Month: August 2019

The Power of Connection at the Power of Words

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

We believe in making the Power of Words conference, our annual gathering, a time for building community, helping participants make meaningful connections with each other, and opening up the space for all voices to be heard.

To facilitate this, we’ve developed a variety pack of ways to meet and re-unite, listen and be heard, and discover and recover our insights and visions, including:

Talking Circles: Participants meet with the same small group each morning of the conference to share responses and questions, integrate discoveries and express themselves in a safe, confidential space. Many past participants say these small group meetings are a highlight of the conference for them.

Martin Swinger performing in Kansas City

Open Mics: Two open mic sessions of our Coffeehouse of Wonder allow you the opportunity to share poems, stories (excerpts), songs, dances or other expressions of the arts aloud 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 his/her first reading.

Large Group Keynotes & Performances: Together, we experience magic and connection, witnessing astonishing stories, songs, talks, readings and more.

Rhiannon leading us in song on the beach in Maine

TLA Network Council Meetings: We invite you to join the open sessions of the TLA Network’s governing council, a non-hierarchical body that meets monthly by phone to help guide TLAN, and we invite you to consider joining us on the council or one of the committees.

Intimate Performances and Hands-on Workshops: Our conference offerings give you a chance to make, tell, write, or otherwise create something new as well as to engage with storytellers, spoken word artists, writers, and other performers in relaxed and intimate settings.

A talking circle taking a walk in Kansas City

Opening and Closing Sessions: Many conference-goers experience the opening and closing sessions as the highlights of the conference. In each session, we cultivate an atmosphere of community, connection, deep listening and powerful sharing. The opening sessions 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.

Here’s what some of our 2018 Power of Words participants had to say:

The Power of Words conference provides a home for artists, writers, and musicians who want to help create a peaceful world. I go to learn, I go to contribute, and I go to sustain hope. ~ Diane Glass, Iowa

Come and meet some seriously interesting and diverse people with a love of transformational politics, poetry, and language. I loved the whole experience! ~ Barbara Bloomfield, Director of Groups, Lapidus International, England

In the midst of the unpredictability of daily life, for a few precious days, I found myself surrounded by beauty, reminded yet again how art and woodcraft are not luxuries, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, but tools for survival. ~ Shomriel Sherman, Massachusetts

Joseph Galata and friends in Vermont

As an artist and philanthropist who participants in artistic/humanities conferences and festivals around the world, I’m very impressed with the diverse workshops and performances, supportive audiences, memorable keynote speakers, and magnificent staff. A genuine pleasure! – Joseph Galata, Nevada

Vital Signs and Essential Stories For Our Lives and World

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

The 16th Annual Power of Words conference brings together three keynotes — Gregg Levoy, Noa Bam, and Usha Akella — who know first how our stories and callings can help us weave together our work and communities for positive change. Taking place at the breathtaking Casa Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, AZ., the conference brings together storytellers, writers, performers, health professionals, change-makers, and community leaders to explore and celebrate the potential of our words for liberation and healing. Here’s a little about each of our keynoters:

Gregg Levoy is the author of Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion and Callings: Finding and Following An Authentic Life – rated among the “Top 20 Career Publications” by the Workforce Information Group and a text in various graduate programs in Management and Organizational Leadership. He is a former “behavioral specialist” at USA Today, and a regular blogger for Psychology Today. A former adjunct professor of journalism at the University of New Mexico, former columnist and reporter for USA Today and the Cincinnati Enquirer, and author of This Business of Writing (Writer’s Digest Books), he has written for the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Omni, Psychology Today, Christian Science Monitor, Fast Company, Reader’s Digest, and many others, as well as for corporate, promotional and television projects. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and his website is www.gregglevoy.com

Noa Baum is an award-winning storyteller and author who presents internationally. She works with diverse audiences ranging from The World Bank and prestigious universities to inner city schools and detention centers. Born and raised in Israel, she was an actress at Jerusalem Khan Theater, studied with Uta Hagen in NYC and holds an M.A. from NYU. Noa offers a unique combination of performance art and practical workshops that focus on the power of narrative to heal across the divides of identity. In a world where peace is a challenge in the schoolyard and beyond, Noa’s work builds bridges of understanding and compassion. Noa’s book, A Land Twice Promised – An Israeli Woman’s Quest for Peace – a winner of the Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award – is an introspective memoir that mines the depths of the chasm between the Israeli and Palestinian experiences, the torment of family loss and conflict, and the therapy of storytelling as a cleansing art. With her storytelling background, Noa captures the drama of a nation at war and her own discovery of humanity in the enemy.

