Beautiful Oops! taught us that the mistake isn't the end of the picture — it's the beginning of a better one. I've been thinking about that all month. Not just in the context of art projects and paint smudges, but in the context of everything I make. Every post that didn't land the way I hoped. Every plan that shifted. Every moment where something went sideways and I had to look at the mess and decide what to make of it.
Austin Kleon reminded us that nothing is created from nothing — that creativity is really just curiosity about the things that move you, and the willingness to make something from that. I think about how often we disqualify our own influences. How we look at the people and ideas that shaped us and decide that doesn't count as being original. It counts. It all counts.
Elizabeth Gilbert sat with fear alongside us — and reminded us that fear doesn't have to leave the car for the journey to begin. I've thought about that every time I almost didn't send something, almost didn't share something, almost didn't begin something. The fear was there. I went anyway. That's the whole practice.
Tom and David Kelley showed us that creative confidence isn't a personality trait — it's something you build. And mid-month I shared a small, specific moment where I felt that for the first time in a new way: a solution I offered from outside my husband's industry that became an excellence award submission. Not because I was the expert. Because I understood the people. That's what creative confidence actually looks like in an ordinary life. Not a finished masterpiece. A moment where your way of thinking turned out to be exactly the right tool.
And Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin's novel about thirty years of making something together — asked the question I'm still sitting with: what would you spend thirty years on, and who would you want beside you while you did it?
That question is exactly where August begins.
The Thread — July Wrap-Up
The making was already happening.
You didn't need the finished book, the perfect conditions, or the official permission slip. The creativity was already moving through your life — in the way you solved a problem, held a mistake lightly, followed something interesting without knowing where it was going.
That doesn't close when July does. Let it keep going.
What I'm still carrying
When I look back through my camera roll from July, I don't see a lot of tangible things I made. I don't see finished products or solved problems or evidence of creative output in the traditional sense.
What I see is my daughter's face watching pole vault for the first time — completely transfixed by a human being launching themselves into the air with a stick. I see us at the zoo, at the museum, at the F1 races. I see morning coffee with my husband before the day started and afternoon coffee when it slowed down. I see a plane ride to see our parents. I see a month that, from the outside, might not look very creative at all.
And then I think about what Creative Confidence actually argues — that creativity isn't reserved for the things you make. It lives in how you move through the world. In the choices you make about how to spend a Tuesday. In the decision to take your toddler to watch beach volleyball instead of staying home because it felt easier. In the morning coffee dates you protect even when the content calendar is full.
I was making memories. And memories, it turns out, are what everything else is made of.
Inside Wildflower Running, July was one of the most creatively rich months I've had. A new essay series. A new product format. A new book tier. A new structural argument for why this book club works the way it does. More creativity and innovation than I could have named at the start of the month.
But the thing I'm carrying into August isn't any of those things specifically. It's the realization that I was living the theme at the same time I was writing about it — in the museum and at the coffee shop and on the plane — without knowing that's what I was doing.
Maybe that's what giving yourself real permission actually looks like. Not a finished product. A life you're genuinely inside of, making as you go.
On the living, growing nature of this book club
I want to say something before we move on.
Read Together isn't a syllabus. There's no late submission, no requirement to have finished before you're allowed to have a thought about it. If you're still mid-Big Magic, keep going. If Steal Like an Artist is sitting on your nightstand waiting for the right moment, it will still be there in August. These books don't expire.
The themes we explore here are designed to build on each other. Creativity will weave into connection. Connection will weave into whatever comes next. That's not an accident — it's the whole design.
A look ahead — August
An invitation to be known.
That's what August is.
We spent July asking what we would make if we gave ourselves permission. The natural question underneath that one — the one that was always there, waiting — is: who do we make it with?
Creativity without connection is just noise. The things we build, the lives we shape, the work we pour ourselves into — all of it is made richer and more sustainable when it's held inside genuine relationship. With a partner. A friend. A child. A community. Someone who knows you well enough to tell you when the idea is good and when you're just scared.
August is an invitation to look at the relationships in your life — the ones that sustain you, the ones that have drifted, the ones you've been keeping at a careful distance — and ask yourself what it would mean to show up more fully. Not perfectly. Just more honestly.
The books are coming. They're extraordinary ones.
A note on where to buy
Every book mentioned here links to Bookshop.org — buying through these links supports independent bookstores in your community, not a warehouse. Same books, same price, a better place for your money to land.
There's no right place to begin. Just the place you're drawn to today.
Come as you are.
Read what you can.
See where it takes you.
I'd love to know which of these you're reaching for first — and if any of them are a reread for you, I'm especially curious: is leadership landing differently the second time through? Sometimes a book finds you at exactly the right moment, and sometimes you have to grow into it first. Leave a comment below and let me know where you are with it.
Here's to growing together this month.
A deep breath in a beautiful life.
— Britt
Fear doesn’t go away. That’s where this month’s guide starts — not with fearlessness, but with the quieter practice of feeling afraid and going anyway. Five books, five ages, one question running through all of them: what would you do if you went anyway?