When the pandemic brought tremendous risk to our good health, peace of mind and livelihoods, Jen Minotti listened to a small voice of conviction from within that urged her beyond her fears of creative risk taking. She sat down at her computer and founded theJournal of Expressive Writing. Because, Jen believes writing your feelings helps you survive, and sharing them helps others survive and say yes to each other. The Journal thrives on all of us saying yes to our feelings in writing.
As Jen describes on the journal’s website, “the journal publishes expressive writing, free writing, personal essay, non-fiction, memoir, reflective essay, poetry, prose, contemplative discourse, and creative non-fiction—all that originate from a writing prompt—by both established and emerging writers.”
As Jen describes on the journal’s website:
At a fundamental level, I have this very strong belief that sharing our stories is a radical act of self-love and love for others. During the pandemic, I couldn’t stop thinking that if we could just share our stories—in a raw, truthful and very real way—at this moment in time when we needed connection more than ever, it just might be one of the most valuable gifts we gave to ourselves and others. It just might help bridge the political, class, and racial divides that were simultaneously exploding and perhaps help in some small way. Three and a half years later, the Journal still calls on all of us to share what matters most as a form of individual and collective activism. It’s a platform to express who we are in a particular moment and to read who others are. I think too often, we hold ourselves back when we feel our writing has to be “finished” or “perfect” or any of the conditioned belief systems we carry with us. When we can write (and operate) from our authentic selves, our inclination to judge softens. Love emerges and so does healing, not only for the writer, but for the readers, too. Eventually, it’s a ripple effect. This is ultimately what I hope to achieve with the Journal.
Here is more about Jen: Jennifer A. Minotti (she/her/hers) is a Writer-in-Residence at the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University, where she facilitates Women’s Writing Circles as a means to merge her passions for expressive writing, positive psychology, community organizing, women’s health, and social activism. In 2020, Jen founded the Journal of Expressive Writing in order to provide a place for sharing expressive writing, believing that we need this space on a fundamental, human level and that whatever we are feeling is a link to what others are feeling across the planet at any given moment. For the past 25 years, Jen has dedicated her professional life toward working for the betterment of society. For 17 years, Jen worked at Education Development Center(EDC)—a global non-profit working to improve education, health, and economic opportunities worldwide—in a variety of technology, research, writing, and leadership roles for projects that focused on health and human development, special education, online professional development, literacy, bullying-prevention, urban education, science, assistive technology, and inclusive schooling practices
Outstanding TLA Publication: The Journal of Expressive Writing, presented by Kelly DuMar at the 2023 Power of Words conference
Vanita Leatherwood exemplifies what life-saving difference one person can make. As the Director of Community Engagement at HopeWorks of Howard County – which provides support and advocacy for people affected by sexual and intimate partner violence – Vanita has founded TLA programs for survivor wellness, youth leadership, community self-care & social justice, and Dragonfly, an artsandtransformative justice magazine.
An award-winning poet with a MA in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, Vanita says, “The power of words led me to a place of safety, eventually to a place of joy, to that place within that I call the ‘YES.’ That’s part of what I wanted to create at HopeWorks – that’s what Dragonfly is; an opportunity to explore, learn, feel, connect, rebel and grow.”
We are honored to present our inaugural Outstanding TLA practitioner award to Vanita for her compassionate leadership, visionary program design, and community social justice programming, all of which she does with the heart of a poet and soul of a change-maker.
Here is a list of the programs Vanita has created:
Magazines (Founder/Editor): Dragonfly arts & transformative justice magazine and Cultivate youth arts magazine
Our Voice Project Monthly Support Groups: Preservation: Survivor Self-Care Circle, Reclamation: Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Support, and LOVED: Survivor Self-Care Circle for Black Women
One-on-One Self-care Sessions with Survivors: Poetry N2 Wellness
Newsletter: Journaling Our Voice
Speakers Bureau Training
The Survivors Health Project Monthly Groups: ARTiculation: Support & Education Group for Survivors Living with Chronic Health Conditions and Thriving Together: Survivors Mental Health Awareness & Wellbeing Group
Devised Theater, Creator & Producer: Telling This Truth at Slayton House Theater
Educational Curriculum (public programs): Over a dozen programs, including Self-care & Social Justice Events, Know My Name: Self-care and the Healing Journey for Black Women, The Organizational Equity and Inclusion Project, Ain’t I a Woman: Using the Arts & Humanities to Explore Oppression and Revolution, Unapologetic: Using Arts and Humanities to Explore Revolution and Oppression, and WOMEN-Global: Using the Arts & Humanities to Explore Oppression and Revolution
Outstanding TLA Practitioner: Vanita Leatherwood — presented by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg at the 2023 Power of Words conference.
