Magnolia/YouTube Joanna Gaines
Joanna Gaines is ready to tell the whole truth about her life, surprising fans with news that she’ll soon release her first solo memoir. After a meteoric rise to fame on HGTV‘s “Fixer Upper,” co-starring husband Chip, and the launch of their own Magnolia TV network, the mom of five says the world still doesn’t fully know the true Joanna Gaines, so she’s turning her personal journal entries from the past year into a book her publisher calls “deeply vulnerable.”
“The Stories We Tell” will be released by Harper Collins on November 8, 2022.
Gaines Reveals Why She Decided To “Rewrite” Her Story
Gaines shared news of her upcoming memoir via two social media posts on the morning of August 16, 2022, including one unveiling the cover of “The Stories We Tell.” In the other post, she uploaded a photo of her finished manuscript tucked inside a gray file folder and wrote that she was sending her story off to the printer.
“Earlier this year I started jotting down memories and stories from my past, journaling about things I was still, years later, trying to work through,” she wrote. “Half of my life is behind me and I’ve been longing for clarity about what I should carry forward and how I could hold this next chapter well.”
“At some point, I realized I was writing a story—my story,” Gaines continued. “The bits and pieces that shape who I am. It was messy and winding and beautiful, and graciously revealed about a million wonders. Some of it broke my heart—and some of it pieced it back together.”
The Emmy-nominated star added that she’s “feeling a little bit of everything: nervous, excited, vulnerable, but mostly hopeful” about the book launch.
Gaines Says Rewriting Her Story Helped Her ‘Break Free’
GettyJoanna Gaines attends the TIME 100 Gala 2019 Cocktails.
Gaines also published a brief blog post on August 16, revealing that diving deep into the experiences that shaped who she is helped her “break free” from the assumptions and mistruths she’d grown accustomed to hearing — and even believing — about herself.
She wrote, “The only way to break free was to rewrite my story. Because something would happen every time my pen stopped: It was like my soul was coming back to my body. Like the deepest parts of me that got knocked around and drowned out by all the crap I let the world convince me about who I was came back to the surface.”
Gaines says she knows parts of her story and perspectives may not resonate with all readers, but hopes they can find common ground.
She wrote, “Because this is my story, maybe you won’t always relate, or maybe it will feel like you’re looking in a mirror. Whatever we have in common and whatever differences lie between us, I only hope my story can help shine a light on the beauty of yours.”
Gaines is already a best-selling author, with six books under her belt. The first — an autobiography she wrote with husband Chip, The Magnolia Story— topped the New York Times Bestseller list in November 2016, just 10 days after its release. Fans can now pre-order “The Stories We Tell” from all major booksellers.