Podcast · Society & Culture

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

by Jen Hatmaker · English · Society & Culture

New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker has arrived in the middle years, and she couldn't be happier about it.Jen has navigated the ins and outs of life, from career to parenting, marriage (and divorce), spiritual evolution, and the joys of being a hardcore Gen Xer.With each weekly episode, J

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 55 min
Latest: 14 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

14 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 7 minNew

Barbara Kingsolver on Partita, First Love, and Who Gets to Make Art

Description:Barbara Kingsolver got the offer on her first novel the same day her first daughter was born. She came home from the hospital to a blinking answering machine, and the book came out the week that same baby learned to walk. Almost forty years later, she has a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Foundation’s medal for a lifetime of work, and a recovery house for women in Lee County, Virginia, built with her Demon Copperhead royalties. She has been one of my literary heroes and true life mentors for decades, and I still cannot believe I got to talk with her.We talk about what…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

9 Oct 2026 · 43 min
Stop Guessing About Perimenopause with Dr. Tiffany Lester
Description:This episode is sponsored by Function.October is Menopause Awareness Month, and every time we talk about midlife bodies on this show, what you write back to me isn’t really about hot flashes. It’s about being dismissed. Walking into an appointment, saying something feels different, and being told it’s normal. Dr. Tiffany Lester, a board certified integrative medicine physician and the Women’s Health Medical Director at Function, has built her career on refusing that answer.We get into the wellness trend she went all in on and walked away from (and why so much of the research…
7 Oct 2026 · 57 min
You Will Not Feel Ready: Jen Hatmaker Solo episode
People tell me I’m brave all the time. About the divorce, about the book, about rebuilding my life while everybody watched. And every single time, I feel a low-grade panic, because I know what it actually looked like from the inside: sitting in my parked car for 45 minutes because I could not make myself walk in, typing one sentence and deleting it 15 times, sobbing in the parking lot outside my brand new financial planner’s office. I was not brave. I was scared, and I moved forward anyway.We’re kicking off our October series, Courage to Change: Do It Scared, and today it’s just me and you.…
2 Oct 2026 · 59 min
Liz Moore: Inside The God of the Woods, From Novel to Netflix
This month’s Jen Hatmaker Book Club pick is The God of the Woods, and Liz Moore joins Jen straight off the set of the Netflix series she is co-showrunning in the Adirondacks. Liz talks about the family cabin with no TV and no internet where she read every old book in the house, her early years singing in New York clubs while working weekends at a guitar store, and the practical family that taught her to keep a day job. She explains the difference between a TV writer and a showrunner, why she loves casting local square dancers and first-time actors, and how the cast is deepening the…
30 Sep 2026 · 58 min
This Is What Happens When Women Read with Julianna Glasse
Description:Julianna Glasse was a Christian pop singer playing megachurches and arenas, married to a Major League Baseball player, and in January 2017 she sang at Donald Trump's National Prayer Breakfast weekend after voting the way her husband voted. Two years later she walked away from her faith, her marriage, and nearly everything she had built. Jen and Julianna trace the unraveling: the question she asked while holding her newborn daughter, the friend who handed her Plato's allegory of the cave, the "Christian drinkers" who changed clothes in the car after her concerts, and the day her…
25 Sep 2026 · 55 min
Dr. Galit Atlas on the Wounded Child Running Your Love Life
Description:Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over in love? Same argument, same shutdown, same spiral, same reach toward somebody who cannot or will not reach back. We are grown. We have read the books. And still, something inside us takes the wheel and steers us right back into the ditch.Dr. Galit Atlas says the one driving is probably not you. It is probably the child you used to be.Galit is a psychoanalyst in New York who has spent more than twenty years in a room with people trying to talk about love. Her last book, Emotional Inheritance, was an international bestseller…
23 Sep 2026 · 58 min
Zibby Owens on Losing the Plot, Starting Over, and Building a Life Around Books Description:
Description:Calling all book lovers, calling all readers, calling everyone who has faced down a reinvention in the middle of life. Zibby Owens is one of the book world’s most tireless and warm-hearted connectors: a podcaster who has interviewed more than 2,000 authors, a publisher, a bookstore owner, a self-described accidental activist, and now an author herself. Ten years ago she was a perfectionistic stay-at-home mom of four on the Upper East Side, up at 4:55 a.m. to sign up for parent teacher conferences, with color-coded calendars and no time to read. Then she got divorced, fell in love…
18 Sep 2026 · 41 min
Encore: Psychologist Mary Pipher on Flourishing as We Age
