Kate Bowler is on a mission to make you joyful, anyway.
A four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and professor at Duke University, Kate studies the stories we tell about success, suffering, and faith—and how we can all learn to live with more hope and joy when those stories stop working.
Life is so beautiful and life is so hard.
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.
There is no cure for being human.
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.
You can’t always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway.
Kate’s work now centers on telling the truth about our shared humanness. She is not interested in tidy explanations, forced optimism, or stories that pretend pain is a problem to be solved. Instead, she helps people tell the truth, stay tender, and find joy that coexists with sorrow. Because beautiful lies may comfort us for a moment—but it is the ugly, honest truth that actually gives us something to stand on.
Living your best life now? Not always? Good. Everything Happens is a podcast for people whose explanations have stopped working. Hosted by historian Kate Bowler, it’s a place for honest conversations with funny and wise people about grief, joy, faith, love, and the limits we all live with.
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A Trusted Voice on Joy in Hard Times
Kate Bowler speaks from the conviction that honesty is more sustaining than optimism. Her talks draw from scholarship, faith, and lived experience to name what many people already know but rarely hear said out loud: you can’t always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway.
