About Garden Wolf Publishing House
Marlee Kostiner founded Garden Wolf Publishing House to create the books she wanted to read when she was a kid. This way, she can make it a reality for her own kids and other families. The vision is simple: Beautiful and captivating illustrations, interesting and compelling stories, vulnerable ideas and concepts—all with tools for parents, caregivers and educators to make social-emotional learning accessible and fun for kids. In a nutshell, Garden Wolf publishes SEL books for kids.
Marlee is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor and researcher. As a passionate advocate for neurodiversity inclusion and mental health support, she strives to incorporate social-emotional learning in all creative ventures. She has two young kids and has spent countless hours researching child psychology and parenting methodology. She is delighted to combine her research and writing expertise with her passion for parenting psychology to create SEL books for kids—starting with NaMOOste.
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
Aristotle
More about Marlee
Thanks for reading, I’m humbled that you’re here. I’d like to go a little deeper and share more about me. This will give context about what I’m doing with Garden Wolf Publishing House and why.
I’ve always had a big imagination and started writing creative stories in elementary school. I often discover old writings when I visit my parents house, whether it’s thoughts in a journal, melodramatic poems or character-driven stories.
Though I struggled with self-confidence growing up, I’ve always known that I was a strong writer. Encouragement from my parents and a few amazing English teachers fuelled fire on that confidence from an early age. When I was just about to graduate high school, I decided that I wanted to go to journalism school. It interested me, but it also felt more practical than creative writing. It turned out to be a perfect fit for me—I discovered my love of research and editing.
I’ve worked as an editor for most of my career, and while I love what I do, I realized a few years ago that I didn’t write at all anymore. I told myself it was because I didn’t enjoy it, but I think I was scared I wasn’t good enough.
When the pandemic hit, I completely re-evaluated my career. I had been with the same company for 5 years and it was, in many ways, my dream job. I got to build a women’s lifestyle site from the ground up as editor-in-chief until it garnered millions of visitors per month. I was able to learn and grow. I worked with wonderful people who trusted and believed in me.
But suddenly working 9-5 with two young kids at home during COVID was, well… not to be dramatic, but it was one of the hardest times in my life. I very quickly burnt out and realized that I needed to be in control of my schedule if I wanted to be present with my family. So I left my job and started my own company. I planned to focus on content strategy, development and editing, like I had done throughout my career. Little did I know that I would almost exclusively be writing for my clients. As a new business owner, when new clients came knocking, I had to say yes. It was meant to be because I rediscovered my love of writing along with my confidence.
With this new perspective, I finally had the drive and motivation to do something I had been thinking about for several years: publish my children’s book.
You may be wondering, why would I create a publishing house? Why not just self-publish? The main reason is to add a stamp of professionalism and credibility to my books. I’m a perfectionist, and when I commit to something, I go all the way. Otherwise, what’s the point? I took the entire process seriously, like a job, with a commitment to publishing a book that could sit on the bookshelf alongside traditionally published picture books and look like one of the gang (yet still stand out as unique… in a good way). I’m not afraid of big dreams and the hard work that is required to achieve them! And I learned more than I ever imagined.
I don’t plan to stop at one children’s book. I have written a dozen other books already and continue to get hit with inspiration. This publishing house provides a home for all of my future books. I’m also starting to help other authors self-publish their books. At the time of writing (April 2025) I’m working with 5 writers on 8 books. I don’t have words to adequately express my gratitude for their trust in me. I can’t wait to share what we have in store!
Meaningful personal experiences:
Mental health & my mission
The mission of Garden Wolf Publishing House is rooted in mental health and social-emotional learning. I am laser-focused on this mission because it’s deeply meaningful to me and my family.
After a series of personal challenges in my late teens and 20s including severe depression and struggles with my confidence and identity, therapy completely changed my life. For me, mental health is not something to “fix”, never to address again. It’s like food—you don’t eat one really great meal and then you’re good. We all need nourishment (for the body or mind) every day of our lives.
Therapy: phobia & anxiety
My first experience with therapy was hypnotherapy as a teen to address my emetophobia (which is a phobia of vomiting). It helped, but I still struggle with it to this day.
My phobia started affecting my everyday life in my early 20s while away at university. I decided to try cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and this was the first time my anxiety was addressed in a clinical setting. My therapist said that in order to address the phobia, we first needed to lower my baseline anxiety. That’s when I learned that I have anxiety—I never had a word for what I was feeling before.
Shame
I have felt misunderstood and unseen for most of my life, and I’ve felt a lot of shame about feeling that way—because I had a privileged childhood and I have a beautiful life with wonderful family and friends. I never understood why I could possibly feel that way, other than being selfish and ungrateful. My perspective cracked open in my late 20s when I became a mom and learned a whole lot of new things about myself.
Motherhood & ADHD
The transition to motherhood was extremely difficult for me, and my research led me to believe that I have ADHD. There is a history of neurodiversity in my family, but I was tested as a young child and results showed I did not have ADHD. Nonetheless, after reading Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté, I was certain that I had inattentive ADHD—a type that was relatively unknown when I was tested over 20 years prior.
So, when I was 28 years old and my first son was 18 months old, I decided to get comprehensive psychological testing for ADHD and other mental health factors. The results came back showing that I had extreme anxiety, moderate depression and that I was borderline ADHD—some of the testing methods said I had it while others said I didn’t.
The testing psychologist suggested I try ADHD coaching with the wonderful Lynda Hoffman. This was one of the most impactful decisions I’ve ever made. It was the first time someone lovingly and skillfully explained how my brain works. I felt seen in a way I had never experienced.
After nearly 2 years of working together, I was able to understand the source of my struggles with time management, memory, motivation and organization, which made it a lot easier to find the right tools to help navigate life in a neurotypical world.
Most importantly, I was able to be a lot kinder myself.
Parenthood introduced a new hyperfocus passion
Becoming a mother triggered a new hyperfocus—researching how mental health affects parents, children and the family unit. This is because of how deeply affected I was from the transition to motherhood, and my interest in educating myself so that I could be the best possible parent for my kids (hello, perfectionism).
My first pregnancy was in 2015 and I have not wavered on this hyperfocus/obsession, so I’m pretty confident it’s here to stay (because parenthood is for life). My passion has expanded as my two children have grown (at the time of writing they are 9 and 5 years old).
As we have navigated each stage of their childhood thus far, the learning never stops (this applied to myself, my husband and my kids). Thankfully we are a pretty curious bunch and love learning. I try to be mindful of their little brains and how they each work in their own unique way. In addition to my own struggles, my children have also gone through challenges that inspire my mission to write children’s books that focus on social-emotional learning and mental health.
I am endlessly fascinated by child psychology and parenting methodology, particularly in terms of building emotional intelligence, empathy and resilience. That is the raison d’être behind Garden Wolf Publishing House.
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