J. Faye D’Avanza, MSLIS

I am a writer and holistic librarian living in Asheville, North Carolina, where I founded Library of Care (LOC) to serve as a 21st-century resource hub curated with stories and tools for creative recovery, healing, and thriving.

I believe repairing our relationship with our creativity can be a powerful antidote for thriving in a Culture of Chronic Burnout.

I envision a Culture of Care where everyone is supported with the knowledge, tools, and community to access their well-being, their creativity, and the deeper connections that help us all thrive.

At LOC, I see myself as a creative guide. I lead with a whole person-centered approach to creative living because you are so much more than than your burnout story. I help people at all stages of their journey learn to connect and reconnect with their inner guide, the one that is rooting for them to be well, create, and thrive!

My background is in public service and community engagement having worked for 20 years in public libraries, including managing a vibrant public programming department, and co-producing the Rhody Radio podcast as featured in Library Journal during the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm a mental health-informed information professional who, after feeling bookended by time, continues to recover and rebalance my relationships with stress, anxiety, and burnout so I can care for myself and my creative well-being.

My education and credentials:

Master of Science Library & Information Science from Simmons University (Beta Phi Mu Honor Society)

Bachelor of Arts in English, with minors in American Studies and Art from the University of New Hampshire

Certified Inward & Artward Creative Facilitator from Story Parlor, 2024

Certificate in Editing from the University of Chicago, 2023

Fun facts:

At 21, I traveled by myself from Boston to San Francisco aboard an Amtrak train with a Canon EOS Rebel digital camera around my neck, a copy of Jack Keroac’s On the Road in my magenta backpack, and my grandfather’s fedora hat in a clear plastic shoebag. I made this trip during the Bush Administration, one year after Hurricane Katrina, and five years after 9/11. My destination: a magical place behind the Redwood Curtain in California called Humboldt County where I would grow into myself as an artist. And while I only lived there for three years, the place and its people continue to inspire me today.

Twice in my life I channeled my inner David Sedaris, and took a job as a holiday elf aboard “The Polar Express” where I passed out cookies and cocoa while singing and dancing to parents, grandparents, and young kids. While never formally a children’s librarian, I did find pockets of real joy in delighting families, and especially in sharing a real life experience from a book.

In 2020, I was a community engagement librarian by day, and a guilty writer by night. Deep into my mid-thirties, my dream “to be a writer” was fading fast as my candle for the world I love slowly burned out. Searching for meaning from the pages of my lost life, a new era began, one of repairing broken time.

As an act of self-preservation, I quit my job along with 4.5 million other Americans during The Great Resignation. Trading in the next 3 years of my life to DIY my burnout recovery, led me to discover that as an artist living in the shadows of my own life—I was also on a parallel journey of a transformative creative recovery.

My ambition to serve as a holistic librarian and creative facilitator while supporting myself as a working writer and editor became real in 2024 when, from the heart of Asheville, North Carolina (and in the wake of Hurricane Helene), I launched my business Library of Care.

Now, I prioritize joy over shame. I prioritize the time to practice and enjoy healthy habits that nourish my creative energy over the ones that don’t. And I seek out the people, places, and beautiful things that care and support me on my path of creative well-being. This is what makes it possible to do and share my soul-fired work with you. I’m so happy you are here with me, and making time to consider me as a collaborator in your whole creative life.