Emely Rumble, LCSW Literapy NYC

09/25/2025

Community is everything. 🌿

My dear friend and fellow therapist Wale has been sharing Bibliotherapy in the Bronx far and wide, and I’m moved beyond words.

The Five of Pentacles reminds us that even in moments of overwhelm, we don’t have to carry it all alone—help and love are always there.

As a mom of two little ones, the juggle is real. But knowing that my community is holding me up, highlighting my work (with the freshest nails in the game 💅🏾✨), and passing the book along means more than I can say.

To everyone reading, sharing, and walking this journey with me: thank you. You are the light in the cold, the outstretched hand in the stormy chaos of life. We all we got and I love ya’ll deep.

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09/23/2025

For Latine Heritage Month, I have the privilege of being featured in The Latinx Project at NYU’s Intervenxions, a digital publication uplifting U.S. Latinx art, culture, and scholarship.

In this piece, Bronx writer Janel Martinez highlights Bibliotherapy in the Bronx and the deep legacy of storytelling as medicine from the archives of Sadie P. Delaney and Rudine Sims Bishop’s vision of “mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors,” to the ongoing work of Black librarians, scholars, and bibliotherapists shaping our healing practices today.

My hope remains that this work encourages others to make bibliotherapy their own practice—whether personal, clinical, or educational—and to keep speaking the names of those who built this path before us.

📖 Grateful to The Latinx Project and Janel Martinez for honoring this story and amplifying the work.

Read the full article here: https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/bibliotherapy-emely-rumble

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09/23/2025

✨📚 Happy Book Birthday to Truth Is by Hannah V. Sawyerr! ✨

“My body holds so much grief/ my life is a living wake.”

This novel-in-verse is as urgent as it is beautiful. Through the voice of 17-year-old Truth Bangura, Sawyerr places us right inside the storm of a young person navigating pregnancy, abandonment, and the fight to claim her own future.

What struck me is how powerfully the book captures the layered grief of being let down by those who should have been steady—her ex, her father, even her mother who wrestles with her own mental health struggles.

In her notebook and on the stage, Truth finally confronts what she has been avoiding: the pain, the serious decisions, and the let downs that will shape who she becomes.

This is a story of choice, voice, and survival. A story that resonates even more deeply given the world we are living in now, where Roe v. Wade has been overturned and the right to make decisions about our own bodies is under attack. Books like Truth Is remind us of the real, human stakes in this ongoing fight.

Congratulations, Hannah, on gifting us this powerful, timely book. I know it will speak loudly to young readers, poets, and anyone who has ever had to fight to be heard.

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09/22/2025

Just finished Rules of Resilience by Valorie Burton and whew—this hit home. 🙌🏾

What I love most about Burton’s style is that she writes like a coach who’s actually with you, not talking AT you. The 10 rules she lays out are clear, practical, and digestible which is a perfect way to engage readers for when life feels overwhelming.

As a therapist, I especially appreciated her section on thought awareness and “thinking on purpose.” And as a businesswoman, mother, and wife, her reminder about the invisible load women carry really resonated with me. The mantra “don’t pretend, don’t defend” is going straight into my toolkit.

This book is full of wisdom, grounded strategies, and the kind of encouragement that makes resilience feel not just possible, but sustainable throughout life’s ups and downs.

Huge thanks to for sending me this copy. 💛

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09/21/2025

Notes on my 40th chapter.

Notes on my 40th chapter.

09/20/2025

🎉 Today I turn 40.

40 years of life.

14 years of bibliotherapy practice.

1 debut book out in the world.

I feel grateful, stretched, and alive.

The best way you can celebrate with me is by supporting Bibliotherapy in the Bronx—buy a copy, request it at your library, or leave a review. 📖

And tell me: What’s one lesson you’re carrying forward from your last decade of life?

Here’s to healing, one page at a time. ✨

09/19/2025

40 Things That Nourished Me Before 40 ✨

As I step into this new decade tomorrow, I’m pausing to honor the books, practices, people, and places that have carried me here.

