Words by Molly Hays
Photography by Steve Soule

Writers, accountants, lawyers, artists: there are as many work-from-home arrangements as there are home-based workers. Still, few have masterfully integrated work and home as organically as author, mother, magazine founder, and master blogger Amanda Soule.

As followers of Amanda’s widely-read and deeply-admired blog SouleMama know, she has built a career around home: its pleasures, graces, challenges, rewards, and, above all, its enduring importance. When she launched her blog over a decade ago Amanda was a young mother, at home all day with two young boys, seeking a creative outlet. It was “just a way…to have something tangible at the end of the day.” Fast-forward eleven years, and Amanda’s daily life looks significantly different, with five kids, ages 3-14; three books; one quarterly magazine; an international following; and farm animals beyond count.

Still, the heartbeat of her work hasn’t wavered. In print and online, Amanda explores everything from hand-plucking hornworms, to honoring kids’ art, to making muffins from leftover oatmeal. All the while eloquently re-defining home, not as edifice or landing pad but as vital, essential source of comfort, creativity and potential.

All from within the four walls she calls “home.”

To read more about Amanda, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.