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Dragonfly Magazine Call for Submissions: Dragonfly arts & transformative justice magazine is a publication of HopeWorks of Howard County Maryland. Themes for submitted work (visual, literary, and musical) should focus on reflections about activism, oppression, love, advocacy, hope, transformative justice, trauma, racial and gender equity, intersectionality, relationships, healing, or self-care. Writers/Musicians/Artists do not have to be survivors.Submissions accepted until Jan. 31, 2024. Find all the details here.
August of 2021 found me deep in the magic of “Future Casting,” an online class offered through the Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) and facilitated by the astonishingly creative Caits Meissner. In the sixth and final week, Caits suggested we write a statement of poetics. For me, this was a very new and not entirely welcome idea. The following is what I wrote in response to that invitation. (Warning: this piece mentions violence and employs some salty language.)
For most of my life, whenever anyone asked me to summarize myself or my art I panicked, froze, then fled, usually leaving a comet tail of epithets. If cornered, I deflected. “Want to know me?” I’d hiss, “Go read my poems. They’re scraped from the inner walls of my ascending aorta.” Similarly, questions about my writing process often ran into a big old slammed door of “none of your damn business.”
I always thought it was because I’m an introvert with a bit of social anxiety. Lately, though, I’m coming to understand that it’s because writing poetry is how I wrote myself back into a breathing presence in my own mind and trying to codify that feels like I risk diminishing its creative, sustaining, power. Sharing my purpose and process as a poet feels x-ray intimate.
When I was a child, I was in so much pain—so deeply psychically displaced—it seemed I was only holding on to this world by a forefinger and thumb. My seventh grade art teacher tossed me a rope when he asked our class to write a poem in response to an art film of stampeding wild horses. There were foals in that snorting, screaming, rampaging mess. I recognized their terror and out-of-control turmoil. I felt it in my body and then streamed those messy, shouting word-feelings onto the pages of my tidy school notebook. And that, as they say, is where it all started.
I continued writing poetry to locate myself in myself and in the world, to imagine a place where I belonged, to make a space for myself that made sense despite nearly nothing around me doing so. The process of writing poetry—at least the way I interpreted it—let me circumvent my indoctrinated, gas-lit mind and write what my body felt, noticed, and perceived. I could write about the tall white pine tree and how I first, finally, felt real belonging when wrapped in their branches, listening to the wind.
I write because words and images live in my bones and itch. I write so those words detach their atoms from my marrow and coalesce themselves into poems. I write because my arms ache from holding the unflinching truth of violence in one hand and the equally unflinching truth of compassion in the other. I write to make sense of violence: the large and small violences we impose on each other, the cuts and digs we carve into ourselves, the narrow, restrictive, suffocating norms a culture inflicts on its members, the ongoing rape of this planet. I write to find respite in everyday moments of connection and the steady reliability of natural rhythms—small, quiet things like morning following night. I write because my body is etched with violence and betrayal and understands how finding respite in small, everyday beauties helps survival turn the corner into living.
In the beginning, I wrote so I could know I existed. These days, I write because I hold the truth of both violence and compassion in my body and I know there are people who need to hear that is possible. I write because I have lived sixty years of life in the face of a beginning that should have ended me and there are people who need to know that’s possible, too. I write poems to be catalysts. I offer them as seeds. I hope they plant change.
Tracie Nichols is a Transformative Language Artist writing poetry and facilitating writing experiences from under two old Sycamore trees in southeastern Pennsylvania. She is the Co-founder of two writing groups, as well as a board member and newsletter editor for the Transformative Language Arts Network. Putting her master’s degree in Transformative Learning and Change to good use over the past two decades, Tracie has designed and facilitated many virtual and in-person lifelong learning experiences on a truly wide range of topics for small groups. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent and Text Power Telling as well as two anthologies. You can connect with her at https://tracienichols.com/.
“Will create for love and money” could make for a perfect bumper sticker for many of our cars or a good sign on our front doors. We write, sing, facilitate, coach, collaborate, and work deeply in the arts with others and ourselves because it’s our calling and birthright. Yet what it takes to make a living, find even more of our purpose, or craft the next season of our lives isn’t something that easily fits on a car bumper or front door. Finding our way takes courage, guidance, clarity, and often, help along the way.
Scroll down for special offers for TLAN Members
That’s why, starting many years ago when I first developed TLA, I knew that Right Livelihood, the Buddhist tradition of work that builds our communities and betters our world, was essential. By holding brave spaces for people to share their truest words and name and claim their own visions of healing and transformation, we are doing the work of Tikkun Olam, the Hebrew term for helping repair the broken world. Yet we can only do this work if we find ways to sustain our livelihoods and respect our time and gifts.
