You Don’t Want to Play Chess With Jennifer Rudolph Walsh
No one could have anticipated the former literary agent’s next move, but here she is—the co-owner of a magical bookstore and gathering space in a teeny-tiny California beach town.
In saying that you don’t want to engage Jennifer Rudolph Walsh in a chess match, we’re not saying she’s bad company—in fact, quite the opposite. Even the night before Godmothers’ grand opening, the store’s co-founder is the best kind of company: present, engaged, genuinely curious, and almost absurdly kind. What we mean is, if Jennifer’s agreed to a chess match, while you’re dusting off the board and sorting pawns from rooks, she’s likely invited two more friends and decided you’re all playing mahjong.
Which is to say, there’s no predicting this woman’s next move.
It’s part of her charm and befitting of how quickly her mind operates. (If you haven’t met her in person and are wondering, “how quickly?” picture the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. Now picture how much faster those wings would beat if you held down the hummingbird and tried to give him a pedicure. About that quickly.)
But Jennifer’s found her unpredictability can be unsettling for people. That was especially evident in 2019, when she stepped away from her role at WME after nearly 20 years. At the time, she was the agency’s sole female board member and the global head of its literary, lectures, and conference divisions. Or, more succinctly, one of the most powerful people in entertainment and media. So when it was announced via a company-wide memo that the then-52-year-old had “decided to move on,” many people didn’t get it.
“It was like they saw the Rorschach test one way,” she says, “and my shift threw off their perspective of their own worlds.”
Less than a year later, when the Long Island–born, Manhattan-raised New Yorker and her husband, Patrick, decided, mid-Covid, to uproot their lives and move to California, of all places, people were once again thrown. “My friends, my former colleagues, even people I wasn’t that close with said, ‘Oh my god. You’re leaving New York? Why on earth would anyone leave New York,’” she recalls.
While her moves (professional, physical, and otherwise) are largely unpredictable and may seem sudden or random to an outsider, to know Jennifer is to know she’s always listening for clues from the universe. She doesn’t just believe in divine intervention, she’s tuned into its frequency and is waiting for it. So when she zigs and the world then expects her to zag, you’ll instead find she’s adopted a menagerie of miniature farm animals and opened a bookstore and gathering space with “new old friend” Victoria Jackson. In short, she follows her heart—which tracks, for a woman born on Valentine’s Day—and when she’s made up her mind, she doesn’t look back.
If you could bottle her sense of conviction, you could sell it on Goop for a premium to women less sure of their path or purpose. In the absence of that, you’ll find the highly attainable highlights from the Jennifer “starter pack” below—including the TV shows currently in her streaming queue, the recipe for her “mother bath”—and of course, books.
GODMOTHERS: What’s your morning routine?
JENNIFER: I usually wake up before 5 a.m., but I make myself stay in bed—and I don’t touch my phone—until 5. At 5 I’ll get out of bed, start the coffee, and I’ll meditate while the coffee is brewing.
GODMOTHERS: Wait, you meditate? It tracks in that meditation is a practice that’s shared by the smartest and most forward-thinking people—but I just didn’t know that about you. [Editor’s note: Even on a two-person Zoom, Jennifer gets squirmy about being placed alongside “the smartest people.” Her inability to take a compliment is almost comical. Just try to give this woman her well-deserved flowers and you’ll watch her dodge them like the whack-a-mole rodent.]
JENNIFER: Yeah, I’ve had some kind of breath-work practice for probably about 25 years.
GODMOTHERS: Is it, like, Transcendental Meditation? Or do you have a mantra?
JENNIFER: No mantra, no meditation cushion. It’s just: breathe in, breathe out. I count backward from 100 to 1, then up from 1 to 100 and back down again. And I focus on feeling each breath on the tip of my nose.
GODMOTHERS: OK, so the coffee’s brewing, you’re meditating, then what?
JENNIFER: Then I get back in bed with my coffee and start reading and sending everyone a million articles.
GODMOTHERS: What are you reading?
JENNIFER: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker. And I do Wordle. Around 7-ish, the dogs and my husband wake up and we feed the animals—currently four dogs, two micro cows, two mini donkeys, and two dwarf goats.
GODMOTHERS: Besides the newspaper apps, what are your most-used apps?
JENNIFER: Spotify, Instagram. And my white-noise app, Bettersleep. Well, I used to play white noise, but now it’s green noise, which I read is better for sleep and relaxation. I also watch a lot of TV.
GODMOTHERS: What are you currently watching?