Description:Mary Pipher has spent her whole career noticing the gap between what the culture says is happening to women and what is actually happening to them. She did it in her thirties with Reviving Ophelia, and she did it again decades later with Women Rowing North. In this Sacred Work encore, Jen sits down with the clinical psychologist and author of eleven books to talk about the second half of life and what it actually asks of you. Mary makes the case that women get happier as they age, and she has the research to back it up, along with a story about two locker rooms that lands harder…
16 Sep 2026 · 46 min
Secure-ish: The Real Goal of Self-Worth with Dr. Marisa G. Franco
Description:Dr. Marisa G. Franco is back — and this time, she's turning the lens inward. Marisa is the New York Times bestselling author of Platonic and a psychologist at the University of Maryland, and her brand new book, Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment, might just be the most important thing she's ever written. It is tender, personal, and research-backed in equal measure — and friend, it will find you.In this conversation, Marisa and Jen dig into the central argument of the book: that trying to become a "secure" person — calm, confident, regulated, healed — is…
11 Sep 2026 · 37 min
Encore: Barbara Brown Taylor on Being the Saint of Small Things
Description:Barbara Brown Taylor gave us the question that ends every episode of this show, so it feels right to hand the Sacred Work series over to her. In this encore, the New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest talks with Jen about the year she spent doing almost nothing impressive: the county fair with a couple of six-year-olds, an old racehorse nobody wanted, blueberry pies for friends going through hard things, and shifts at the public library. She calls herself the saint of small things, and she is honest about how hard that is to say out loud when people want…
9 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
Priya Parker on Fighting Well, and Why Conflict Is Not Sin
Description:Think about the last real fight you had with someone you love, then think about what you did with it. Most of us swallowed it and called it peace. Priya Parker has spent twenty years walking into rooms where groups are coming apart, churches mid-split, companies that lost their founder, families with one topic nobody will name at the table. She is back on the show with a new book, The Art of Fighting, and her argument is that the peace we keep by avoiding conflict costs us the very thing we say we want most.Jen and Priya open with a hot takes round on pineapple pizza and whether…
4 Sep 2026 · 49 min
Adrienne Brodeur on Family Myths, Wounded People, and Honest Fiction
Description:Some families run on rules nobody ever wrote down. Here is your role. Here is what we talk about. Here is who gets forgiven and who gets blamed. We accept those terms as children, and then one day we look up and wonder who exactly signed us up for the job.August’s Jen Hatmaker Book Club pick is Little Monsters, and Adrienne Brodeur came with the whole story behind it. She spent thirty years on the other side of the pen, co-founding Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, editing at HMH Books, judging the National Book Award, and now running Aspen Words. She published one…
2 Sep 2026 · 57 min
Your Life Is the Assignment: Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode
Description:For twenty years, one question has followed Jen everywhere she goes: what am I supposed to be doing with my life? It comes in the comments, the voicemails, the line after every event. And for a long time, Jen answered it like a career question, as if somewhere out there was a slot with her name on it and her only job was to find it and climb inside.In this solo episode, she puts down the word calling and picks up a different one: assignment. Not the thing waiting for you in the future, but the work already in your hands, in this season, on this street, with these people. Jen…
28 Aug 2026 · 51 min
Jodi Picoult on Banned Books, Buried Truths, and the Story Behind Hollow Bones
Description:Jodi Picoult is back, and she brought her thirtieth novel with her.If you have been in a book club at any point in the last thirty years, you know the name. Forty million copies in print. Thirty four languages. And, as of this year, the fourth most banned author in America, which Jen considers a five star review.Jodi and Jen get into all of it: what thirty years of publishing actually teaches you (start with the underwear), why she refuses to coast when she could easily phone it in, what she believes AI will never do to a reader, and the career she never asked for as an advocate…
26 Aug 2026 · 39 min
Your House Is Talking to You with Myquillyn Smith
There is a specific kind of overwhelm that hits when you walk into your own living room and everything in it seems to be asking you for something. Finish this puzzle. Put me away. Read the rest of me. Myquillyn Smith, better known as The Nester, says your house is talking to you. It is not shaming you. It is telling you the truth about your stuff.Myquillyn is back in the guest chair, this time on her own, and her new book House Hushing is out now. She walks us through backwards decluttering (pull the loose stuff out of one room, stash it somewhere else, live with that room for 48 hours, and…
19 Aug 2026 · 54 min
