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• Changing the World With Words: TLA Foundations // with Amanda Lacson & Tracie Nichols

  • Start
    30 October 2024
  • End
    17 December 2024
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    12

  Register

  
  

  This thorough introduction to Transformative Language Arts (TLA) encompasses the personal and the global, the contemporary and the historic, and how TLA can be practiced through writing, storytelling, performance, song, and collaborative, expressive and integrated arts.

  We will also explore ethics and considerations for practicing TLA through facilitation, coaching, teaching, and more, with special attention to diversity and inclusion when it comes to bringing more voices to the table.

  Each week includes short readings, a lively discussion, and invigorating writing prompts to help you articulate more of your own TLA callings. The weekly writing prompts and pertinent discussion questions give you room to work and play through what you know, are coming to know, and how this knowledge cross-pollinates with what you do and who you are. Websites, videos and/or podcasts, and essays to engage with, bring you face to face with you real-life expressions of TLA as this field, profession, and calling grows around the world.

  You can order a copy of The Power of Words: A TLA Reader, the required text for class), here.

  
  

  This class is required for TLA Foundations Certification.
  

  Week by Week

  Week One: TLA History, Fields, and Traditions

  An overview of theory and practice, including genres, arts and community practices, ethics, and your own values informing your TLA. Explore TLA in many forms–from poetry therapy to social change theater to healing storytelling–and share what ignites your soul and work. We’ll also look at how we see ourselves in our TLA work and callings and how we’re likely to seen in various communities, and the essential role of self-care in our TLA work and as core to TLA practice.
  

  Week Two: TLA in Service: Health, Healing, Spirituality, and Personal Growth.
  

  We’ll explore how TLA can help people find their way home through health or emotional crises or wounds, spiritual callings, and many manner of personal growth. Starting with the personal, and recognizing how the personal is political, we look at ways in which TLA can foster health, healing, and homecoming, and also some of our cultural biases and blindnesses about such directions. Some of this week’s resources will help us see more of the breadth and depth in how TLA can be effective in various religious and spiritual traditions, mainstream and holistic healing practice, and home-grown and psychological counseling as well as for people living with disabilities or serious illnesses.
  

  Week Three: TLA as Catalyst: Community, Culture, History, and Social Change.
  

  We’ll look at TLA in relation to community-building, culture-shifting, history-revisioning, and social change, and particularly explore what it means and can mean to be part of various communities. To better understand the time and place where we live now, we’ll also explore TLA as a vehicle for diversity and inclusion, including addressing oppression, marginalization, privilege, and access. Additionally, we’ll look at what it means to practice TLA in ways that foster a community ethic of care (as well as supporting individual self-care).
  

  Week Four: TLA & Right Livelihood: Ways to Make a Living and a Life.
  

  What are our callings for how we make a living and how we live a life? We’ll dive into how TLA intersects with our life’s work (whether that work relates to a paycheck, volunteering, creating art or writing, or other aspects of our life), and develop plans for where we’re led to go. We’ll draw from the Buddhist roots of the term “Right Livelihood” to better understand how we can forge good work that makes a positive contribution to our communities and lives.
  

  Week Five: TLA in Action: Facilitation, Consulting, Collaboration, Coaching, and More.
  

  Looking at the ethics and facilitation of our work, art, and community involvement, we’ll discuss and write about the specific forms of TLA we do and want to do, and how strong facilitation of TLA – whether in the form of community meetings, writing workshops, collaborative storytelling or theater projects, or one-on-one coaching – requires us to lifelong students of the art of facilitation.
  

  Week Six: TLA and You: Plans, Visions, and Maps.
  

  Deepening our plans for the work, art, and community-making ahead, we’ll clarify what’s right for us to pursue next, what support and tools we need along the way, and the future envision. This week will focus on what resources and pathways are around us, and how to best discern our own best ways to move forward.
  

  
  

  Who Should Take This Class

  This class is ideal for a wide variety of people, including professionals who want to infuse TLA into their teaching, counseling, pastoral work, arts collaboration, and community work; community leaders and activists seeking to bring more voice and vision to the table in their communities; and writers, storytellers, performers and other artists who want to develop their facilitation of writing, songwriting, expressive arts, drama therapy and community theater, collaborative arts, storytelling, and integrated arts; and perspective or current students or alumni of TLA studies.

  TLAN offers scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability or people of color through the Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund. Please fill out this scholarship application form so that we can find the best way to make the class accessible to you.
  

  Format

  This is an online class which will be taught via the online platform, Wet Ink. Each week, a new week will open full of resources, reflections, discussion questions, and writing prompts.

  Students should expect to spend a minimum 4-6 hours per week perusing resources and readings, answering a discussion question, engaging in several writing prompts, and responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

  We will also have three optional 60-minute Zoom sessions at 1:30 p.m. ET | 12:30 CT | 11:30 a.m. MT | 10:30 a.m. PT | 6:30 p.m. UTC on Saturday, November 2, 23 and December 14. (Sessions will be recorded and available only for class participants).

  Required Text: The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, edited by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Janet Tallman. You can purchase the text here.

  Supplemental Text: Transformative Language Arts in Action, edited by Ruth. A. Farmer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. You can purchase this text on Amazon or Rowman and Littlefield. 

