HEY COOL MOMS! I’m Elise Peterson. A writer, visual artist, and cultural strategist. I’m a mother, founder of Cool Moms, and a longtime documenter of my inner and outer worlds. I grew up moving between DC and Atlanta — became a woman in New York, and now live in Los Angeles.

Ever since I was little, I’ve loved finding ways to make sense of my life through words, images, playlists, and collected moments. I’ve always been paying attention to how things feel in my body, how rooms hold energy, how women speak to each other when they feel safe, how creativity becomes a lifeline.

I’ve spent the last decade working across brand, culture, and storytelling. I started my career in New York working as an editor at Saint Heron, a sex columnist for Adult Mag, illustrating children’s books, and exhibiting work internationally all while building my own platforms and projects. Cool Moms (est. 2018) began as a podcast, then a LIVE conversation series, and has grown into a community and media platform focused on amplifying mothers who prioritize their passions.

This Substack is my space to write more personally and more slowly.

I’ll be sharing essays about motherhood, identity, aging, ambition, shame, desire, creativity, money, work, body image, relationships, and the quiet recalibrations that happen when you’re becoming someone new. I’ll write about the gym and the dungeon, about building businesses and burning them down, about community, about making art while raising children, about wanting more and learning how to hold what’s already here.

Some posts will be polished. Some will feel like voice notes in written form. All of them will be honest.

We’re allowed to be many things. I want to capture that here.

Thank you for being here. I hope you subscribe.

If you’d like to collaborate, pitch a project, or connect, you can reach me at elise@cool-moms.com. And you can find me on Instagram at @eliserpeterson and @heycoolmoms