This book is not that serious

Hi! 👋🏼I’m Raysa, and I love my nephew very much. I may not be a writer yet, but love is the most powerful ingredient I have to create a children’s book for him

Subscribe to get the first issue, launching in January 2026! 🌟

Sometimes our choices have consequences far into the future

Imagine moving across the world to find safety and opportunity, only to watch milestones, like the birth and growth of a child, behind a phone.

When I moved from Brazil to Finland in 2019, I couldn’t have known I would be far from humans who were not born yet.

The most epic mix of happiness, FOMO (fear of missing out) and joy gave me an idea: to write and illustrate a bilingual children’s book, a love letter to him.

It started as a first-birthday gift. Two and a half years later, I am auntie of two children instead of one, and I’m finding that writing a book when you’re not an author (or illustrator) is reaaally hard.

This is where the newsletter comes in

Facing all sorts of creative blocks and fears prompted me to create a newsletter that shares the story behind the story, so you can laugh, feel inspired, and be seen, while we both shy away from perfection to embrace vulnerability.

The newsletter arrives every forth Monday of the month

It contains:

  • Behind the mess

    A story from backstage

    Ask me Anything (AMA) with questions from the readers, to fulfill your curiosity, no taboos, no filter

  • The fuck-up of the month

    Something that went hilariously wrong, so you can feel good about the shit you are working with

  • What I ate (also as in “I ate that”)

    Literally, because food is the fuel of creativity, and figuratively, because this newsletter won’t be just about challenges

  • Quick peek into what I wrote or illustrated 👀

    Sneak a peek at my work-in-progress before it becomes a best seller

  • Opportunities in creativity

    For fellow creative kitties who are looking for money, visibility or connection

It’s been more than a year since I can’t use Instagram anymore because I feel so bad - everyone’s lives look way perfecter than mine, and this has been enough to bring so much anxiety.

But beyond Instagram, we are spoiled in social media by readiness; we see the fitness instructor after they achieved a super strong, pumped, body, we see the start-up entrepreneur after raising millions in investments, or the painting in its marvellous finished wonder.

Very rarely do we see narratives of the messy pathways to get there. We see the "after" but not the "during", and this newsletter is created for everyone, who like me, feels tired and demotivated by the artificiality of the perfection in social media.

Why I chose to talk about the space between ‘before’ and ‘after’

Subscribe to get a monthly reminder that you’re not the only one making it up as you go:

And who am I?

Raysa França

I was raised in Minas Gerais, a mountainous state in Brazil that is deeply extracted and affected by the mining industry. I moved to Finland seven years ago, and I am now a mix of Brazilian and Finnish. I am loud and chatty, but I learned to appreciate personal space as well.

I bring my intercultural background to my career, dedicated to solving what I believe to be humanity’s biggest challenge: climate breakdown.

I’ve navigated a professional journey that began in corporate sustainability (aka ESG in some hoods!), moved to youth leadership for climate and biodiversity at Youth4Nature, and now I've landed at Impatience Earth, to channel funding, aka monies, toward climate-just solutions.

My aim is to ensure that everyone who wants to contribute to sustainability transitions has the space and resources to do so. Outside of work, you will find me dancing, cooking yummy plant-based food, and rewatching TV shows I've already watched ten times.