From Bibliotherapy in the Bronx to the wisdom of bell hooks and Toni Morrison, from dancing in the living room with my kids to the quiet of libraries that felt like home, from mentors who shaped me to communities that held me—these are the 40 things that nourished me before 40.

This is my thank you, my grounding, and my reminder that healing is built page by page, breath by breath, connection by connection.

Here’s to what comes next. 💛📚✨

09/16/2025

✨ ARC Club pick thank you ✨

I’m so honored to be an advanced reader for Tenderheaded by Michaela Angela Davis ( ), releasing October 14th from - thank you for the arc!

Reading this memoir felt like both a homecoming and an invocation. As an ’80s baby who collected VIBE magazine religiously, I grew up witnessing Michaela’s influence on Black culture and representation.

Tenderheaded is more than a personal and professional story- it’s cultural history, testimony, and a love letter to Black women who dare to be loud, stylish, brilliant, and free.

Davis writes vulnerably about identity wounds, internalized racism, and the grounding love of family.

She reflects on working with icons like Prince, Mariah, and Regina King and she writes with heartbreaking clarity about covering Black death and the murder of Trayvon Martin.

One line that will stay with me: “I do not feel safe in places where Black girls are a whisper.” Same 😮‍💨

Michaela does not whisper. She honors, affirms, and elevates. I’m grateful for this book, and I can’t wait to discuss it with and this incredible ARC Club community.

Save & share with a book friend who must know about this upcoming debut!

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09/16/2025

✨ Happy Book Birthday to Dr. Keisha N. Blain! ✨

Without Fear is a powerful homage to the everyday Black women- the mothers, daughters, wives, and organizers who transformed personal pain into collective action and shaped global movements for justice.

Blain shines a light on both well-known figures and unsung heroines while reminding readers that the struggle for human rights is not just history but an ongoing source of lived memory and cultural movement that is deeply rooted in the courage of Black women.

Shout out to those of us using our work and platforms to make a difference in this world. I appreciate you!

Similarly this book honors the past while grounding us in the present encouraging us to remember that the legacies of women like Mary Bumpurs live on in every fight for freedom today. 📚✊🏾

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09/15/2025

✨ Happy Latine Heritage Month! ✨ 🇵🇷

From September 15–October 15, we honor the richness, beauty, and contributions of our Latine communities—history, art, advocacy, food, music, and stories that have shaped this nation for centuries. Thank you for the arc🫶🏽

One of the most powerful ways I celebrate is through books, and this fall, one of my favorite authors gave us a gift that feels especially timely. 📚

This Is the Only Kingdom by Jaquira Díaz (out Oct 21) is a searing, heart-filled story about Puerto Rico in all of its beauty, its struggles, and the nuanced nature of our people.

As a Black Puerto Rican reader, this book felt deeply personal. Through Maricarmen, her daughter Nena, and their chosen family, Díaz unflinchingly explores class, racial hierarchy, colorism, and the weight of generational wounds.

Told through chapters named after Latinx songs (if you’re a La Fania fan you’re gonna love that aspect!), this is as much a story about found family as it is about blood ties—a love letter to q***r and Black Puerto Ricans living on the margins.

It’s raw, honest, and full of truth: we can honor where we come from without becoming what hurt us.

This Latine Heritage Month, may we uplift our stories, our joy, and our healing. 🖤🌺

Save, Share, and Preorder today!

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09/14/2025

✨ This Sunday before my 40th birthday next weekend I’m reflecting on what it means to write a book that holds my community and tells our stories with care.

Bibliotherapy in the Bronx is not just my debut book offering. It’s truly a love letter to the people, the libraries, and the words that have sustained me on my journey throughout becoming a woman, a mother, a healer and a creative.

If you’ve been touched by my work, the best birthday gift you can give is to support the book: buy it, review it, or request it at your library. 📚💜

Tell me in the comments: What book carried you through your 30s?

For me, it was ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Su***de When the Rainbow is Enuf’ by Ntozake Shange- a seminal work of literature that left a permanent mark on me from my 20s throughout my 30s.

Swipe through for Bibliotherapy prompt from my book and share your book recommendations in the comments ✨

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