Eliza VanCort is the author of the bestselling book, A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard. Her book has received critical acclaim nationally and internationally – The United Kingdom’s “The Bookbag,” gave it five stars saying, “Every woman should read this book. It could change your life.” Bookpal named it one of the “12 Women in Business Books by Today’s Female Founders and History Makers.”
Eliza’s writing has been featured nationally and internationally – including Forbes, Training Mag, The Education Report , and Booktrib. She has been featured in TV and print news media and dozens of popular podcasts, including Cheddar News, Parents Magazine, Talk Nerdy Podcast and People Magazine.
Before the pandemic she spent much of her time looking out the window of airplanes, flying throughout the country and the world giving talks and running workshops on communications, career and workplace issues, and women’s empowerment.
The founder of The Actor’s Workshop of Ithaca, Eliza is also a Cook House Fellow at Cornell University, an advisory board member of the Performing Arts for Social Change, and a member of Govern For America’s League of Innovators, in addition to giving a well received TED talk. She’s also a parent of four fantastic humans – her nephew, two sons and her daughter, and is a proud sci fi nerd.
Eliza’s most exciting moment was when Bookpal created a list of 10 Business Books by Star Wars Personas, and her book got Princess Leia, saying, “Leia is a woman in a man’s world, but she is confident in her place and commands attention, much like Eliza VanCort teaches in A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space. In the book, VanCort gives advice for asking for what you’re worth and owning your space without apology.”
About A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard
For too long, women have been told to confine themselves–physically, socially, and emotionally. Eliza VanCort says now is the time for women to stand tall, raise their voices, and claim their space.
Women fight the pressure to make themselves small in private, professional, and public spaces. Eliza VanCort, a teacher, consultant, and speaker, provides the necessary tools for women to rewrite the rules and create the stories of their choosing safely and without apology.
VanCort identifies the five key behaviors of all “Space Claiming Queens”: use your voice and posture to project confidence and power, end self-sabotage, forge connections, neutralize unsafe spaces, and unite across differences. Through personal narrative, research, and actionable strategies, VanCort provides how-tos on combatting challenges like antimentors and microaggressions and gives advice for building up your “old girls” club, asking for what you’re worth, and owning your space without apology.
Bold, fun, and enlightening, this book is birthed from VanCort’s incredible story. Having a mother with schizophrenia forced VanCort to learn to be small and invisible at an early age, and suffering a traumatic brain injury as an adult required her to rethink communication from the ground up. Drawing on these experiences, and those of real women everywhere, VanCort empowers women to claim space for themselves and for their sisters with courage, empathy, and conviction because “when we rise together, we rise so much higher.”
