Write to Release: A Prescriptive Writing Workshop for Healing Emotional Eating

Join Michelle Petties, author of Leaving Large – The Stories of a Food Addict, for a FREE 90-minute prescriptive writing workshop designed to help you uncover the root causes of emotional eating and begin your healing journey—one word at a time.

This powerful, guided writing experience uses proven techniques from Michelle’s healing-through-storytelling framework to help participants examine the beliefs, memories, and emotions that drive their food choices. You’ll learn how to use writing not only as a tool for self-expression, but as a prescription for emotional release, clarity, and transformation.

What You’ll Gain:

  • A safe, judgment-free space to explore your personal food story

  • Insight into the emotional triggers behind stress and overeating

  • Easy-to-follow writing prompts that guide reflection and self-discovery

  • A greater sense of self-awareness, compassion, and control around food

  • Connection with a supportive community that understands your journey

Whether you're just starting your healing process or seeking tools to stay on track, this workshop will leave you feeling lighter, clearer, and more empowered to make conscious choices—on and off the plate.

No writing experience needed. Just bring a pen, a notebook, and an open heart.

Brand New Now Press is the publisher of Leaving Large – The Stories of a Food Addict and a healing arts practice that curates reading-writing-and-storytelling workshops designed to help people overcome emotional overeating. Rooted in collaboration, creativity, community, and personal transformation, these workshops teach the mental and heart skills needed for healing through the power of words and shared stories.

Meet Michelle!

Michelle Petties illuminates the profound connections between food, emotion, and identity through her transformative work as a Food Story coach and TEDx speaker. After decades of battling emotional overeating and experiencing dramatic weight fluctuations totaling over 700 pounds gained and lost, she discovered that lasting change comes not from another diet, but from rewriting the stories that drive our eating behaviors.

Her award-winning memoir, Leaving Large – The Stories of a Food Addict, transcends typical weight-loss narratives to offer a compelling exploration of how memory, cultural inheritance, and emotional wounds—rather than physical hunger—shape our relationship with food. The book serves as both a personal testament and a universal guide to healing and wholeness.

Drawing on her extensive background in media sales and leadership at Radio One, Disney/ABC, and NPR/PBS member stations, Michelle harnesses the power of storytelling as a catalyst for transformation. Through workshops, retreats, and her ebook Mind Over Meals, she guides others to uncover their food truths, rewire limiting thought patterns, and create sustainable change from within.

Michelle's approach recognizes that our eating habits are deeply rooted in personal history and cultural expectations, offering a compassionate path toward understanding and healing that goes far beyond the scale.

Leaving Large: The Stories of a Food Addict—winner of the 2022 Memoir Award

Lost 100+ Over 60

Spoken or hosted workshops at more than 100 events, conferences, panels, etc.