  About the Facilitators

  Amanda Faye Lacson (she/hers) is a Filipina-American writer, photographer and historian. She examines how our identities are shaped, how they impact the way we move in the world, and how we write our history through her creative nonfiction and playwriting; photography documenting the artistic process; oral history-oriented podcast interviewing; and by creating and facilitating community-based workshops for the family historian. Amanda is a board member and Membership co-chair of the Transformative Language Arts Network; writer, performer and director with the Playful Substance theater company; and producer, host and editor of Goddard in the World Podcast. She is also the founder of FamilyArchive Business, a studio designed to support the family historian at any point in the archiving process, from organizing photos in boxes to creating a final product to share with the family.

  Recent projects include: writing and performing work based on her experience as a Pinay child and mother in the devised theater piece Raised Pinay: The 5^th Generation; presenting a generative writing workshop on using Transformative Language Arts to create and deepen one’s family archive at the TLAN Power of Words conference; writing a satirical monologue from the perspective of Christopher Columbus reckoning with his legacy in the afterlife, for Playful Substance; and photographing classical Indian dance performance by Brooklyn Raga Massive for Chelsea Factory. Keep up with Amanda's work at amandafayelacson.com.

  Tracie Nichols (she/her) is a Transformative Language Artist, poet, and facilitator helping people write themselves home through her ongoing writing circles and writing workshops nurturing personal awareness, resilience, and transformation. Founder of the Saturday Writing Circle and co-founder of Embodied Writers, she currently also serves as the Coordinator for the Transformative Language Arts Network.

  Tracie’s appreciation for the power of words to heal and transform started decades ago when she began writing poems because her arms ached from holding the unflinching truth of violence in one hand and the equally unflinching truth of compassion in the other. She realized she'd found home with the Transformative Language Arts Network community when she realized it merged the principles of her graduate degree in Transformative Learning and Change with her passion for writing as path to healing and growth.

  Today, she lives in southeastern Pennsylvania with her husband, occasionally her adult children, and a very large ginger tabby cat named Strider, writing poems from her tiny desk under the wide reach of two old Sycamore trees. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent, Text Power Telling, kerning and The Weight of Motherhood anthology.

  Connect with Tracie at tracienichols.com.

  Show details
• Your Memoir as Monologue - with Showcase Performance: Voices of Healing and Transformation // with Kelly DuMar

  • Start
    30 October 2024
  •  
    7:00 PM
  • End
    11 December 2024
  •  
    9:00 PM
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    4

  Register

  
  

  There’s beauty and meaning to mine from your life story...

  and this workshop will help you artistically express what you’ve overcome and achieved, and creatively share your experience to benefit others through the medium of theatre.

  Join Kelly DuMar for a six-week Play Lab plus a Performance Showcase on December 11, 2024!

  This six-week webinar is designed for new & experienced writers to write dynamic short monologues for the stage. Check out this quick, introductory video on YouTube. 

  Participants will generate & polish new monologues that are ready to be performed as staged readings in showcase, (online with audience) and submitted to play festivals and publishers.

  Our primary way of working will be a weekly LIVE ZOOM WEBINAR PLAY LAB experience.

  Writers will bring DRAFTS of new monologues to be read out loud (by guest actors) and discussed for feedback & revision. The course culminates in a Showcase of works in process, performed by actors, via Zoom on Dec. 11, 2024 7-8:30 p.m. ET (UTC-5) / 6-7:30 CT/ 5-6:30 MT/ 4-5:30 PT.

  PLEASE NOTE: The WEEKLY PLAY LABS WILL take place Wednesdays from 7-9 p.m. ET on Zoom:

  • Oct. 30
  • Nov. 6
  • Nov. 13
  • Nov. 20
    
  • (There will be no meeting on Wednesday, November 27.)
    
  • Dec. 4  

  THE SHOWCASE IS THE 6TH week—Dec. 11 from 7-8:30 p.m. ET (UTC-5) / 6-7:30 CT/ 5-6:30 MT/ 4-5:30 PT.. All play labs are recorded and the recording is shared the next day for all who cannot attend.

  Overview:

  There’s beauty and meaning to mine from your life story, and this workshop will help you artistically express what you’ve overcome and achieved, and creatively share your experience to benefit others through the medium of theatre. You’ll learn how to write successful dramatic monologues based on your life that are personally meaningful, emotionally satisfying, and relevant and engaging for an audience. In class, through thematic writing prompts and creative exploration, you’ll develop your ordinary and extraordinary life experiences into powerful, dramatic monologues that can be performed – by you or an actor – with universal appeal. In class meetings will present elements of dramatic structure and explore the artistic qualities necessary for an effective dramatic monologue.

  We’ll explore the role of conflict, plot, communicating subtext, voice, narrative, and the importance of set-up. New writing will be generated in and out of class, shared in class and aspects of revision will be presented and practiced.

  SPECIAL FEATURE: The course will culminate in an online SHOWCASE of works in progress generated by participants, featuring readings by actors, on Dec. 11, 2024 7-8:30 p.m. ET (UTC-5) / 6-7:30 CT/ 5-6:30 MT/ 4-5:30 PT.

  “Memoir as Monologue taught me the power of my own story. Kelly’s guidance on creating effective drama, her concrete feedback on improving my work, the nurturing environment she created for participants and the excellent resources she brought to the table opened a whole new world for me. This was one of the most effective online classes I’ve taken.”—Diane Glass, 2016 class member.

  Read an interview here with Kelly on this dynamic class. 

