The Magic Eye and Writing From Body and Place: A Workshop and Reading// with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Come discover and unearth more about how writing can be a practice of coming home to our bodies, communities, and eco-communities.

By writing about our most local address of the body as well as the places where we live and find sustenance, we can continually cultivate deeper vision and perspective while also writing our way toward greater awareness, presence, and true homecoming.

In this writing retreat, we will explore writing about body and place as well as how to open our vision to where and who we are through the act of turning words into poems, essays, journal entries, songs, or whatever other genre calls our name. 

This workshop also includes Caryn giving a a mini reading from her new memoir, THE MAGIC EYE: A STORY OF SAVING A LIFE AND A PLACE IN THE AGE OF ANXIETY,  which unfolds her twined stories of journeying through eye cancer and, with a cast of unforgettable family and friends, saving a place: a fifth-generation farm where she and her husband live. 

Beyond being detailed, caring, and brilliant in her editing, teaching, and consulting work, there is something about Caryn’s warm, authentic, empowering, Inspiring, and joyful presence that I have rarely observed in other leaders. – Harriet Lerner

What We Will Be Experiencing Together

We would begin with a welcome and introductions that help us name and share places where we felt most at home.

Caryn would then share a short talk on writing from body and place before sharing writing ground rules and a short writing prompt. Participants would share their writing altogether or in breakout rooms, depending on the number of people there, and then we would discuss insights and questions that arose in the process.

We would then discuss the theme of homecoming through writing: what it can mean to us and how we can better use writing to re inhabit our bodies and places, leading to Caryn sharing a short meditative writing prompt to help us bring more embodied ways of knowing into our writing before a short writing prompt.

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. The level of trust that we experience opens us to heartfelt honesty even as deeply painful experiences are shared.  Thank you for the sparks your words create. –  Patricia Durkin

Caryn would then give a short 15-20 minute reading from her forthcoming memoir (out July 17), The Magic Eye.

We would conclude with a closing exercise.

All participants receive an ample handout of writing prompts, free access to a PDF of THE MAGIC EYE, and free shipping for a hard copy of THE MAGIC EYE if they wish to purchase the book.

This workshop is also a fundraiser for the TLA Network, so please join us to support TLAN's good work for many bodies in many places.

Who Should Attend?

Writers in any genre (poetry, memoir, fiction, mixed genre, spoken word, songs, etc.)  -- whether they're writing to share their words with a cast of thousands or their own trusted journal -- who wish to bring into their writing a deeper sense of being a body and living in a specific place. This workshop could also be beneficial for people writing about the specific ecology and where they live as well as people drawn to narrative medicine (writing about health, illness, and healing). Finally, since our bodies, and often our places too, change as we and they age, this workshop would also speak to people facing new phases of their lives.

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, July 26, 2025 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.)
• Our free and open to all Community Circles and Virtual Salons

Registration Levels:

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

About the Facilitator

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD is the founder of Transformative Language Arts, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 25 books, including the recent The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety, and How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel. A beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing and Right Livelihood coach, she offers writing workshops widely, particularly for people living with serious illness, adults in transition, humans looking for greater connection with the earth, and poets and writers seeking their most courageous voice on the page and in their lives. She offers the weekly “Write Where You Are” through her Patreon page, and her long-time blog is “Everyday Magic” at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com. 

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, cultivating a loving marriage, family, and community, and helping herself and others make and take leaps into the miraculous work of their lives. She lives in the country on land she and her husband, ecological writer Ken Lassman, have put in a conservation reserve and are restoring as prairie and woodlands. 

You can connect with Caryn at:

https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/