Listener Voicemail Day: Five Women Say the Quiet Thing Out Loud
Description:There is no guest on the mic today. There is you. It is Listener Voicemail Day, one of Jen's favorite episodes to make, and it lands in the middle of our permission series, right after Jen asked you to find your one true sentence and say it out loud. You did. This episode is what came back.It comes in two halves. First, the women who called about Jen's mom, Jana King, who, as Jen puts it, a genre.Have something you need to say out loud? Head to JenHatmaker.com/Podcast, look for the Send Voicemail button, and tell us the quiet thing you finally said, or the one you are still…
14 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
Encore: The Conversation You Have Been Avoiding for Years: Dr. Rick Hanson
Some of us will sit in years of low grade misery rather than have one uncomfortable conversation. Jen will be first to raise her hand. She has put off a confrontation so long that the frustration outlasted the thing she was frustrated about. Saying the quiet thing out loud is not only about the truths we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is the sentence we owe another person, the one we have been rehearsing in the shower for eight months and still have not said.Dr. Rick Hanson is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times bestselling author of…
12 Aug 2026 · 56 min
Amena Brown on Getting All the Way Free
Description:Nine years is a long time between visits. When Amena Brown was last on the show in 2017, she was a spoken word poet booked solid inside white evangelicalism, doing one poem at a time between worship songs and quietly wondering how much longer she could keep walking back in. She came back to tell Jen what happened next.This conversation traces the whole arc: the green rooms where she was told her grief was divisive, the healing circle where a Black woman looked her dead in the face and said you have to get out, the three months of panic attacks that followed, and the call from…
7 Aug 2026 · 47 min
Bonus Book Club edition. Guest: Annie Hartnett, The Road to Tender Hearts.
Description:In this Book Club edition of For the Love, Jen sits down with novelist Annie Hartnett to talk about The Road to Tender Hearts — a book Jen calls heart-wrenching, heartwarming, weird, hilarious, and deeply satisfying all at once.They open with a very funny catch-up from Me Camp, the solo month Jen takes every July. This year she’s in a tiny lake town in Canada, cooking, meeting neighbors, reading on the deck at sunset — and buying blueberries for scones instead of checking her calendar.From there, Annie traces her path from high-school art major to novelist, and the two teachers…
5 Aug 2026 · 48 min
Say the Quiet Thing Out Loud: Jen Hatmaker solo episode
Description:Jen is coming to you from the last two days of Me Camp in Canada, eyeballs on the lake, four weeks into having the volume turned down on every channel. And when the static quiets, the truer things rise up. In this me-to-you episode, Jen kicks off August's theme of honesty with the idea at the spine of the whole month: there is the thing we say, and then there is a truer sentence sitting an inch underneath it. And usually one inch under that.Jen shares what her own silence cost in the last years of her marriage, names the difference between truth-telling and truth-throwing, and…
29 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
The Sacred Yes: Jen Hatmaker & Tyler Merritt on Choosing Your Body
Description:Some yeses cost us something. Some of them save us.Jen sits down with her partner, actor, author, and speaker Tyler Merritt, hours after his chemotherapy infusion. Tyler is midway through treatment for colorectal cancer, his second diagnosis in six years, and the two get honest about making thoughtful decisions when your body is calling every shot.They talk about the yes Tyler gave in the middle of radiation: booking a brand-new theater tour that opens seventeen days after his last chemo, a yes he says he "arguably shouldn't have" given, made so he'd have something beautiful to…
22 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
The Sacred Yes: What My Mom Taught Me About Courage, Curiosity, and Starting Again
In our Sacred Yes series, we've explored what it means to choose courage, curiosity, and joy in the second half of life. Who better to join than the woman who quietly taught Jen those lessons from the beginning?In this deeply personal episode, Jen calls home from MeCamp to check in with her mom, Jana. Jana was originally supposed to be lakeside in Ontario with Jen this week—until Jen's dad, Larry, discovered that Jana's passport had expired back in April. Instead of catching up by the water, mother and daughter connected remotely. Thankfully, they hit record so we could all benefit from…
20 Jul 2026 · 25 min
Introducing: Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger
There’s a lot of dopey financial advice out there. Jill Schlesinger is here to call it out, answer your questions, break down the financial news that actually matters, and help you manage your money without losing your mind. No jargon. No judgment. Just clear, actionable financial guidance about saving, investing, buying a home, managing your career, and deciding how to spend your hard-earned dollars. When it’s time to panic, Jill will tell you. When everyone else is panicking and you shouldn’t be, Jill will tell you that too. Your money. Your move. Let’s go.
18 Jul 2026 · 41 min
