The world of Kate Bowler is beautiful and terrible and as human as it gets.

She’s a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and Professor of Religious History at Duke University. She also holds the prestigious titles of mother to Zach and wife of Toban.

Human
Author
Podcast host
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The world of Kate Bowler is beautiful.

She’s a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and Professor of Religious History at Duke University. She also has two honorary doctorates, an award from Yale University for service to theological education, and seven books to her credit. Additionally, she is the only person ever to hold the prestigious titles of mother to Zach and wife of Toban.

The world of Kate Bowler is terrible.

At 35, Kate was blindsided by Stage IV cancer and the aftermath of its grueling treatment. After that colossal suck and her subsequent recovery, Kate began to rethink pretty much everything she thought she knew about life, loss, grief, and even joy. 

The world of Kate Bowler is as human as it gets. 

She is on a mission to unravel our complicated humanness. She’s not looking to add to the cultural library of lovely stories about hard work and positive attitudes and yet-to-be-revealed reasons things happen. Because those lovely stories are fiction, and Kate knows that an ugly truth will always serve us better than a beautiful lie. 

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Everything Happens for a Reason

(And Other Lies I’ve Loved)

Irreverent, hard-won observations on mortality and the ways it has taught Kate to live.

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The Lives We Actually Have

100 Blessings for Our Imperfect Days

Warm and witty blessings found within the struggles of our shared humanity.

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No Cure for Being Human

(And Other Truths I Need to Hear) 

How do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose?

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Have a Beautiful Terrible Day

Daily Meditations For The Ups, Downs & In-Betweens

Witty, honest, and wise spiritual reflections that invite readers to embrace the bad, not just the good

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All Books by Kate Bowler

Are you living your best life now? Not always? Well, this is a podcast for you. Kate Bowler is a historian and expert in the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. She had Stage IV cancer. Then she didn’t. And since then, all she wants to do is talk to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens. 

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featured episodes

  • When Fixing Isn’t Loving

    WITH

  • How to Talk to Teenagers

    WITH

  • The Ache That Makes Us Human

    WITH
MORE EPISODES

Want to start living your Okayest Life Now? Look no further.

Kate loves to challenge the clichĂ©s we use to think about success and failure. She celebrates the necessity for courage, honesty, and the embarrassing amount that we rely on each other. (Sorry, individualism.) Join her at an event near you.

UPcoming Events Booking

put on your lipstick, we’re getting life-y

Everyone loves free stuff. (Especially if it helps?!)

These free resources are designed with you in mind. Encouragement. Meditations. Conversation starters. Pick what fits whatever day you’re having. 

Death was never part of the plan. Words like hospice can land like a thud—heavy with finality, with the ache of limits we didn’t want to reach. The slow unraveling of these beautiful, fragile lives we love is always worth mourning. Maybe you’ve known, deep down, that fighting harder isn’t the next right step. Maybe the move toward hospice caught you completely off guard. Whether death comes like a thief or a long-expected visitor, facing it is always both awful and sacred. You are loved in all your particularity. Your people light up at the sound of your voice—your voice—with its quirks and humor, your eye-rolls and your weird snack preferences. You are not generic. You are irreplaceable. And your death, just like your life, matters. If you find yourself in that strange, liminal space—between what was and what is ending—you are not alone. If you are a caregiver, heart cracked open while you watch someone you love slip away, you don’t have to do this by yourself. We’ve curated a small support guide filled with resources and language to steady you for the road ahead. A little light for the next step. A little permission to be exactly where you are.
Heartbreak is its own kind of grief—a death without a funeral. No casseroles. No sympathy cards. Just a life that looks mostly the same… except it’s anything but. And somehow the world keeps turning. People post vacation photos. Your ex looks suspiciously cheerful on social media (rude). And you’re left holding the sharp edges of a life you didn’t choose. It’s lonely here. And different. And maybe it’s exactly what needed to happen, and you wish you could say that out loud too. There aren’t always words for what you’re experiencing. But as you gather up what remains, I hope you know this isn’t the end of your story. Love is still here. God is still here. There is more for you still. We’ve put together a small series of resources—some conversations and gentle words for the road ahead. No easy answers. Just good company.
We don’t pretend we can solve the problem of grief, but hope this curated care package will offer some comfort, support, and encouragement as you mourn, and, in the meantime, sending you so much love.
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