Episode: A Life Worth Working | Guest: Sarah Klock | Manager of The Andover Bookstore, Former Columbia PhD Candidate, Three-Time Mom
Sarah Klock’s story is about a woman who finally stopped pretending the wrong thing was the right thing and walked through the next door she could find. Sarah spent more than a decade chasing a goal that she increasingly suspected was wrong for her but couldn’t bring herself to leave.
She calls those years “lonely work.”
Then, at 39, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Soon after, a dear friend was diagnosed with a different cancer and died within six weeks. Everything Sarah thought she knew about time, success, and purpose shifted on its axis.
In this episode of A Life Worth Working, Sarah tells the full story with extraordinary grace: how she finally let academia go, how she and her family impulsively bought a little house in Andover, Massachusetts, how she floundered through the early pandemic with no idea who she was — and how an email newsletter from a local bookstore opened the door to the work she had wanted all along.
We talk about:
📚 “Lonely work” — the phrase that finally named her years in academia
🎗️ How a breast cancer diagnosis at 39 — and the sudden death of a close friend — gave her permission to leave the wrong life
🏡 The impulsive weekend trip to Andover and the “little house” that started everything
📖 The email newsletter that became a job — and how she found her real work in her own town
🛋️ Why she calls her bookstore a “public living room” for the community
📵 Why people walk into bookstores in 2026: they are asking for their attention back
🎟️ What she sees in young readers, BookTok, and Gen Z that gives her real hope: “the kids are okay”
💪 What it means to be “in your power” at the most frightening moment of your life
Sarah’s gift is to name all of that without making it a victory lap. She doesn’t pretend the bookstore is the moral of the story. She doesn’t pretend cancer was a gift. She just tells the truth about how she got from one place to the other.
About A Life Worth Working
A Life Worth Working is hosted by Michelle Weise, a writer on the future of learning and work, and Dana Allen Walsh, an executive coach and pastor. Each week, they talk with guests who open up about the messiness, transformation, and wonder of their work lives — what they call the soul of work.
🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode. ⭐ Leave a review — it helps more people find the show. 📩 Email us: alifeworthworking@gmail.com