[ENCORE] The Sacred Yes to What's Next: Leanne Morgan on Midlife Reinvention, Second Acts, and Dreams That Are Worth Waiting For
Description:What if your biggest breakthrough hasn't happened yet?In this joyful and deeply encouraging conversation, Jen sits down with comedian, author, actress, and beloved storyteller Leanne Morgan to talk about dreams, disappointment, perseverance, and the surprising possibilities waiting for us in midlife.As part of our Sacred Yes: Reclaiming Joy in Midlife series, we're bringing back one of our most-loved episodes because Leanne's story embodies everything this season is about: saying yes to possibility, trusting your own timeline, and refusing to believe that life's best chapters…
15 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
Dinner With Strangers: Jess Janz On The Friends We Haven't Met Yet
Dinner With Strangers: Jess Janz On The Friends We Haven't Met YetWe're more connected than ever—and lonelier than we'd like to admit. What if the answer isn't finding the right people, but simply pulling up another chair?This week, Jen sits down with writer, poet, and community-builder Jess Janz to talk about her new book, The Table Where We Meet, and the social experiment that grew into the phenomenon known as Dinner With Strangers. What began as a gathering around a table with a few curious questions has now welcomed more than a thousand people into conversations that move past small talk…
8 Jul 2026 · 34 min
When Life Outpaces You, Rest Isn't Optional
Every summer, Jen heads off on her annual Me Camp, a month dedicated to stepping away from the noise to reconnect with herself. But this year, Me Camp isn't a tradition or a luxury. It's an act of survival.In the wake of major surgery, while carrying the weight of parenting adult children, navigating family crises, supporting loved ones through illness, and trying to hold together a life once built for two people, Jen found herself physically, emotionally, and mentally depleted. She almost didn't go.In this deeply personal solo episode, Jen shares what finally convinced her to leave anyway,…
3 Jul 2026 · 56 min
[ENCORE] The Sacred Yes to Rest: Katherine May on Retreat, Beauty, and the Healing We Can’t Rush
Description: Three years ago, Katherine May gave us a language for something many of us experience but rarely know how to name: wintering. Those seasons of life when everything slows down. When grief arrives. When burnout catches up with us. When illness, loss, caregiving, parenting challenges, or unexpected change force us to stop and reconsider how we're living. As part of our Sacred Yes: Reclaiming Joy in Midlife series, we're revisiting this unforgettable conversation because Katherine's wisdom feels even more relevant today than it did when it first aired. Together, Jen and Katherine…
1 Jul 2026 · 51 min
Sacred Yes: Reclaiming Joy in Midlife | Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode
Description:In this deeply personal solo episode, Jen takes us to the place where this journey began: Me Camp. What started as a spontaneous trip to coastal Maine during one of the hardest seasons of her life became an annual practice of restoration, adventure, healing, and joy. Six summers later, as she arrives in a tiny lakeside town in Ontario for another month of Me Camp, she's reflecting on the small word that changed everything: yes.This month, we'll be exploring what it means to reclaim joy, embrace rest, honor our desires, and create lives that are not just productive—but deeply…
26 Jun 2026 · 40 min
[ENCORE] Every Bit of You Is Cause for Pride and Celebration | Revisiting Our Most Downloaded Episode with Sydney Hatmaker
Description: As part of our Freedom & Flourishing series this Pride Month, we're revisiting the most downloaded episode in the history of For the Love—a conversation that has continued to ripple through families, friendships, and faith communities for years after it first aired.Six years ago, Jen sat down with her daughter Sydney to hand her the microphone and invite her to tell her own story in her own words. What followed was a brave, tender, and deeply honest conversation about growing up gay in the church, loving Jesus while feeling afraid and alone, and finding the courage to embrace…
24 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
He Built the Machine, Then He Survived It: Tim Schraeder Rodriguez on 15 Years Behind the Scenes of Evangelical Christianity
Description:For 15 years, Tim Schraeder Rodriguez quietly shaped the digital face of some of the biggest names in evangelical Christianity — Willow Creek, Hillsong, Elevation — helping mega-churches reach millions with a message of radical welcome. The painful irony? He was living proof of their unspoken rules. Useful in the shadows. Unacceptable in the light.In this conversation, Tim joins Jen and Amy to talk about his new memoir, Conversion Therapy Dropout, and the full arc of his story: growing up adopted with a sense of "anxious apartness," signing the purity pledge as a kid who already…

About For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast is a English society & culture podcast from Jen Hatmaker. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Jen Hatmaker
Language: English
Category: Society & Culture
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 55 min
Latest episode: 14 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1258388821
Rights: Jen Hatmaker

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