Em Rumble, LICSW

Grateful to Brooklyn Public Library for the opportunity to present a professional development workshop with library workers today 📚

We explored something I hold true: library workers already do this work. Bibliotherapy simply adds an emotional lens to readers’ advisory.

👉 LiterapyNYC.podia.com

A book recommendation from my hubby who, as an educator, always knows what the cool kids are reading. Come to find out this is a series! Excited to check this one out. I love a thick book and an engrossing cover 🥰

Run do not walk! Reading Kin now and it’s everything we’ve been anticipating and more. Read now for a limited time on @netgalley.bsky.social @tayari.bsky.social 💃🏽💃🏽🙌🏾

“One night, she awoke with a solution: “If I had a magazine I could spend my time filling it up with the best conversation the world has to offer.”

I enjoy books honoring the women who made room for radical reading and encourage us to keep defending the right to read boldly, across generations.

Method Man casually dropped on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast with Carmelo Anthony that he’s working on his memoir and I nearly levitated.

Sir… take your time but also don’t. 👐🏽
I’m ready for the grit, the wisdom, the Staten Island stories, the growth, the bars between the lines.

Someone left me a note thanking me for the books I leave in our building hallways. They said the themes helped them through a hard season.

This is why I believe in bibliotherapy. Books find us when we need them most. 🤍 #bibliotherapyinthebronx

Being 40 means I go to the work holiday party, enjoy a good conversation, eat the dessert, leave at a reasonable hour… and feel deeply at peace being exactly myself. No pretending, no performing—just showing up as I am. 🎄✨

100 readers.
100 lives touched by words as care.
100 reminders that literature can hold us when the world feels heavy.

Words of Wellness exists for readers.

If you’re craving slower reading, thoughtful essays, and bibliotherapy-inspired reflections—come sit with us.

LiterapyNYC.substack.com

Nothing like a quiet morning spent at @monsoonroastery.bsky.social 🥹 ☕️ the vibes are immaculate, the atmosphere is cozy and everyone is so friendly and relaxed. Highly recommend!

If you love exploring stories in deeper, more healing-centered ways, my bibliotherapy community Libros y la Curación | Healing Through Books offers curated prompts, themes, professional tools, and two years of therapeutic content. Join us as we read & refect:

literapynyc.podia.com/literapy-nyc...

Recharging in Challenging Times An ALA Virtual Event | Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Honored and so excited to open the ALA “Recharging in Challenging Times” virtual event in February 2026.

We’ll be talking about the power of story to bring connection and hope into our daily work especially when the world feels heavy.

Grateful to ALA for the invitation!

www.ala.org/virtual-event

Image: Opening Keynote Photo of: Emely Rumble Claim Your Spot - Register Now! Recharging in Challenging Times An ALA Virtual Event Feb. 10, 2026 FOR OUR LIBRARIES. American Library Association

📚 💙 Bibliotherapist Emely Rumble, LICSW, will open "Recharging in Challenging Times" a dynamic one-day virtual event. Join us as we explore how storytelling can bring steadiness, connection, and hope into everyday library practice. #ALAVirtual26

Register Now! https://www.ala.org/virtual-event

Found a new bookstore in Springfield, MA. It wasn’t open when we got there but excited to peruse soon☺️

Never thought I’d be out here loving a stalker romance, but this one had me howling 😂

Cal was self aware for a stalker! He works with Izzy and when she falls for an AI boyfriend she thinks is a stranger she has no idea it’s actually him. The unhinged dedication! The lengths! The audacity! I lived!

Before I Forget 💕

Cricket’s journey from avoiding her pain to turning toward it slowly is one of my favorite stories.

Watching her care for her father as he slips further into Alzheimer’s, while also healing the fractures in their relationship, felt tender and true in a way that stayed with me.

Professional Reads

I’m also closing out my year with two powerful therapy reads as I support clients through the holidays:

• The Essential Guide for Counseling Black Women by LaNail R. Plummer, EdD, LCPC-S
(Jan 27)

• Attachment Style Makeover by Jessica Harris, LPC and Miranda Campbell, LCSW

Our Readers Who Run with the Wolves community is closing out the year with a powerful lineup meant to hold us through these final weeks of 2025 and on.

I’m excited to share our upcoming book picks in advance so you have plenty of time to get your library holds!

Join us: fable.co/club/readers...

Small Business Saturday ✨

Invest in your growth, your practice, your creativity.

My bibliotherapy workshops are 40% off with code LIT until Nov 30.

Thank you for supporting a Black Puerto Rican–owned small business. 🤎📚

literapynyc.podia.com?coupon

Matching Mommy and Me hats for our date today! We’re heading to see Zootopia 2 with her bestie and it’s a surprise! 🤭☺️

Substack trend to introduce Words of Wellness with assets from a few posts.

Join me there for all things Bibliotherapy, mom life, poetic reflections and books I love!

substack.com/@literapynyc?r

✨ Black Friday Sale!

For a limited time, you can take 40% off my Bibliotherapy Intro Course and my Course for Librarians — two of my most-requested offerings for anyone who wants to bring healing, storytelling, and culturally grounded care into their work.

literapynyc.podia.com?coupon=LIT

May your day be full of nourishment, softness, and the kind of rest you don’t have to apologize for. 🧡📚

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias, mi gente!

My husband has been avoiding eye contact with my since yesterday because he’s tired of running to the grocery store 😂

Let the festivities begin! 👨🏾‍🍳

Honoring Viola Ford Fletcher, who transitioned at 111 years old 🕊️

Mother Fletcher was just seven when the thriving Black community of Greenwood was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

If you’ve never read her memoir, Don’t Let Them Bury My Story, this is the moment.

Sometimes you have to let people know: “I know you’re grieving but I’m not your punching bag.”

Currently reading 🎧: The Unwritten Rules of Magic by Harper Ross pub date Jan 27 ‘26

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the gifted ALC 💙 #booksky

Had the honor of blurbing Exit Tickets by Kenneth Chanko, and y’all…this story took me right back into the heart of school social worker life in the BX🙌🏾

It’s messy, real, emotional, and so true to what it means to care for vulnerable kids in systems that don’t always know how to care for them back.

With Love From Harlem by ReShonda Tate brings Hazel Scott to life.

As a therapist using narrative, Hazel’s brilliance, her resolve to not lose herself in Adam Clayton Powell’s shadow, her friendships, her art 😮‍💨every page is a reminder that reclaiming yourself is its own revolution. Coming Jan 27!

Cynthia Erivo’s Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much is the kind of memoir that reminds you why self-belief is 🔑

She shares her backstory as a Black British queer woman from South London and the tenacity it took for her to follow her dreams despite the haters.

Meet Medusa before the myth fixes her in place. Young Meddy shines as a curious, brave, protagonist whose feminist lens sharpens with every betrayal, revelation, and act of courage.

This is Medusa reimagined with tenderness and power. She’s a girl becoming her own story and I love that for her 🐍

Curtice invites us to become “story doulas,” tending to one another’s truths with care, witnessing, and kinship. She reminds us that some stories nourish connection… and some keep us stuck.
Reflection for you:

Which stories in your life feel ready to grow… and which might you be ready to release?