
Please provide a brief description about your company.
InkWell Retreats helps professors and graduate students free themselves from their writing fears. So they can enjoy calm, confident, generative writing sessions, every time they sit down to write.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I’m not sure it’s my greatest achievement. But I finished my second book without burning myself out AND felt proud of what I wrote, despite it’s imperfections. That felt amazing. The only thing better has been hearing from graduate students, especially young women of color, that the book has helped them recover their love of writing.
Whom do you most admire?
People who constantly face their fears. Adults learning to swim or ride a bike. Smokers trying to quit. People struggling to forgive–or apologize. Someone refusing repression or shaming. They amaze and inspire me.
What are your top tips for balancing work and life?
I don’t believe that “work-life balance” exists. That’s an idea that traps us (women especially) into trying to do it all, which is impossible. I am constantly practicing saying no (or not yet) to really important things, so I can say yes to the MOST important thing.
What is your most marked characteristic?
A strange combination of skepticism and empathy, which is part of why I’m a skillful coach. When I left my faculty job to start InkWell, my colleagues threw me a party and wrote down what they most liked about me. Two of my favorite responses were “Michelle is the best listener on the planet” and “Inability to hide impatience with bullshit.”
What advice would you give to yourself at 25 years old?
An uber driver once asked me this question. He said he liked to ask all his riders, so he could learn from the people he drove around. I didn’t have a great answer then either. But at 25, I really could have used this insight from Paul Graham: “Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.”
- InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, LLC
- hello@inkwellretreats.org
- https://inkwellretreats.org

Tricia Meyer is Founder + Managing Attorney of Meyer Law, one of the fastest growing law firms in the United States. Meyer helps entrepreneurs and technology companies from startups to large corporations with day-to-day matters and notable clients include companies that have appeared on Shark Tank to companies gracing the Inc. 500 to some of the largest companies in the world.
Tricia has been named on the Forbes Next 1000 list, is one of the Most Influential Female Lawyers in Chicago according to Crain’s Chicago Business and been recognized as a top 10 technology lawyer.
As an entrepreneur and a lawyer, Meyer has a unique perspective and has mentored thousands of startups and scaling companies at tech incubators and accelerators across the United States such as 1871, WeWork Labs and Techstars. Tricia has been featured in Inc., Crain’s, Chicago Tribune, NBC Chicago, American Express OPEN Forum, and more. Learn more at www.MeetMeyerLaw.com and follow Meyer Law’s story on Instagram @loveyourlawyer.