JENNIFER: Any and all of the Real Housewives. Industry, Pachinko, My Brilliant Friend, the second season of The Old Man, and Only Murders In the Building.
GODMOTHERS: What newsletters do you read?
JENNIFER: Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen. Courtney Martin’s newsletter, The Examined Family. Brené Brown’s newsletter. Sometimes Sari Botton, Yolanda Edwards, and Jessica Yellin.
GODMOTHERS: Three songs that always put you in a good mood?
JENNIFER: “Roam” by the B-52’s. “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison. And “Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M.
GODMOTHERS: How do you get yourself out of a funk?
JENNIFER: The truth is, I don’t get into a funk.
GODMOTHERS: I’ve never heard anyone else say that.
JENNIFER: It’s not that I don’t get depressed or sad. But I don’t let external factors, the things I can’t control, define my mood. I’m similar to the weather in Santa Barbara—always 75 degrees and sunny. And I can’t let, you know, whether someone writes me back or losing five pounds impact the peace that I try to maintain within myself. That peace can be punctuated by joy when something good happens or punctuated by sadness or frustration or hurt when something difficult happens, but none of those overcome me. That said, I know that talking to good friends helps maintain my peace. So does getting more sleep, and taking “mother baths.” I’m a gold-medal bathlete.
GODMOTHERS: “Mother baths?”
JENNIFER: A bath, with two cups of Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar—the one that says “With the ‘Mother’”—and two cups of Dr Teal’s Pure Epsom Salt Soak. It just completely cleans the energy off of you.
GODMOTHERS: What else is bringing you joy right now?
JENNIFER: I love driving around in my little 2014 powder blue Mini Cooper, surrounded by the mountains and the ocean. Right now I’m playing the John Mayer channel on Sirius a lot. I call it “car euphoria.” And my animals. Being with nature and being with animals is the great revelation of the second half of my life. I lived my first 54 years at the speed of culture, and now I move at the speed of nature.
GODMOTHERS: Did you see nature, ever, in New York?
JENNIFER: I mean, we had a backyard. [Editor’s note: A quick Google reveals that the average yard size of a Manhattan townhouse is 20 feet by 36 feet. A standard flatbed trailer, by comparison, is 48 to 53 feet long.]
GODMOTHERS: But you never saw it?
JENNIFER: No! I went from inside my home to inside a car to inside a building and back. The weather didn’t even register.
GODMOTHERS: When you left that life, when you left WME, were you worried about whether whatever you did next would be as “big”? Or as impressive? You know, for every Beyoncé who skyrockets as a solo act, there are five Backstreet Boys who fizzled into obscurity without their bandmates behind them.
JENNIFER: I really wasn’t thinking about it in that way. I didn’t leave WME—I had finished my time and what I was meant to do there. It was the end of a chapter. At that point, we were four years into Together Live; we had partnered with Hello Sunshine, and people assumed I was going to turn that into, I don’t know, an arena tour. Of course we closed Together Live during Covid, but now with Godmothers, people are saying, “Well, if you’re opening a bookstore, it’s eventually going to be a chain of bookstores, right?” That was never our intention. Together Live was about scale; Godmothers is about intimacy. It’s a physical space for living my purpose—forging human connections through storytelling—in this moment. It’s an evolution from who I was in New York. My platform has evolved, but my purpose hasn’t changed.
GODMOTHERS: Speaking of your purpose, your oldest child, your daughter, Hadley, is studying to be a pediatric neurologist. It seems, to me, like you’re both trying to understand the human experience. But you’re examining it through the lens of storytelling and she’s looking through the lens of science. Is that a fair assessment?
JENNIFER: Completely.
GODMOTHERS: Is it something you see in your other two children?
JENNIFER: Absolutely. It’s in all three of them. My middle child, our son Griffin, who’s at Netflix in the anime division, loves these generational stories based in honor and integrity. And our youngest, Wyatt, is a senior in college. He’s fascinated by old films and he’s majoring in psychology. We’re all utterly devoted to the human experience. With the three of them and me and Patrick, we’re all very different, but the five of us share a heart—and we all wear that heart on our sleeves. All of us.
GODMOTHERS: You were at WME through most of your children’s formative years. How did you manage to “lean in” professionally without sacrificing your relationships with them?
JENNIFER: To be clear, I had help. A lot of help, at work and at home. And I messed up plenty, believe me. But I think, since my kids were little, we focused on character. We “caught” them being good. When we saw the best parts of them, we’d make sure they saw them, too. So, for example, Wyatt would walk in the door and say, “Hi, mom. How are you?” And I’d say, “Good …” And his response would be, “You don’t sound good. Do you need a hug? What do you need?” And he was right; he’s always been able to read energy. So I would say to him, “You know what? I’m not so good. You’re such an empath. When you listen to people, you don’t just use your ears. That’s so important.”