Usha Akella has authored four books of poetry, one chapbook, and scripted and produced one musical drama. She earned an MSt. In Creative Writing at Cambridge University, UK. She read with a group of eminent South Asian Diaspora poets at the House of Lords in June 2016. Her work has been included in the Harper Collins Anthology of Indian English Poets. Her most recent book, The Waiting, is published by Sahitya Akademi, India’s highest literary authority. She was selected as a Cultural Ambassador for the City of Austin for 2015 & 2019. She has been published in numerous Literary journals, and has been invited to prestigious international poetry festivals in Slovakia, Nicaragua, Macedonia, Colombia, Slovenia, India etc. She is the founder of ‘Matwaala,’ the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US.

You can learn more about the conference at http://tlanetwork.org/conference. We still have a limited amount of scholarships and work-study positions available.

If you’re not able to attend the whole conference, please come for Noa Baum’s performance, open to the public – https://www.tlanetwork.org/event-3467554 https://www.facebook.com/events/319662462249450/

Right Livelihood Luminaries: Our Guest Teachers

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

One of the great benefits of Your Right Livelihood: A Training in Doing the Work, Art, and Service You Love is the face-to-face weekly opportunities to talk with luminary writers, teachers, and change-makers about what’s calling to you in your work, art, and life. The training, which launches Sept. 25 and ends in mid-December, led by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Laura Packer, helps people both navigate their callings and their livelihoods (read an interview with Laura and Caryn to learn more).

In addition to the two-day opening retreat — to be held Sept. 25-27 at the Casa Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona (where the Power of Words conerence starts shortly after our retreat ends), the weekly video-conference live meetings with guest teachers helps us get to know each other voice to voice and face to face, and it gives participants the chance to ask our guest teachers questions and discuss many dimensions of making our life’s work come true. The training also includes a 10-week online class, one-on-one coaching with Laura and Caryn, and lots of extra supports and resources.

This year’s crop of guest teachers includes:

  • Dr. Harriet Lerner, one of our nation’s most respected voices in the psychology of women, and the “how-tos” of navigating the swamps and quicksands of difficult relationships. She lectures and consults nationally, and is the author of numerous scholarly articles and 12 books  including The Dance of Anger, which has sold more than three million copies with over  30 foreign translations, and her recent book, Why Won’t You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurt.
  • Gregg Levoy, author of Callings: Finding and Following An Authentic Life and Vital Signs: Discovering and Sustaining Your Passion for Life, writes for, consults with, and speaks to thousands of people regularly on finding and following your life’s work and passions. See a SPARKS session, hosted by the TLA Network, featuring Gregg Levoy talking about callings and right livelihood.
  • Donna Washington a professional author, storyteller and multicultural folklorist who has been sharing stories for over thirty years. She has been featured at numerous festivals, schools & libraries theaters and other venues around the world, and she has released nine CDs and four children’s books.  She offers a range of multicultural folktales, personal narratives and stories of her own creation.
  • Doug Lipman is a renowned storyteller, storytelling mentor and teacher, and innovator. Doug loves to help artists and other self-employed professionals become comfortable (and effective) in marketing their own work. He says, “We tend to view marketing as something pushy and dishonest – which much marketing sadly is. But true marketing consists of discovering who is hungry for what you love to do—and letting them know you’re available to do it.
  • Kim Go is an interfaith minister, former minister of congregational life, public speaker, coach, author, ritual celebrant and expressive facilitator. A focus of her work is the project, Alive and Mortal, an online group to address grief and impermanence. She says, “We work togetherto learn expressiveness around grief and find our voice. This aids us to use the power of the group to move out into the world to speak of our grief and love story that we carry with an expanded language.
  • José Faus is an artist, writer, teacher, and mentor. A native of Bogota, Colombia and long time Kansas City resident, he has participated in mural projects throughout the Kansas City area, Mexico and SantaCruz de la Sierra, Bolivia where he traveled under a State Department grant. He is a founder of the Latino Writers Collective and sits on the boards of the Writers Place, UMKC Friends of the Library, The Latino WritersCollective and the Charlotte Street foundation.
  • Rob Peck, is an author, humorist and recovering perfectionist! True to the title of his new book, It’s a Juggle Out There, Rob’s moving speeches and uplifting seminars focuses on three things simultaneously: Stress management, Streamlining, & Simplifying.
  • Heather Forest is a modern-day bard fusing poetry, prose, original melody, and the sung and spoken word. A pioneer in the American storytelling revival she has shared her repertoire of world tales in theaters, schools, literature conferences, and storytelling festivals throughout the United States and abroad. A multiple award-winning author and recording artist, she has published seven children’s picture books based on folktales, three folktale anthologies, eight audio recordings of storytelling and a popular educational web site StoryArts Online.

