Community Building at the Power of Words Conference

The Power of Words conference is committed to creating a gathering place for people from diverse communities to not just learn more about Transformative Language Arts, but to make community together, integrate what we’re discovering as we’re discovering it, and find more direction in our life’s work, education, community commitment, art and activism.

Workshop Tracks

We offer workshops in five tracks that speak to the big picture of our individual lives, communities, world, and living earth.

Such an interdisciplinary approach helps us widen our perspective, deepen our wisdom, and discover enduring ways to lift up our lives and connect with each other.

  • Narrative Medicine: Learning from the stories and guiding narratives in our lives that relate to illness and health, individual and communal healing
  • Social Transformation: Community-building and change to shift our culture toward greater peace and justice
  • Engaged Spirituality: Pathways for putting religious and/or spiritual practices, questions and beliefs into action
  • Eco-TLA: Connecting with, protecting and restoring the other-than-human world, learning about ecosystems and place, environmental justice and related topics.
  • Right Livelihood: Making a living in concert with our gifts, callings, and communities.
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Many Ways to Connect

“I have found my people here" is the refrain we've heard throughout 20 years of Power of Words conferences.

In a sense, we create a ceremonial village together where we hold space for our collective creativity, actions, and discoveries while practicing the kind of deep listening, attuned inquiry, and daring visions that help us change ourselves and our communities for the better. 

We have gathered for the Power of Words conferences in the Green Mountains of Vermont, a verdant forest in the Philadelphia area, a Francescean retreat center near Phoenix, a magical beach in Saco, Maine, and the heartland of Kansas City, Missouri. In all these places, we have evolved the conference to both allow us to speak, sing, write, and celebrate our truths and also witness each other through:

  • Talking Circles: Participants meet in a small group each morning of the conference to share responses and questions, integrate discoveries, get to know each other, and express themselves in a brave, confidential space. Many say the Talking Circles are the most important part of the conference for them.

  • Open Mics: We share poems, stories (excerpts), songs, stories, dances or other expressions of the arts with one of the best-listening and most attentive audiences anywhere around. This is a great place for the seasoned performer as well as the person ready to do a first reading.

  • Nature Walks: Early morning walks help ground us and immerse us in the beauty and resilience of the living earth where we are. Come stroll the trails with us, learn about plant and animal life, and perhaps even visit one of the surviving American chestnut trees on the grounds.  

  • Large Group Keynotes & Performances: Together, we experience magic and connection, witnessing astonishing stories, songs, talks, readings and more. In addition to our keynote presenters, we have shorter presentations of powerful work, writing, talks, music, and more by some of our other presenters.  

  • Opening and Closing Sessions: Many conference-goers experience the opening and closing sessions as deeply welcoming and inspiring. In each session, we cultivate an atmosphere of community, connection, listening and sharing. The opening session features several powerful performances, and the closing session allows us to speak as we feel so moved about what we’ve experienced and what we’re bringing home with us.

  • Meals Together: There is nothing like breaking bread – even if gluten-free – together to build community. Be sure to sign up for a meal plan to get to make new friends, reconnect with older ones, laugh, tell stories, and nourish your spirit as well as your body. 

To learn more, please read "Reading Our People in a Ceremonial Village Disguised as a Conference: A Short History of the Power of Words Conference" by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.



The TLA Network exists to support and promote individuals and organizations that use the spoken, written, or sung word as a tool for personal and community transformation.

The Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in our offerings, organization, and aspirations. Words have the power to question, subvert, and transform limiting cultural narratives as well as reinforce entrenched stories and stereotypes. The TLA Network wants to make clear that we celebrate and uplift conversations across identity and difference, whether rooted in race, religion, social class, ethnicity, disability, health, gender, sexual orientation, age, military service, and other identities. 


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