  Week by Week 

  Week One: Memoir vs. Monologue: How Dramatic Writing Makes the Leap from Page to Stage

  All kinds of expressive writing, from diary/journal writing to memoir to poetry, foster healing and personal growth. Writing for the stage offers a uniquely imaginative process for healing and transformation as well. We’ll explore how writing for the stage differs from writing a memoir or personal essay. You’ll learn tools for adapting personal story for dramatic writing as a theatrical experience that engages an audience. Elements of dramatic structure will be introduced.

  Week Two: The Art of Crafting Set-Up

  We’ll explore taking a short piece of memoir and shaping it theatrically, focusing on developing an effective dramatic set-up. Crafting an effective monologue  set up involves imagination and immediacy, a distinctive voice, cohesive narrative structure, meaningful theme, and cohesive plot. We’ll explore personal themes of life choices, mistakes, roads taken and not taken, encountering internal and external obstacles, new beginnings, thresholds, rites of passage as the source for crafting dramatic monologues.

  Week Three: Conflict – Experiencing Obstacles, Crafting Resilience

  Conflict is a universal experience, a fact of life, and a necessary element of dramatic writing. How we meet it, how we shape it, how we share it is the stuff of wise living and great storytelling. We’ll experiment and explore conflict as a personal encounter and literary device and as a necessary stage of any journey toward wholeness. This session will explore how to artistically construct compelling narratives from personal conflicts, shaping the experience of resilience to involve and inspire an audience.

  Week Four: Showing Versus Telling – Voice as a Vehicle for Dramatic Action

  The memoir writer uses written description and authorial narration to illustrate setting, character, internal thoughts, external actions, feelings, motivations, needs, conflicts and consequences. The dramatic writer of monologue must craft, from the voice of a single character/speaker, compelling speech and gesture to show, rather than tell a story. We’ll explore how monologue presents a speaker’s needs, motivation and conflict in a way that involves the audience by establishing a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

  Week Five: Creative Tools for Revising & Fine-Tuning

  Focus on how the process of revision moves from page to stage - and stage back to page; additional thematic writing prompts for use with writing already generated in class; discussing strategies for going deeper; dealing with creative blocks and putting it all together – theme, arc, voice, stagecraft.

  Week Six: The Art of Collaboration – Presenting Your Monologue

  Whether or not you plan on personally performing your dramatic monologue or putting it in the hands of an actor, your writing will take on additional dimension in the journey toward sharing it with an audience. We’ll explore aspects of collaborating with a director, an actor, a designer, producer or publisher in the process of reaching an audience as well as resources for finding potential collaborators.

  Who Should Take This Class

  This class is ideal for people who do word arts–writing, storytelling, spoken word, theater, and other forms of TLA–and are ready to put themselves out there more in the world and in their work. Because of the innovative exercises and engaging discussions, this class would be very appropriate for both new and seasoned word artists who want to learn more, and find greater community together.

  This is a webinar with weekly Zoom meetings Wednesday nights, 7-9 p.m. ET starting Oct. 30, 2024. (There will be no meeting on Wednesday, November 27.)

  PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS AN ADDITIONAL ONLINE SHOWCASE where works in progress will be presented as readings, and performed by trained actors, on Dec. 11, 2024 7-8:30 p.m. ET (UTC-5) / 6-7:30 CT/ 5-6:30 MT/ 4-5:30 PT.

  TLAN offers scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability or people of color through the Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund. Please fill out this scholarship application form so that we can find the best way to make the class accessible to you.
  

  Format

  Each week will consist of engaging content designed to spark personal reflection, discussion and dynamic writing. The weekly play labs will take place Wednesdays, Oct. 30, Nov. 6, 13, 20, and Dec. 4 from 7-9 p.m. ET on Zoom. THE SHOWCASE IS THE 6TH week—Dec. 11 from 7-8:30 p.m. ET. All play labs are recorded and the recording is shared the next day for all who cannot attend.

  Participants should expect to spend no more than 2 hours or so on the weekly writing prompt, revisions, reading and commenting on the work of others, viewing and participating in live discussion, and sharing works in progress live. We’ll create a safe and supportive environment, offering respectful support that inspires the development of every writer’s voice.

  
  

  

  About the Teacher

  Kelly DuMar, M.Ed. is a poet, playwright, and workshop leader who generates enlivening writing experiences for new and experienced writers. This is the fifth time Kelly has offered this monologue class for TLAN. Author of three poetry collections, girl in tree bark, Tree of the Apple, and All These Cures, Kelly is also author of Before You Forget— The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s award winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. She founded and produced the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College for twelve years, and she is a past president of Playwright's Platform, Boston. For the past five years, Kelly has led the week-long Play Lab Intensive at the annual conference of the International Women's Writing Guild. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist, former psychotherapist, and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. She founded Let’s Talk TLA, a bi-monthly tele-conference and poetry open mic for members of the Transformative Language Arts Association. Currently, Kelly serves on the board & faculty of The International Women’s Writing Guild. Kelly inspires readers of #NewThisDay - her daily photo-inspired blog - with her mindful reflections on a writing life. You can learn more about Kelly, at www.kellydumar.com.

  Show details
• Envisioning TLA in the World: A Community Conversation

  • When
    02 November 2024
  •  
    3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
  • Location
    Online

  Register

  

  Your Voice Matters!
  

  You are invited to join us in a community conversation around the question,

  What is your greatest challenge as you seek to create change and transformation with the spoken, written, or sung word?

