Writing on the Go: Meet Juma Kliebenstein

Annie Cosby
January 15, 2025 | 2 min read

"I like to write in different places," children's author Juma Kliebenstein says. "Basically anywhere except at home. In cafes, hotel bars, or in nature."

Who can relate? 🙋

Juma is a German children's book author who has published a whopping 17 books since 2009. Her new book series, "Die schlimmste Klasse der Welt" has hit the German nationwide bestseller list three times.

Juma says she was a mobile kid, always out and about in the neighborhood on her tricycle. But when she was four, she was suddenly hospitalized and confined to one room, which was a nightmare for an explorer kid like her.

She learned to read and write in the hospital and soon realized that if you have stories, it doesn't matter if you're trapped in one place. You can travel within your head.

Nowadays, she gets to do both.

And she chooses to use her stories to invite children to travel to worlds that don't require a lot of money or a healthy body. Someplace they can visit without anybody else's permission.

Juma writes all her books on her Freewrite Smart Typewriter in Lemon or her Speckled White Alpha. She loves that she can take them everywhere with her.

(She picked the bright, sunny Lemon special edition because it matches the cover design of her bestselling series.)

"[Freewrite] has changed my writing life for the better. When I wrote before on my laptop, it was always connected with doing the taxes, emailing publishers, and book tour organizing, and all this stuff that authors have to do but has nothing to do with writing.
Now, every time I write on my Freewrite, I feel like an author, and nothing but an author. That is so, so wonderful!"

Juma does give one warning — if she's wearing a hat, that means: "Please do not disturb! The author is currently writing a new story for you with great concentration and will bite if interrupted!"

The fourth installment in Juma's bestselling series is due out in February 2025.

Recommended articles

More recommended articles for you

March 31, 2025 4 min read

Recently, over 10,000 writers, writing instructors, and publishers from across the U.S. gathered at the annual conference for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.

We asked them to answer a few questions about creativity and living a writing life. Here's what they had to say...

March 22, 2025 4 min read

I’ve spent years writing while secretly fearing that a single misplaced word would expose me — not just as a bad writer, but as a fraud.

My background is originally in photography, and I see it there, too. A photographer I know recently posted a before-and-after comparison of their editing from 2018 versus now, asking if we also saw changes in our own work over the years.

Naturally, we should. If our work is the same, years apart, have we really grown as artists?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

So why is that the growing, the process of it, the daily grind of it, is so painful?

The Haunting

Hitting “publish” on an essay or a blog always stirs up insecurity — the overthinking, the over-editing. The fear that someone will call me out for not being a real writer.

I initially hesitated to make writing part of my freelance work. My background is in photography and design. Writing was something I gravitated toward, but I had no degree to validate it. No official stamp of approval.

Like many writers, I started with zero confidence in my voice — agonizing over edits, drowning in research, second-guessing every word.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

I even created a shield for myself: ghostwriting.

If my words weren’t my own, they couldn’t be wrong. Ghostwriting meant safety — no risk, no vulnerability, just words without ownership.

I still remember the feeling of scrolling to the bottom of an article I had written and seeing someone else’s name, their face beside words that had once been mine. It felt uncanny — like recognizing your handwriting but not remembering when or why you wrote those words. I knew it was mine, but it didn't feel like it belonged to me anymore.

The truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, I imagined it. Yet, I found myself handing over my work, letting someone else own it.

I told myself it didn’t matter. It was work. Getting paid to write should be enough.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

I wasn’t just playing it safe — I was slowly erasing myself. Word by word. Edit by edit. And finally, in the by-line.

The Disappearing Act

This was true when I was writing under my own name, too. The more I worried about getting it right, the less I sounded like me.

I worried. I worried about how long an essay was (“people will be bored”), finding endless examples as proof of my research (“no way my own opinion is valid on its own”), the title I gave a piece (“it has to be a hook”), or editing out personal touches (“better to be safe than be seen”).

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting. Advice meant to help only locked me in. It created a sentence rewritten to sound smarter, an opinion softened to sound safer, a paragraph reshaped to sound acceptable.

I built a guardrail around my writing, adjusting, tweaking, over-correcting.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

It took deliberate effort to break this habit. I’m not perfect, but here’s what I know after a year of intentionally letting my writing sound like me:

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

But playing it safe makes the work dull. Writing loses its edge.

Invisible Strings

The drive for acceptance is a slippery slope — one we don’t always realize we’re sliding down. It’s present in the small choices that pull us away from artistic integrity: checking how others did it first, tweaking our work to fit a mold, hesitating before saying what we actually mean.

And let’s be honest — this isn’t just about writing. It bleeds into everything.

It’s there when we stay silent in the face of wrongdoing, when we hold back our true way of being, when we choose work that feels “respectable,” whatever that means. It’s in every “yes” we say when we really want to say “no.”

If your self-expression is rooted in a need for acceptance, are you creating for yourself — or for others? Does your work help you explore your thoughts, your life? Does it add depth, energy, and meaning?

My work is clearer. It moves with my own rhythm. It’s less shaped by external influence, by fear, by the constant need to smooth it into something more polished, more likable.

I get it. We’re social creatures. Isolation isn’t the answer. Ignoring societal norms won’t make us better writers. Often, the most meaningful work is born from responding to or resisting those norms.

But knowing yourself well enough to recognize when acceptance is shaping your work brings clarity.

Am I doing this to be part of a community, to build connections, to learn and grow?

Or am I doing this to meet someone else’s expectations, dulling my voice just to fit in?

Owning the Words

Here’s what I know as I look back at my writing: I’m grateful for the years spent learning, for the times I sought acceptance with curiosity. But I’m in a different phase now.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

I know who I am, and those who connect with my work reflect that back at me — in the messages they send, in the conversations we share.

It’s our differences that drive growth. I want to nurture these connections, to be challenged by difference, to keep writing in a way that feels like me. The me who isn’t afraid to show what I think and care about.

So, I ask you, as I ask myself now:

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

If no one was watching, if no one could judge, what would you write?

March 20, 2025 6 min read

A book deal without an agent? An agent offer after a book deal? Learn how Writer Bobby Miller took his publishing journey into his own hands.