By J. Adrian Betancourt, Host, The Miami Book Hub

Some podcast conversations entertain you. Others follow you home. My recent Miami Book Hub conversation with Tabitha Rose, Founder and Publisher of Life to Paper Publishing and its nonprofit arm, the Life to Paper Foundation, was one of those.

For over a decade, Tabitha has helped people transform lived experience into books, especially stories about mental health, addiction, trauma, abuse, complex family dynamics, and health and wellness. As she put it with admirable directness, “Tough stuff is our jam.”

But the mission goes beyond publication. Life to Paper is committed to “writing a better future”—helping people face difficult experiences, reduce stigma, and perhaps offer someone else a path forward.

Tabitha’s connection to the work is deeply personal. She spoke candidly about her own recovery from mental health and addiction struggles, and how that experience helps her create a safe place for authors telling stories they once believed they could never share.

During our conversation, I reflected that “writing isn’t just a profession, it’s therapy.” Tabitha agreed, while carefully noting that she is not a therapist. Still, she has witnessed what can happen when someone is finally given room to tell their truth.

“Putting life to paper is therapeutic,” she said. “I’ve seen people heal from the process.”

One of the most moving examples involved retired physician Don Nicholson who began writing his life story while confronting Alzheimer’s. What started as a book for his grandchildren became, in Tabitha’s words, his “defense against dementia.” He kept revising because he feared that when the writing stopped, the disease would take over. The eventual book was titled My Dementia Defense.

Tabitha also shared a memorable image for the emotional release writing can provide: a tangled necklace that seems impossible to unravel. You pick patiently at each knot until, suddenly, it loosens. Writing, she explained, can work the same way—slowly releasing the knotted emotions we carry inside.

We also discussed The Light Within the Walls by C.P. Handler, a Miami social worker whose book examines juvenile incarceration and asks readers to see the human beings beneath society’s labels. Its recent launch at Books & Books brought together corrections officers, formerly incarcerated people, recovery advocates, and other community members for a meaningful conversation about juvenile justice reform.

That is what books can do at their best: gather people who may not otherwise share a room and invite them to see one another differently.

Another Life to Paper project, When We Forgive, brought writers together around addiction, trauma, family, identity, and healing. Tabitha contributed her own story about forgiving her father, not because the relationship became perfect or because she received the apology she wanted, but because letting go was essential to her peace and sobriety.

“I treated it like a mission to save my life,” she said.

Perhaps the most powerful moment came when Tabitha described finally understanding peace. For years, others experienced her as calm while she felt turmoil inside. Today, she said, “the outside matches the inside—or at least I’m closer to that.”

I told Tabitha that she is “doing God’s work,” and I meant it. Life to Paper does more than create books. It helps people turn pain into purpose, isolation into connection, and silence into something that may help another person survive, and thrive.

To learn more about Tabitha Rose, Life to Paper Publishing, the Life to Paper Foundation, its books, or its submission process, visit LifeToPaper.com.

To watch the full conversation—and explore the broader Miami Book Hub Platform (Podcast + Newsletter + Column)—visit ThreeTreasuresPress.com.

Until next time… keep reading, keep writing, and stay curious, Miami!