✨The Empress Questionnaire: Steph Sprenger is Reclaiming Her Everything!👑

Plus, REDACTED: What Divorced Women Aren't Telling You—a Bold New Project!

✨ A vibrant space for midlife women, The Empress now reaches over two million readers through our networks of networks. ✨ From bestselling author Alisa Kennedy Jones. ✨ If you enjoy content about midlife, humor, and agency, I’d love to welcome you as part of our community. ✨ For only $50/year ($4.17 a month!) or $5/month, you’ll gain access to all my articles, Monday columns, book clubs, and virtual events.

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Fellow Empresses, how’s the queendom holding up?

First, the good stuff: Barnes & Noble is offering 25% off all preorders on Empress Editions for all members! And an extra 10% for premium members. Just use the code: PREORDER25 at checkout—but quick, my queens, the magic carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight.

And speaking of things worth popping a bottle over: We are beyond thrilled to announce that Empress Editions is taking on a jaw-dropping project—a memoir chronicling a fifty-year friendship with Joan Didion (!!)—written by none other than NYT bestselling author Sara Davidson. More details coming soon, but trust me, you’re going to want to camp out for this one.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming of “What fresh hell is this?”

Today I opened The Guardian and nearly inhaled my latte: A midlife woman judge—a county judge in Wisconsin, Hannah Dugan—has been arrested by the FBI. Her crime? Doing her job. A judge has a duty of care in her courtroom and the discretion to see that it is upheld. (If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of human rights wheezing.) Apparently, our foreign and domestic policies are now so fragile they can’t handle a woman over fifty saying, “Actually, I read the law.” If you think about it, States need to return the favor and arrest ICE agents for kidnapping and human trafficking under state law. Why not run the northern abolitionist playbook? When did we become so passive?

It’s not just absurd. It’s authoritarianism with a bad dye job.

Of course, Judge Dugan is handling it with the grace of a Gen X woman who's been managing chaos since birth. Because, my friends, we are the Latchkey Generation™. We taught ourselves everything from BASIC coding to dinner prep to emotional self-regulation. We apologized to furniture we bumped into. We learned to say, “No worries!” while quietly bleeding out.

I tried to say this out loud on a LIVE earlier this week, but let me put it even plainer here: If you see a midlife woman struggling, she probably is—and she’ll probably say she’s fine while dragging a flaming dumpster behind her. Connect and help her anyway.

This goes double for midlife divorce. The shame alone could qualify for Olympic-level weightlifting. Meanwhile, our "support system" hands you about $185 a week per child—enough for a Costco membership and a dream—and wishes you luck.

Alimony? That’s now classified under “Myths and Legends” along with Atlantis and functional Congress. At some point, you just mutter, "Screw it, we’ll figure it out," and MacGyver your way through.

Which brings us to this week's Empress Questionnaire:

The incredible Steph Sprenger is spearheading a project that drags all the erased, shamed, whispered midlife stories back into the light where they belong. Stories about divorce. About survival. About the breathtaking skill it takes to hold everything together with duct tape and dignity.

Stay tuned.
It’s going to be brave. It’s going to be messy.
And it’s going to be magnificent.

The Official Bio

Steph Sprenger is a writer, producer, podcaster, and single mom. She facilitates writing workshops and groups for midlife women at MidCircle, produces the live storytelling show Listen To Your Mother Boulder, and just finished second-round revisions on a memoir. She co-hosts the Mother Plus Podcast, a show for moms with ADHD, and occasionally does stand-up comedy, which is just as terrifying as you might expect. Steph teaches voice lessons to adolescent girls, which has quite a bit in common with teaching writing to midlife women—guiding girls and women to find and use their voices is her biggest passion in life. (Aside from watching Schitt’s Creek, Ted Lasso, and Gilmore Girls with her teenage daughters.) Steph’s work has been published in O Magazine, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan.com, Brain, Child Magazine, Motherwell, The Huffington Post, Mutha Magazine, The Belladonna Comedy, the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and other places.

About Redacted: What Divorced Women Aren’t Telling You—in Her Own Words…

“I recently launched a call for submissions for a new project: Redacted: What Divorced Women Aren’t Telling You. After my divorce was final, I taught a workshop called Writing Divorce, to give divorced women a safe space to process, share, receive support, and express themselves. In preparation for the course, dozens of anonymous women shared their experiences with me in a survey. After reading responses from so many divorced women and facilitating the workshop—not to mention integrating the stories of my numerous divorced friends and my own experience—so many similar themes emerged. And my blood began to boil. There are too many of us choking on untold stories and navigating systemic injustices to be quiet. I needed to do this—for them, for me, and for the countless other women whose divorce stories are eating them alive.

The Redacted weekly Substack column will feature anonymous personal essays about the author's experience with divorce as well as shorter-form stories. A selection of longer-form anonymous stories will be published as a print and digital anthology in 2026.

Tell us about the day you left. Tell us about your mediation over Zoom, what it cost you to move or stay, and how it feels to co-parent with your ex-husband. Write about the moment you knew; write about the first anniversary; write about the audacity of his attorney or the passive aggressiveness of his mother. Tell us about his affair, or yours. Tell us the secrets you have been carrying. Pour onto the page your rage, your shame, your grief, your glee, your ambivalence. Write the story that has been weighing on you, and release what you have been holding. Tell us the truth, and know that none of your story will be redacted.”

1. What is your idea of perfect midlife happiness?

I’ve actually put quite a bit of thought into the recipe for my midlife happiness. My Maybelline ad would go something like this: “Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s Concerta, estrogen, progesterone, microdosed mushrooms, and therapy.”