   For this meeting, we will focus our conversation through the specific lenses of how to earn a living through creative, change-making work and the struggle to balance passion for meaningful work with the need to make a living.

  No matter how long you have been part of our unique community, your opinion is important to us, so please join us

  Saturday, November 2, 2024

  3-4:30 PM ET | 2-3:30 PM CT | 1-2:30 PM MT | 12-1:30 PM PT | 7-8:30 PM UTC

  (Click here to find your timezone.)
  

  
  

  This is a FREE event which is open to the public.

  All are welcome. 

  You must register to attend.

  
  

  A Zoom link will be sent out to all registrants one day prior to the event. 

  Don't miss this opportunity

  to make a difference.

  Show details
• Playback Theatre: Embodied Empathy and Stories of Neurodivergence // with Christopher Ellinger & True Story Theater

  • When
    18 November 2024
  •  
    7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    23

  Register

  
  

  We welcome you to a one-time session where we’ll use Playback Theatre and Embodied Empathy to explore the experience of neurodivergence.

  First, enjoy a 60-min. experience of Playback Theatre with performers from the Boston-based Playback company, True Story Theater. 

  Playback is an improvised performance art that is used in over 70 countries to support personal and social transformation. Volunteers from the audience will spontaneously share moments from their lives that relate to the theme of neurodivergence–their own, or of people they connect with in their roles as artists, parents, healers, or teachers.  On the spot, performers will respectfully and empathetically reflect back the emotional essence of what was shared using movement, music, and dialogue.  Come to just watch, or to share your thoughts, feelings and experiences on the theme. Laugh, cry, and gain insights about this important and often-hidden identity.  

  Come see how a show works.

  See also PlaybackNorthAmerica.com
  

  Afterwards, process your experience of the performance through a 50-minute mini-workshop on Embodied Empathy. 

  Embodied Empathy is a simplified version of Playback that you can use in your daily life with friends, family, students and clients.   Learn tools you can easily bring into your relationships to amplify delight, creativity, and connection. 

  
  All about Embodied Empathy.

  Who Should Take This Class

  All who want to better understand and have more compassion for differences (related to how we process our experience in the world) and different types of neurodivergence. Also, anyone looking to learn creative, embodied tools for deep listening.
  

  Format
  

  This class will be presented Monday, November 18, 2024 from 7-9 PM ET/ 6-8 PM CT/ 5-7 PM MT/ 4-6 PM PT / 12-2 AM UTC as a one-time, two-hour Zoom session and will be recorded for anyone who cannot attend live.

  About the Facilitator

  Christopher loves teaching and has four decades of experience leading interactive workshops. With True Story Training, he has co-led over 100 workshops and classes, many on telling your own story, as well as on active bystander intervention and cross-ideological dialogue skills.  With his wife Anne, he has co-authored ten books--on relationship skills, on playful practices, and on many aspects of Playback Theatre. Feel free to contact Christopher and Anne: connect@playback northamerica.com.

  Show details
• TLA Network Virtual Salon

  • When
    08 December 2024
  •  
    5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
  • Location
    Zoom meeting - link to be shared
  • Registered
    1 registrant

  Register

  
  

  TLA Network Virtual Salon

  Sunday, December 8, 2024

  Join Us!

  5:00–6:30 pm EDT (UTC-4)
  

  4:00–5:30 pm CDT // 3:00–4:30 pm MDT // 2:00–3:30 pm PDT // 9:00-10:30 pm UTC

  Click here to find your timezone.

  
  

  Our Virtual Salons feature TLAN members who all use the written, spoken, or sung word for personal and community transformation. TLAN members have incredibly generous spirits, and we are excited to provide a venue to feature their artistic work.
  

  The Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) virtual salons feature presenters who are active members of TLAN. Each presenter will have 5-7 minutes to present their written, spoken, or sung work followed by a brief period of audience response. 

  Potential Presenters: To present at the Virtual Salon you must be an active member of TLAN. Active members are current on their dues. (Check on your membership status or re-join TLAN.)

  If you are interested in presenting at the December Virtual Salon, please fill out the Google Form. If we have a multitude of entries we may have to feature you at a future salon. 

  Audience members: Registration is FREE and open to anyone, not just members of TLAN and will take place online via Zoom. 

  After the reading, there will be an artist talkback and time for questions and engagement from the audience. 

  You must register if you would like to attend: a Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the day before the event. We look forward to seeing you there!

  
  

  
  

  Our Presenters!

  Announced soon. Will you be one of them?

  
  

  Show details
• New Visions for Your Life's Work in the Arts and Beyond // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg & Kathryn Lorenzen

  • When
    12 January 2025
  •  
    3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    25

  Register

  
  

  What would you like to bring into the world in 2025?

  Perhaps you're a writer, storyteller, musician, or other kind of artist puzzling out how to grow the art of your heart in concert with your livelihood and life. Maybe you're a facilitator, healer, or teacher looking to reach new people and communities with your work. Or you could be all the above, ready to re-envision your life's work to better align with your callings right now and for the year ahead.

  This fundraising workshop for the TLA Network will help you make room to listen to what your work wants to be, and then to imagine and build your vision. The big picture of your work – whether it's for livelihood, service, art, and/or purpose – can be a touchstone for discerning your best next steps and how to stay true to yourself.