Find out more about the training here.  You can also schedule a discovery call with Laura or Caryn to talk about the training and your life by going here. 

Values of the Future with Doug Lipman for What We Need Now

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

Doug Lipman, one of the foremost mentors in storytelling and otherwise unearthing our most vital truths, explains of his upcoming class, “Values of the Future,” that “Our current economic, political, and social systems are serving fewer and fewer people, not to mention destroying the environment. I don’t know what a future society will look like, but if it is to meet our human needs better than our current society does, I believe it needs to be formed with certain values in mind.”

Listen to Doug’s powerful TEDx talk, “What Can Storytelling Teach Us About Creating Connections?”

His focus in this class is to help us find, amplify, clarify, and share our values for the world through stories, writing, and other arts and also, as he explains, “through the very processes of telling or creating stories….In other words, our artistic processes themselves can give people experiences that open them to values that are necessary for an improved society.”

The six-week class, kicking off Sept. 4, is all online, which means you can do it from anywhere and at anytime, looks toward how to cultivate the kind of world we envision through the process of our stories and storytelling, the power of listening,  the importance of relationships and openness, the preciousness of every human point of view, the universality of human potential, and other values that bring us all to the table.

The class is ideal, according to Doug, “for storytellers, fiction writers, narrative poets, songwriters, improvisational singers, dramatists, etc. – all who use language to help people imagine or convey their experience – especially those interested in teaching their art or discipline with an eye toward promoting generative values.”

“Taking a class with Doug Lipman is like sitting down with a trusted friend and mentor, who believes in you with all his heart and guides you to new ways of living.” — Laura Packer, storyteller and writer

Doug found himself becoming a storyteller when he was a struggling teacher of troubled teens, who responded positively to him telling them a story. From there, he has coached hundreds of people on their storytelling, writing, and recordings. He is the author of three books on storytelling (Improving Your Storytelling, The Storytelling Coach, and Storytelling Games), scores of published articles, and over 150 issues of his own email newsletters, including “eTips from the Storytelling Coach (http://StorytellingNewsletters.com).

A professional storyteller since 1976, Doug has performed and led workshops on three continents and led many online courses and webinars. His ongoing search for effective ways to teach the transformative power of storytelling has led to projects such as a new paradigm for coaching storytellers, an exploration of the seldom-noticed Hidden Storytelling Skills, and the pursuit of ways that storytelling and related arts can allow our true humanity to blossom. More about Doug here.

Sparks: Check Out Our New Podcast Series

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

We are excited to announce the arrival of Sparks, our new podcast series, curated by TLAN Council member Joe Maldonaldo. The podcasts explore the power of the written, spoken, and sung word.

The first podcasts, drawing from interviews and live broadcasts with member Kelly DuMar, are now up and ready for you to listen to as you drive, walk, or putter around the house, including:

  • Grey Grey Joe: A Conversation With Seema Reza: Seema Reza, author of A Constellation of Half Lives and When the World Breaks Open, discusses her TLA work with U.S. military veterans, her latest poetry collection, and finding balance between caring for other and caring for ourselves.
  • Empowering Human-Trafficking Survivors: A Conversation with Jennifer Jean:  Kelly DuMar interviews Jennifer Jean about her transformative language arts work with survivors and asks Jennifer to read some of her own work. This is an opportunity for TLA practitioners to learn and share best practices for working with survivors in writing groups and be introduced to Jennifer’s model for facilitating free2write workshops for survivors.

More podcasts will be added in coming weeks, thanks to Joe’s artful work with past programs and his commitment to create new programs. Tune into Sparks here.

A Class For Our Time: Speaking Your Truth with Angie Ebba

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

Angie Ebba, one of our most beloved online class facilitators, has created a new class, “Speaking Your Truth: Creative Writing for Political Times,” which you can do from anywhere on your computer. The class as open to writers of all ability, experiences, and genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction and more).

Angie writes in her class summary:

From ancient times to modern day, creative writing has been used for a way to explore and navigate political and social issues. In this workshop we will use a variety of readings, videos, and podcasts to investigate and discuss the role creative writing has played, and continues to play, during political times. Writing from various time periods and of many different viewpoints may be presented. However, rather than focusing on the ways our political views may separate us, we will instead use these writings to explore both the history of social and political creative writing, as well as the role it can have in creating change and developing empathy. Each week we will also focus on one or two tips or techniques for effective writing in a given genre.