I need the perfect balance of alone time to write and work (Like, so much. Hours and hours of unstructured time for me, my brain, and my creativity with no meetings or calls) and time with people I adore. I need 8.5 hours of sleep and perfectly regulated hormones. I need the right formula of ADHD meds and all my witchy tinctures. I need weekly IFS therapy. I need my neurodivergent women's household—me, my two badass teenage daughters, and our quirky rescue dog Winnie—with our audacious colorful walls, whimsical thrifted art, and unruly wildflowers. I need to be loved—like, crazy adoration loved—for exactly who I am, no masking required. I need to know that I am loved because I am wild and loud and honest and emotional and sensitive—not in spite of it.

2. Which empress, queen, goddess, or mythical figure do you most identify with?

My oldest daughter wrote her college application essay on the Empress tarot card if you can believe that. And around the same time, we both got matching Empress tattoos—mine is on my shoulder mixed in with my sleeve. So the Empress has huge meaning for me and is one of my very favorite cards to draw. Right now I am resonating hard with the Wild Woman archetype—the one that threads through our lives from maiden, through mother, into Queen, and all the way to crone. She is the energy that represents who we are at our core. She is the voice that we sometimes block out on our trip between childhood and cronedom. And she is the one who will save us if only we are brave enough to listen to her fierce, gorgeous whisper.

3. Which living midlife woman do you most admire? (And why?)

Maggie Smith. The living one. 😉 I have admired her work and had the pleasure of publishing one of her essays in an anthology I co-edited about postpartum mental health. After that, I watched her soar to a level of fame (she may cringe or refute that) after Good Bones broke the internet, and You Could Make This Place Beautiful is one of my favorite memoirs of all time. I admire her for how beautifully she has composted pain into art, how her transmutation is laced with wisdom and compassion, and generosity, how she has pioneered a style of writing all her own. If I could aspire to be any midlife writer, I would consult that blueprint with reverence.

4. What aspect of midlife or the peri/menopausal journey do you most deplore?

The fact that it is nearly impossible to untangle the threads of my malaise–is it hormones, ADHD, stress, single motherhood, self-employment, or just being a double Cancer with a Sag moon? Why am I in such a bad mood? Is it because I’m out of mushrooms or is my inner child just super pissed off at my outer adult? Got me. 🤷‍♀️

5. What do you most treasure or value about this phase of life?

Oh my god, the freedom of it all. The fact that I am my truest, best, happiest self. The fact that I am not living to embody a vision someone else has of me. The fact that while my life is deeply, beautifully entangled with my children and loved ones, my path is my own and I choose it using myself as the lighthouse. Not society, not a man, not the government, not the church, not Scandinavian Midwest Lutheran good-girl-ness. Just me.

6. If you could share one key midlife lesson, hack, or nugget of wisdom, what would it be?

Under no circumstances should you be afraid of your 40s, 50s, and beyond. Don’t be scared. You are still relevant, beautiful, and significant. What’s more, you are powerful and wise and vibrant and you are coming into your own. You are the one to be feared. Also, be a relentless bitch when it comes to advocating for your health. Hormones. They matter.

7. What gives you the greatest sense of agency in midlife? (i.e., “Knowing that I can…”)

Knowing that I am capable of raising my children, earning a living, and caring for my home, all on my own. I never thought I would be strong enough, capable enough, and perhaps if I’m being honest—worthy enough. Thank god that narrative has been properly buried in my poorly maintained backyard.

8. Give us the headline for your Empress Age. (one that captures the bold narrative you are rewriting for the latter half of your life)

Well, actually, my Substack is called The Reclamation Era, and I think that sums it up. As a single mother in the wake of a shitty divorce, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman, and my therapist’s favorite, I am reclaiming whatever I can touch—my bedroom, my schedule, my pleasure, my lawn, and my voice. I’m also an unapologetic Swiftie, hence the “Era” nod.

Steph’s Empress Edit

“Oh, my. I could list the seven books piled on my nightstand right now, but that seems wasteful. Maybe I’ll blow two favorites on my towering book pile—in addition to new books I am still reading (unofficial shout-out to my current reads, All Fours, just, holy shit, and Maggie Smith’s new book Dear Writer. Will you disqualify me for mentioning those?) are two lighthouse books that have guided me through this past year:”

1. This American Ex-Wife by

   lyz
   Lenz.

2. Tragedy Plus Time
   ’s Elissa Bassist’s Hysterical.

3. Taylor Swift’s folklore album

4. the CHANI app (I love astrology and I’m obsessed with her)

5. One-piece rompers from Natural Life (Even though I made fun of jumpsuits for years, now they are all I want to wear.)

6. Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette special. If you’ve never seen the glory that is Hannah…

7. My own homemade lattes with whole milk, cream, honey, and Penzeys Vietnamese cinnamon.

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Where readers can find you:

You can check out events, workshops, and 1:1 writing sessions with me on my website. My personal Substack is The Reclamation Era, I co-host The Mother Plus Podcast, I run a writing community for midlife women at MidCircle, and my call for submissions for Redacted: What Divorced Women Aren’t Telling You is here

We hope you enjoyed this week’s questionnaire.

Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,

PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.

*The information contained in this post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness. Before using any practices or products referenced in this piece or others, always consult your healthcare providers, read all labels, and heed all cautions that come with the products. Information received from this piece, or anywhere in this Substack, should never be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have any adverse conditions, please consult your healthcare providers immediately. This Substack, including Alisa Jones and any other writers or editors, disclaims any responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of any information contained herein. Opinions of any writers in this Substack are their own, and the Substack does not accept responsibility for statements made by writers. This Substack does not make any representations or warranties about a writer’s qualifications or credibility. 

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