  Both Kathryn and Caryn have decades of experience in coaching and teaching on career transition, right livelihood, and the work of the heart, and they will offer you some tools and approaches to converse more deeply with what's knocking at your door – what you most want to do or feel born or grown to do at this phase of your life. Through some short writing prompts and lively discussion, plus ample resources, we'll explore the potential and possibilities in your next act. 

  Kathryn and Caryn will also share information on The Big Picture Class, their annual small group immersion into reimagining your life's work.

  
  

  “Kathryn helped me see things that I couldn’t see about myself. She gave me a better understanding of my strengths and goals. And she gave me the language to talk about my experience, strengths and opportunities.” ~ George Weyrauch
  

  
  

  Who Should Take This Class

  Anyone engaged with TLA is also dancing with a calling related to the power of words for healing, change, and liberation. We invite you -- no matter where you are in your TLA journey -- to come explore what is emerging or ready to emerge in your work, art, service, and/or purpose, whether you are just getting started, re-imagining your work, or retiring from a career and ready to re-fire your life's work in new terms. An ample handout is included along with tried-and-true approaches for discerning the work of our heart.

  
  

  When I first started running writing workshops, Caryn gave me tremendous wisdom and guidance. I don’t know how I got so lucky! She was a powerful mentor and teacher at a moment when I was soaking up everything I could possibly learn. I have enormous trust in, and gratitude for, this powerhouse woman. ~ Chris Fraser, owner and writing coach at Firefly Writing
  

  
  

  Format

  This class will be presented Sunday, January 12, 2024 from 3-5PM ET/ 2-4 PM CT/ 1-3 PM MT/ 12-2PM PT / 8-10 PM UTC as a one-time, two-hour Zoom session. The day after class a recording, as well as notes and resources from the class, will be emailed to class members only.  

  Your Registration Fee is a Donation
  

  Because this event is so generously being offered by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg as a fundraiser, your entire registration fee will go directly to support scholarships, program development, and other offerings meant to expand and enrich our community. You will be helping programs like:

  • Power of Words Scholarship Fund
  • Online Class Scholarship Fund
  • The Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund (conference and online class support for both BIPOC people and people who are living with serious illness and/or disabilities.)
  • Supporting global programs to grow TLA around the world
  • Our forthcoming new podcast
  • Our blog and other publications

  Registration Levels:

  • Level I – $200.00
  • Level II – $150.00
  • Level III – $75.00
  • Level IV – $50.00

  We thank you. 

  About the Facilitators

  
  

  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD, is the founder of Transformative Language Arts, author or editor of 24 books of poetry, fiction, memoir, and more, and with Kathryn Lorenzen, she leads Your Right Livelihood: The Work Art an Service Your Love (YourRightLivelihood.com). A long-time community workshop facilitator and coach, she makes her living working with many communities and individuals, giving talks and readings, and collaborating with other Transformational Language Artists. Her other big projects include Art of Facilitation classes with Joy Roulier Sawyer and Brave Voice writing and singing retreats with Kelly Hunt. More and her blog at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

  Kathryn Lorenzen is a career coach, creativity coach, songwriter, and poet. Her songs have appeared in feature films and TV series, and she writes for both self-expression and social change. With an earlier career in copywriting and marketing communications, she is now a career coach to freelance writers seeking livelihood in support of their art. Kathryn now partners with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg as co-leader of Your Right Livelihood (YourRightLivelihood.com) and you can find more about Kathryn at KathrynLorenzen.com

  Show details
• Integrating the Arts with Medicine // with Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy

  • Start
    15 January 2025
  • End
    11 March 2025
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    19

  Register

  
  

  Medicine desperately needs the arts.

  But artists can be quickly rejected when they don’t understand the culture of medicine and how doctors think.
  

  Our aim is to provide language and visual artists with sufficient understanding of the culture of medicine that they can interact with physicians and other health professionals to bring the arts into patient care and the environment of medicine.

  We also want to expose health care practitioners to the world of the artist to better understand how to interact with artists to improve patient care and also for their personal benefit.

  Health care practitioners work within implicit stories that are largely not understood or examined by them. Through engaging with the arts, they can become more aware of these stories and able to reflect upon how they might change their stories to provide better patient care and also to nurture themselves and prevent personal burnout.

  Medicine desperately needs the arts, but artists can be quickly rejected when they don’t understand the culture of medicine and how doctors think. To forestall that quick rejection, doctors need to understand how artists think.

  Rita Charon of Columbia University has written about the importance of health care practitioners writing stories about their patients and their patient encounters.

  • Poetry and the visual arts provide other means for becoming aware of feelings, beliefs, and biases.
  • Improved language arts skills help physicians to find the metaphors of their patients’ illnesses.

  We will finish the course by inviting participants to write a proposal for how they could bring their art into a health care setting within their environment. We hope they will present this proposal and make a positive contribution to that setting.

  Week by Week
  

  Week 1. Introduction to the arts in medicine with examples of successful interactions and programs.

  Week 2. How do doctors think?

  Week 3. How do artists think?

  Week 4. What are the constraints existing in health care settings that make it hard to introduce the arts.

  Week 5. Telling stories about patients – writing fiction and creative non-fiction.

  Week 6. Poetry and medicine

  Week 7. Bringing the Visual Arts into medicine

  Week 8. Discussing projects that could be proposed into health care settings in participants’ neighborhoods.

  Who Should Take This Class
  

  We are interested in attracting artists of all types who want to bring their art into medicine. We also want to attract health care practitioners who are open to the arts and want more exposure to the arts and how they can use the arts in patient care and for their own personal growth and well-being.