GODMOTHERS: OK, the obvious question: Was there a book that taught you that?
JENNIFER: No, I didn’t really read parenting books. I took my cues from my children and followed my own intuition—but Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree affirmed what I believed about my kids and their individual identities.
GODMOTHERS: Well we know there were other books that guided you. Can you share those?
JENNIFER: These books are my spiritual path: The Surrender Experiment and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. The Sabbath by Abraham Heschel. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser. The Book of Awakening Mark Nepo. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. The Overstory by Richard Powers. A New Earth and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Advice Not Given by Mark Epstein. Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping. The Freedom Transmissions by Carissa Schumacher. And Signs by Laura Lynn Jackson.
GODMOTHERS: OK, that’s an epic—if slightly overwhelming—spiritual to-do list. What one title from that list would you pick for someone to start with?
JENNIFER: Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser started my spiritual journey.
GODMOTHERS: What’s the last great book you read?
JENNIFER: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, and On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen.
GODMOTHERS: OK, if anyone gets two, it’s you. To wrap up your typical day, what’s your nighttime routine?
JENNIFER: I have a glass of water and get in bed. I’ll watch the local news for 15 or 20 minutes, then meditate for 20 minutes. That’s it.
GODMOTHERS: What time do you get in bed?
JENNIFER: 9 o’clock. I’m in bed—without my phone—every day, from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. That doesn’t mean I sleep for eight hours (probably closer to four or five) but I have eight hours of what I call “sleep opportunity.”
GODMOTHERS: What are some local businesses you love?
JENNIFER: In Summerland, The Well, The Porch, and Field + Fort. The owners all have the best taste—and Field + Fort has delicious food. And Wunderkind in Montecito. It’s a tiny little Bergdorf Goodman.
GODMOTHERS: Is there a charity that’s particularly important to you at the moment?
JENNIFER: There’s AHA! in Santa Barbara, which helps teens develop social and emotional intelligence. I love that. And I don’t want to be too self-referential, but we just launched Godmothers Give, and we started a book club at a local women’s jail. Right now they’re reading The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. That’s been very rewarding.
GODMOTHERS: Speaking of Godmothers, you and Victoria named the store with fairy godmothers in mind. Not “godmothers” in the religious sense, but the women who cheer us on, celebrate us, and light us up. Is there a “godmother” who shaped your life?
JENNIFER: There have been several, but my O.G. “godmother” was my Aunt Mona, who’s not my aunt, but my mother’s best friend since they were 9. She’s someone who’s extended her heart and mind to me since I was born. She and my mom went through a six-year period when they didn’t talk, but she would still honk in our driveway and I’d come running outside and she’d take me to the ice cream parlor or take me shopping and then drop me off back at home. She and my mom are both 84 now and living in Boca. And she’s never stopped believing in me and telling me I’m wonderful.
GODMOTHERS: What’s the best advice she ever gave you?
JENNIFER: Don’t postpone joy. For example, when a woman’s early in a pregnancy, and people say, “Don’t get too excited.” Like, why not? If something bad happens, you’ll deal with it then. But your excitement isn’t going to cause something bad to happen. You’re not going to regret the time you spent being happy, so embrace it.
GODMOTHERS: What’s your intention with Godmothers, the store?
JENNIFER: Well, that’s an easy one. To create a physical space where people can connect, heal, and rise together through storytelling.
GODMOTHERS: What does “success” look like?
JENNIFER: The number one thing I hear when I’m in the store is people saying, “I don’t know why, but I feel like crying.” I know why. It’s because they can literally feel the love and intention that Victoria and I put into every single brick, every plank of wood, and every book we chose. With that, we have our initial success. In five years, if the people who visit us—the locals, the tourists, and the pilgrims alike—are connecting to diverse stories, to their own stories, and to each other, that will be the ultimate success.
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.
On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen.
Quotes have been edited for length & clarity. All products mentioned were independently selected. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Godmothers Gather: Upcoming Events
6 p.m. | Thursday, September 26
In Conversation with Laura Dave & Jordan Moblo
author of The Night We Lost Him & EVP of Creative Acquisitions and IP Management for Universal Studios
11 a.m. | Saturday, September 28
Storytime with Elisa Stad
author of Mama’s Love Language
1 p.m. | Saturday, September 28
Book Signing with Marissa Meyer
author of With a Little Luck