Come in, come in! You’re welcome here.
There’s plenty of room. After all, My Living Room Is the World.
Join a community of nearly 1,500 in a space that fosters connection & showing up for each other. Roll with us to wild spaces and stunning vistas, both inner and outer. Indulge in a collection of stories on strangers having each other’s backs. Get lost in lyrical prose. Help guide where we roll next.🍃
— Read or listen weekly
— Roll through the archives
Travel with me by foot or bike, bus or train in stories like "Lucky" (an exploration of what luck means to a solo woman traveler, who has it, and how we might share it) and One Woman's Gaping Maw.
Come along the path of an autoimmune diagnosis in pieces like Mourning Walk and To the Pain.
And yes! Of course. There’s vanlife. A few reader favs: The Sword in the Saguaro, Slugs, and Dear Ruby (meet the model for this desk’s logo just as we’re saying farewell to her).
— Meet awesome people
One of the best reasons to go on the road is all the people you’re able to connect with. Through monthly interviews, collaborations, curations, or essays, meet amazing humans from the road, writing life, and everywhere in between. Don’t miss the collection of stories about people, often strangers, showing up for each other.
🔥 Get featured
Have a story of helping or being helped by a stranger? Submit it. (Guidelines: 800 words or less, not yet published on your stack; we’ll cross-post.)
Or email me if you want to collaborate in any way.
I’m Holly Starley
I’d love for us all to fall madly in love with ourselves and to know nothing human is alien to us. I believe we’re all connected by mycelial-like strands good writing can make shimmer. I write and edit and teach editing and roam to find myself in the beings we share this world with, in you, and for that glorious rush that comes when words pour between us and we see each other, ourselves anew. I’ve lived nomadically out of a backpack, on a bike, in an RV, in a truck, and in a van. Much of my writing comes from those treks.
Applying to my own work the same techniques I used during two decades of editing other authors’ works in progress has made writing and polishing from one draft to the next a joyful practice. It sets me free to create with audacity, knowing I have the skills to shape that creation its best version possible. And I can show you how to do the same.
Over 20 years, I’ve edited more than a thousand manuscripts, from memoir to fiction to self-help and more. Whether as a developmental, content, or line editor, I’ve seen my job as helping authors transform works they’ve knitted from the fibers of their beings into the best versions possible.
Before that, I was briefly an award-winning journalist.
I’ve also worked as “book doctor” (partial ghost writer) and collaborator on many projects.
I’ve written copy for clients ranging from question-answering systems to bloggers and influencers to nonprofits.
I’ve served as managing / assigning editor for a handful of micro publications.
And here’s the current hub of both the editing and writing desk, Ruby, the DIY van
The solar’s on the roof. The views are all around (they’re Magic). And our people are where’er we go (which is to say all the people, even when it’s tempting as hell to “Other”).
Climb aboard.🍃
The Rolling Desk logo and art was created by the amazing Alexandra Rickards, a talented designer and overall badass. Keep her in mind for artsy projects of sundry types.