  We hope to create an opportunity for interactions within the live part of the class and also on the discussion board among health care practitioners and artists.

  TLAN offers scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability or people of color through the Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund. Please fill out this scholarship application form so that we can find the best way to make the class accessible to you.

  Format

  This is a hybrid online class, conducted through Zoom meetings and the online classroom Wet Ink.

  Zoom meetings are scheduled for 4:30 pm Eastern time on Tuesdays. Sessions will be recorded and made available only to the class. 

  Online readings and an asynchronous discussion board will be hosted on the online teaching platform Wet Ink. The day before class begins, you will receive an email invitation from Wet Ink. There are no browser requirements, and Wet Ink is mobile-friendly. The Wet Ink platform allows you to log in and complete the coursework on your own time. 

  About the Facilitators

  Lewis Mehl-Madrona is a practicing physician and a writer of creative nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. He studied creative writing at Indiana University and then attended Stanford University School of Medicine. He finished his postgraduate medical training in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont. He completed the Novel Writing Certificate Program at Stanford University and has a first novel that is in process of being published. He has also published poetry, photography, and short fiction. He wrote Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of stories about healing with traditional elders. 

  Barbara Mainguy studied philosophy at the University of Toronto, Creative Arts Therapy at Concordia University, and received a Master of Social Work from the University of Maine. She practices psychotherapy with the tribes of Maine. Barbara completed a certificate program in the Arts and Medicine at the University of Maine, which Lewis helped co-create.

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• The Arc of Storytelling from the Writer’s Subconscious // with Riham Adly

  • Start
    22 January 2025
  • End
    04 March 2025
  • Location
    Online
  • Spaces left
    20

  Register

  
  

  Have you ever wondered if stories had a mind of their own?

  If they had a purpose? A journey they must cover, regardless of who is telling them? 

  Have you ever stopped to think why you choose to write certain stories in certain genres in certain settings? 

  Have you considered why sometimes you start your story with what your character wants (desire) or what your character fears (conflict)? And why? And what does that say about you and your story structure? Or is it again, the stories have a mind of their own?  

  As humans we are the only species that resorts to storytelling to try to understand ourselves.

  That’s why we have story arcs, character arc, and character archetypes. Begging, Middle, End…Repeat.  Sometimes the end isn’t even an ending.  Sometimes a story about a character’s anger or grief isn’t at all about that but is rather about their hidden shame.

  Arcs are half circles. You start somewhere, you get provoked to move even if you don’t want to, you reach a climax, the peak of the half circle and then you go down.

  Who creates this arc?

  Is it you the conscious writer with the story idea and expected structure? Or is it the deeper, darker, and sometimes wiser part of you that’s kept truths, feelings and events locked in a black box at the back of your mind, where stories are forced to live in seclusion? That black box is the subconscious which is the seat of repressed memories and hidden emotions. Imagery and symbolism are its language. 

  Explore all of this in The Arc of Storytelling from the Writer’s Subconscious: Discovering the Journey of Story Structure Through the Writer’s Internal & External Vision/ Voice "The Why & How” You Tell Your Short Stories, Longer Stories, and Memoir.

  Week by Week

  Part I:  The Story Shows Itself to me

  Week one (Story theme ):  I’ve often thought of the theme as the story’s label.  But now really, what is theme? Is it really a label, a moral, a message? Or is it what the story wants to reveal to you?  We think of theme as the “Why” we write the story. We start with a concept. The Theme is: Love, Heartbreak, Politics, or what happens when you lose your favourite socks.  But what if, sometimes, we write without really knowing what it is that we’re writing about? What if the theme has an arc of its own. It starts somewhere and it ends somewhere else.  In this lesson we’ll communicate with our story’s theme, explore its elements, and its possible arcs to be ready for the next step.

  Week Two (Story Identity): Every story is told in one of two ways: 

  • It is told through the eyes of love or what I would like to call desire.
  • Or It is told through the eyes of fear or what I would like to call conflict.

  Your stories have their identities according to your vision/ perspective and your voice. Will your story start with your character’s desires or your character’s fears? Encounters or Avoidances? What will the arc of your story’s identity be? You start with what they want and how they face conflicts? Or with what they fear and how they find what they need or want?  In this lesson we’ll explore we’ll look at emotional resonance and discover the map of emotions and emotional functions of the five senses, and it is from there that we’ll able to find out the identity of our story so we can be ready for the next step.

  Week Three: Story Circuits/ Behaviour/ Pattern: Our lives run in arcs or even circles according to the seven circuits of affective emotional networks in our brains:

  The Seeking/Desire network, the separation/ grief network, the Rage/ Anger network, the Care/ maternal network, the Lust/ Sexual network, the Play/ social engagement system, the Fear/ Anxiety system.

  These neural circuit networks determine human behaviour and comfort zone. The story has its own circuit/ Pattern. Those circuits should work in a certain order. What are the circuits within your story, what happens when the order is messed up, how does this translate into behaviour? Will these circuits cause the story to behave in a certain way towards the reader? Will it delight the reader, hit the reader hard with some truths, enlighten the reader. In this lesson we’ll look at story Circuits/ Behaviour and how it affects your audience through the use of literary devices, word choice, syntax, and rhythm so this can take us to the next step.

