Review: Welcome to the Creative Club, by Pia Mailhot-Leichter

Title: Welcome to the Creative Club

Author: Pia Mailhot-Leichter

Publisher: Manuscripts LLC

Date of Publication: November 30th 2024

Number of Pages: 256

See it on Goodreads: Welcome to the Creative Club

*I've received a copy of the book via Netgalley. Thank you to the publisher and the author.

Summary

WE’RE BORN CREATIVE. THEN, WE FORGET. THIS BOOK HELPS US REMEMBER.

Welcome to the Creative Club smashes the myth that creativity is reserved for the chosen few and invites people to make life their biggest art project.

This book is for anyone who’s felt stuck in someone else’s story, silenced by self-doubt, or afraid they’ve lost their creativity—and is ready to remember what it means to create and live fully.

Pia Mailhot-Leichter shares her messy, beautiful life—gritty New York nights, the ruins of marriage, and the unexpected clarity of a Trans-Siberian train ride—to explore how we lose and find our creative power.

Through neuroscience research, poetic pit stops, and practical exercises, it guides readers through subtle shifts that gradually lead to profound transformation. By the end, life isn’t just lived—it’s turned into a work of art.

This anti-how-to guide is a reminder

Rediscover creativity that’s been there all along. Reclaim your creative power and write and live your story. Overcome creative blocks with mindset shifts. Tap into your imagination and intuition to design your life. Stop living on autopilot and start living creatively. Part memoir, part guide, part gentle rebellion, Welcome to the Creative Club is for people ready to become the creative director of their lives.

Join the Creative Club (the membership card has been in your back pocket all along).

Review - A How-to Guide for Creatively Directing Your Life

I would like to consider myself a creative person. So Welcome to the Creative Club immediately spoke to me. But don't get fooled - this is not a book just for the creatives. Learning how to apply creativity in your life? This is definitely something that would benefit each and every one of us. Therefore, even though I'm not a self-help type of reader, I was excited to read this book. 

In Welcome to the Creative Club, we get a very interesting mix of poetry, personal stories, pieces of advice, and fieldwork. The author makes a really good job at recounting her story and showing how she managed to use creativity to rise even in the roughest situations. I particularly like the fact that she's not afraid to be vulnerable.

My favourite part of the book is the Fieldwork section. In this, we get some useful exercises that aim to reveal our hidden truths and make us take action. I can actually see myself using some of these.

However, I can't deny that reading this book didn't keep me engaged with it, which was very disappointing. Even though there were a couple of useful pieces of advice in its pages, I often found that both the stories and the takeaways from them overlapped. This constant repetition didn't keep me excited to continue reading it. 

One more thing that I couldn't get past on was the fact that this book felt that it came from a privileged place. In one chapter, the author mentioned, "Luckily, I had savings and a cushion. My survival wasn't at stake, but my sense of fulfillment and expansion were". And this summarizes perfectly my objections - what happens if you don't have a cushion, if you live from paycheck to paycheck and cannot take a 4-week break to take the Trans-Siberian train and process your failed marriage? In theory, you can just change your perspective, but practically, not everyone has the opportunity to say "Fuck it, I'm jumping".

Finally, I would also like to stand on the chapter "We run in creative packs". I totally agree that when you work with others, you can enhance your creativity, and you can help each other achieve wonderful things. In this chapter, we get a small part from the book's editor, along with the author's description of the book writing process. However, did we really need this conversation about how the book stands out because it's vulnerable, and because the author has a great way of showing that? It felt like a pat on the back. 

In conclusion, Welcome to the Creative Club wasn't really the book for me. I admire the author for what she has been able to achieve in her personal journey. However, I didn't feel that she was able to convey these lessons to the readers. But if you want a self-help book that will lay a base for building up your creativity, you could give it a try.

Read more of my reviews here.