Angie’s classes over the years have helped many people find their words, strength, voice, and callings, including one student who wrote, “This class transformed me and my self image” and another who simply said, “I have been enlightened.”

Angie comes by such praise honestly: she has created, worked, and lived for years as a writer, educator, activist, and performance artist rooted in the transformative power of words and performance. With a Masters in Teaching and another Masters in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, Angie is deeply experienced with working with people of all ages and backgrounds. A powerful writer who navigates the world as a self-identified “white, cis, queer, disabled, fat femme,” she recently began a regular column at She Explores Life, which includes her inspiring and evocative essay, “Why I Need Radical Positivity (and Think You Do Too).” Angie says of her approach to writing and teaching,

I fully believe in the power of words to help us gain a better understanding of ourselves, to build connections and community, and to make personal and social change.

Find out more about Angie and “Speaking Your Truth” here. And check out Angie’s website, “Rebel on Page” here.

What a Deal! Your Right Livelihood and Power of Words Conference

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

Hanne Weedon, our managing director, recently shared this email, giving Power of Words conference attendees a great deal when attending Your Right Livelihood training too.

As we approach our 16th annual Power of Words conference, we’re excited to share a special offer: if you register (or are already registered) for the conference, you are now eligible for a 10% discount for the pre-conference Your Right Livelihood: A Training in Doing the Work, Art, and Service You Love, led by Laura Packer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.

Your Right Livelihood starts with a retreat at the Casa Francisco Retreat Center from Wed. evening Sept. 25 to Fri. afternoon, Sept. 27, ending in time for the conference. The 100-hour training continues through mid-December with online study and community support, weekly video conferences with entrepreneurs and leaders in the field (such as Harriet Lerner, Gregg Levoy, and Heather Forest – see special guest teachers here), weekly group check-ins and discussions, individual consultations with Laura and Caryn, and a toolkit of resources for planning, marketing, further training, and next steps. All participants receive a certificate of completion at the end.

It is no exaggeration to state that this training changed my life. The RLPT course not only taught me how to improve my professional portfolio, but, more importantly, how to live holistically as a creative person. I will continue to use the course materials for years to come, and will count myself very lucky to stay in touch with the outstanding community of people who were in my cohort.

~ Rachel Gabriel, writer and facilitator, Minneapolis, Minnesota

If you’d like to learn more about the training, please set up a free 15-minute discovery call here with Caryn or Laura.

To catch the 10% discount, if you’re already registered for the conference, please contact Hanne at Director@TLANetwork.org so I can get you registered. You can register for the conference and training together or apply to the training on its own. 

Welcome to Hanne Weedon, Our New Managing Director

/ Individual Poet / Leave a comment

The Transformative Language Arts Network announces the hiring of Hanne Weedon as our new Managing Director. Hanne comes to TLAN with over 20 years of leadership and program development experience in not-for-profit and government-funded organizations. A longtime community, arts and social justice advocate, she resonates with the goals and values of the TLA Network, as she explains:

We are at such an interesting and challenging moment, with all that is happening in our families, our communities, and on our planet. There is much important work to be done to shift the trajectory, and there are exciting opportunities to have real and significant impact on what comes next. Artists have always played crucial roles in times of social transformation, and I feel truly honored and  lucky to have been invited to play a leadership role around supporting, empowering and engaging with storytellers dedicated to using their art to further social justice issues!

Hanne is committed to working collaboratively with TLAN members to expand the organization’s reach. Her previous experience bears this out: She co-founded Women Creating CommUNITY Landsdowne, a start-up community-based arts program, headed up a government-funded arts-and-economic development initiative in her town, helped build a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting working families, and has worked with a variety of large and small nonprofits as a fund raiser. In an earlier iteration, she also worked as a labor organizer, ran a small side business making wedding dresses, and made a living as a bike messenger.

As a community member and deeply engaged parent, Hanne built a flourishing neighborhood association of 1000+ neighbors, created a diverse and vibrant parent-led play group and preschool in her town, and has led peer counseling workshops, trainings and classes for young people and adults alike. A first-generation American, Hanne’s ties to family and friends overseas run deep, and her appreciation for, understanding of and dedication to building representative, inclusive and diverse communities is a core aspect in all her work. To say her name (it’s Norwegian): Hah-nah. 

“Hanne brings us deep experience in board development, non-profit management, marketing, fundraising, and administration to reach many new communities at a time when finding, amplifying, and witnessing our individual and collective stories is crucial,” says Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, one of the founders of the TLA Network.

Hanne is now available for your TLA Network questions at director@TLANetwork.org.