  Part II:  What The Story Wants to Reveal to me

  Week Four: Story Hue-man/ Humans: Now, since we’re in the business of exploring story arcs, I believe the topic of archetypes is pretty much unavoidable, especially that we’re talking character or rather the doers of the story. In this lesson we’ll look at the four basic emotive norms that create the four major character archetypes (four parts of the self). Which one of those takes the lead in the character’s personality? What happens when this leading intrinsic archetype gets deformed or forced to hide? What mask will this character wear? What hue will they carry to the next step? What will the story be able to reveal through that?

  Week Five: Story Voice/ Perspective and Point of View: We’re all familiar with creating character point of view and perspective. The character speaks through either the first, second, or third point of view. But, what about the story’s voice? The actual perspective from which the story wants you to see and receive its events? In this week , the story will want to play a game with us called: put yourself in my place. We’ll experiment with different perspectives and voices and choose the one that best serve’s our story’s purpose.

  Week Six: Story Place/Time: This week is about setting. Setting is not just where the story takes place, its where its internal world manifests and comes out to the world. Setting is the story context within which events take shape. In this week we’ll look at what the story wants to reveal through setting. The story wants you to understand that worlds are built from the inside/ out , not from the outside/in.

  Who Should Take This Class

  Novelists, memoirists, short story writers, coaches, TLAN artists, and therapists looking for innovative ways to help their patients or clients or anyone suffering from creative blocks. 

  Students should expect to spend 3 hours per week perusing resources and readings, engaging in several writing/creation prompts, and briefly responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

  We offer scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability or people of color through the Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund. Please fill out this scholarship application form so that we can find the best way to make the class accessible to you.
  

  Format

  This is an online class, hosted on the online teaching platform, Wet Ink, as well as Zoom. The Wet Ink platform allows students to log in on their own time to post comments and critiques directly to authors’ works. You can also view deadlines, track revisions, and watch video or listen to audio. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains an archive of all their content and interactions. Wet Ink is mobile-friendly and there are no browser requirements.

  The course will include five optional zoom classes taking place Saturdays from 1:30-2:30 pm EST.  Because they are optional, the Zoom sessions will not be recorded.

  About the Facilitator

  Riham Adly is an award-winning flash fiction writer from Giza, Egypt.

  In 2013 her story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the MAKAN award. She was short-listed several times for the Strand International Flash Fiction Contest. Riham is a Best of the NET and a Pushcart Prize nominee.

  Her work is included in the “Best Micro-fiction 2020” anthology. Her flash fiction has appeared in over fifty journals such as Litro Magazine, Lost Balloon, The Flash Flood, Bending Genres, The Citron Review. 

  Riham has worked as an assistant editor in 101 words magazine and as a first reader in Vestal Review magazine. Riham is the founder of the “Let’s Write Short Stories” and “Let’s Write That Novel” in Egypt. She has taught creative writing all over Cairo for over five years with the goal of mentoring and empowering aspiring writers in her region. Riham’s flash fiction collection “Love is Make-Believe” was released and published in November 2021 by Clarendon House Publications in the UK.

  Riham is also a certified Luscher Diagnostic Test Practitioner, an NLP student, and a specialist in psychosomatic medicine.
  

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• Seeding change: Creating When Life is Hard // with Tracie Nichols

  • When
    02 February 2025
  •  
    3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    9

  Register

  
  

  You know those times when life grabs you and shakes you like a snow globe then stretches you batwing thin across too many and too much?

  This practice is for those times. 

  As word-loving creators, we turn to language to help us make sense of both our inner and outer worlds. But what happens when life is hard and crafting a poem or other piece feels like a blank page too far? That’s where this practice reaches out a gentle tendril and won’t let you fall. 

  I started this practice because I was overwhelmed by the demands of managing both my neurodivergence and menopause while learning a new job, and in the background was a constant hum of grief for a struggling family member. My attention was tattered. Noticing only happened in fragments. My writing was constrained to torn corners of time. —Tracie Nichols

  Seeding Change invites us to:

  • connect to creativity in times of overwhelm.
  • create without needing to generate new writing.
  • think about making poems in a different way—more collage or mosaic than essay or novel.

  While it's oriented toward generating poems, it can be used to assemble the seeds for flash fiction, creative nonfiction, short stories, plays, monologues, songs—any form of word artistry.

  This two-hour Zoom class is generative.

  You will emerge with a collection of your own poem seeds—perhaps even a nascent poem or story—and your own version of this process to use when life is hard.

  Who Should Take This Class

  • Writers and poets (aspiring or established) with limited time and, more importantly, limited headspace, who need to engage with language in the brief moments life allows. 
    
  • Anyone who needs reminding that, no matter how stretched-thin they are, their word artistry is still with them—still there to support and nourish them.

  Format
  

  This class will be presented Sunday, February 2, 2025 from 3-5 PM ET/ 2-4 PM CT/ 1-3 PM MT/ 12-2 PM PT / 8-10 PM UTC as a one-time, two-hour Zoom session. The day after class a recording, as well as notes and resources from the class, will be emailed to class members. 

  About the Facilitator

  Tracie Nichols is a Transformative Language Artist poet, and facilitator helping people write themselves home through writing circles and writing workshops nurturing personal awareness, resilience, and transformation. Putting her master’s degree in Transformative Learning and Change to good use over the past two decades, Tracie has designed and facilitated hundreds of virtual and in-person learning experiences for people seeking personal transformation and growth. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent and Text Power Telling and kerning. You can connect with her at TracieNichols.com or on Substack. 

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• Be Your Own Valentine Writing Workshop // with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

  • When
    15 February 2025
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    online
  • Spaces left
    25

  Register

  
  

  Join a warm and lively writing circle (over Zoom) to write about who and what you love and to use your writing to discern how to love better.

  Be Your Own Valentine Writing Workshop is being offered as a fundraiser—all proceeds will be donated to TLAN.

  Writing can be a practice of opening your heart to other humans, the natural world, and your own good soul. Join a warm and lively writing circle (over Zoom) to write about who and what you love and to use your writing to discern how to love better. 

  Just the act of making something out of words is a way of loving the time and place where you are. Writing together is a loving practice that can help us open up and come to know your own hearts more.

  In this lively workshop, we’ll gather together to find greater inspiration, guidance, and tenderness through reading and considering how poetry can speak to myriad forms of love. Drawing from the poetry of such writers as Joy Harjo, Derek Wolcott, e.e cummings, Muriel Rukeyser, Willa Cather, Rita Dove, Walt Whitman, Robert Bly, Jane Kenyon, Harold Littlebird, David Whyte, Rumi, we’ll find new inspiration, plus an overflowing bouquet of writing prompts we can explore after our time together.

  
  

  After each class I recognize the peaceful place the class creates in me. My response to listening to others and hearing your responses to our work fills me with contentment, joy, and satisfaction. —Patricia Durkin
  

  
  

  Participants will leave with a greater sense of how the poetic power of language can help us access more our good selves as well as how writing together and on our own can be an essential practice of loving-kindness and creativity.
  

  Who Should Attend?
  

  This workshop is a valentine to anyone who writes, wants to start writing, or is ready to return to writing. All the prompts are aimed to meet you where you are with lots of options for engaging in ways to help you better see and celebrate your own definitions of what love and can be in your life, family or community, and our world.

  
  

  I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and working with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg for the past decade, and have rarely encountered a more insightful, compassionate, or integrous teacher and coach. —Mark Matousek, award-winning teacher, author, and mentor
  

  
  

  Format
  

  This class will be presented Saturday, February 15, 2024 from 3-5 PM ET/ 2-4 PM CT/ 1-3 PM MT/ 12-2 PM PT / 8-10 PM UTC as a one-time, two-hour Zoom session. The day after class a recording, as well as notes and resources from the class, will be emailed to class members only.

  Your Registration Fee is a Donation
  

  Because this event is so generously being offered by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg as a fundraiser, your entire registration fee will go directly to support scholarships, program development, and other offerings meant to expand and enrich our community. You will be helping programs like:

  • Power of Words Scholarship Fund
  • Online Class Scholarship Fund
  • The Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund (conference and online class support for both BIPOC people and people who are living with serious illness and/or disabilities.)
  • Supporting global programs to grow TLA around the world
  • Our forthcoming new podcast
  • Our blog and other publications

  Registration Levels:

  • Level I – $200.00
  • Level II – $150.00
  • Level III – $75.00
  • Level IV – $50.00

  We thank you. 

  About the Facilitator

  Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, is the founder of Transformative Language Arts and the author of two dozen books. Her publications include How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet, a bioregional memoir.

  A writing and right livelihood coach, working with people to bring what wants to be written and lived into being, Mirriam-Goldberg offers community writing workshops widely, and with Kelley Hunt, Brave Voice retreats. She also co-leads the Your Right Livelihood class and retreat with Kathryn Lorenzen, and the Art of Facilitation training with Joy Roulier Sawyer, with whom she also offers the annual Writing from the Soul retreat.

  Born hard-wired to make something (in art, music, and especially writing), Caryn’s long-time callings include writing as a spiritual and ecological path, yoga, drawing, cultivating a loving marriage, family, and community, and helping herself and others make and take leaps into the miraculous work of their lives.

  You can connect with Caryn at:

  https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/

  https://www.instagram.com/carynmirriamgoldberg

  https://www.facebook.com/CarynMirriamGoldbergWriter

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryn-mirriam-goldberg-3772006/

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• 2025 Power of Words Conference

  • Start
    02 October 2025
  •  
  • End
    05 October 2025
  •  
  • Location
    Unity Village, 1900 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, Missouri

  Register

  
  

  Join the Power of Words Conference to explore the written, spoken and sung word to find how it can bring liberation, celebration and transformation within our communities. 
  

  Network with writers, storytellers, performers, musicians, health professionals, educators, and change-makers to connect with those who share your passion of making a difference with words.   

  Discover diversity and experience visionary voices at keynote sessions. Get inspired with workshops in five areas:  Social Transformation, Right Livelihood, Engaged Spirituality, Narrative Healing and Ecological TLA.

  Your registration payment includes main conference events only. Meal plans will be sold separately.

  Lodging and pre-conference events are an additional charge.

  

  Lodging & Travel

  We are meeting at the beautiful and welcoming Unity Village in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. 

  

  PLEASE NOTE OUR REGISTRATION CANCELLATION POLICY:

  If you need to cancel your registration, please refer to the following schedule.
  

  • Aug. 14, 2025: Last day for full refund, transfer, or credit, minus $20 processing fee
  • Sept. 11, 2025: Last day for 75% refund, transfer, or credit, minus $20 processing fee

  No refunds, transfers, or credits issued after SEPTEMBER 11, 2025. (In the case of unexpected life circumstances—such as hospitalization or death in the family—contact us and we will try to do what we can.)

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