The Your Right Livelihood classbegan as a TLA Network project, then grew from there, having helped dozens of people since 2018 discover their work (whether for livelihood, art, service, or purpose) and how to make that work come true. I’m delighted to be offering our comprehensive class with singer-songwriter and creativity and career transition coach Kathryn Lorenzen Feb. 19 – April 16. The class surrounds you with guidance, support, best resources for your work ahead, and good company for the journey, including:
Weekly Zoom discussions, many featuring luminary teachers, such as Gregg Levoy (author of Callings), Yvette-Hyater-Adams (facilitator, writer, consultant), Vi Tran (arts organizer and performer), and Alana Muller (networking expert) to explore the depths and breath of callings, personal strategic planning, networking tailored to you, and finding support and care.
Online exploration and writing about our emerging visions as well as the inspiration and nuts-and-bolts resources we need to put them into action, plus visiting podcast teachers sharing their wisdom, including creativity expert Eric Maisel, Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Willmott, singer-songwriter Kelley Hunt, poet and facilitator Marianela Medrano, and others.
One-on-one in-depth coaching on how to integrate our dream work into our lives through completing a pick-your-adventure portfolio guide so that you’ll have all you need (such as web copy, funding resources, proposals and descriptions of your work, outreach plans) when you complete the class.
As part of a generous partnership agreement, all TLAN members receive a discount on our class and retreat next October. Additionally, we invite any TLAN member to attend our Sun., Feb. 5 small group coaching session “Will Create for Love and Money” as our guest (7 p.m. CT/ 8 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. MT/ 5 p.m. PT on Sun., Feb. 5). Just email me and we’ll register you.
A number of TLA members have found great gifts and direction in Your Right Livelihood, and you can read their words directly here. We know through our experience how much a strong cohort group, excellent guides, and lots of good resources can help people make the leap into the work they love.
We come by this understanding naturally: Kathryn is a singer-songwriter who found her way into cross-country performing and having her music featured in films, along with her twin calling of coaching hundreds of people through career transition over the years. As a poet and writer, I discovered my twin calling in teaching and facilitation, which, along with writing are how I support my livelihood, do my service, and create my art.
Changing the World with Words is one of the required courses [to be offered again in 2023] in the Transformative Language Arts Foundations certification program. In my opinion, it brings to mind the famous quotation erroneously attributed to Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Apparently, this is actually a paraphrase of a longer idea that Gandhi expressed:
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.
In this vein, I wonder if a better name for the TLAN course would be “Changing Myself with Words.” It seems a slightly easier place to begin before I actually tackle the reformation of the entire world.
In an interview I heard last year, the Irish poet Padraig O’Tuama discussed the healing effects of writing poetry to a younger version of himself who had undergone a severe trauma. He stated:
There’s something so redeeming for me all these years later to be able to speak that poem back to that frightened 18-year-old…somehow eventually to have recovered the capacity to be able to say something back. It doesn’t undo it, but it’s enough. I can somehow feel like I’m able to have a conversation between the me then and the me now. That is enough, and I can examine it.
Like O’Tuama, I have the ability to use my words to examine my past. Through my words, I have the power to write my own narrative and develop a new story for myself. For me, that change in perspective began after attending the first day of Changing the World with Words. When we met on Zoom, we were given five sentence stems to use as we introduced ourselves to our new classmates. One of the prompts seemed innocent enough:
When I was a kid, I wanted to be…
From my perspective, the other participants must have spent a few enjoyable minutes reminiscing about their favorite childhood memories and games – playing dress up, playing with imaginary friends, playing outside with the neighborhood kids – because the answers they shared were exciting and diverse. One wanted to be a dentist, another a potter. There was a teacher, a welder, and an actress. Most people listed multiple future professions and abilities – so many choices that revealed great imagination and inspiration.
My response was, “When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I wanted to be.”
I was embarrassed when I read that sentence aloud. I was the only one in the group without a dream or an imagination. What did I do as a child? I read. I watched TV. I drew pictures and floorplans. In middle school, I took sewing lessons in Home Ec. But most of all, I kept to myself. I had learned at a young age that to reveal any personal information was to open myself to ridicule. Today, as I look at the list of the activities I enjoyed as a young person, I realize that I could have fantasized about being a writer, an actress, an artist, an architect, or a fashion designer, but I don’t recall ever having those thoughts. It’s hard to imagine a future when you’re busy simply surviving each day.
Now, as an adult, I know that I can rewrite my story. I can acknowledge what that little girl wanted to be. She wanted to be held in a warm embrace. She wanted to be encouraged. She wanted to be seen and heard. She wanted to feel valued and accepted. She wanted to know that someone supported her.
She wanted to hear the words “I love you.”
I can’t change the past, but I can use my words to reassure that little girl. I can offer that innocent child-that-I-was compassion and tenderness. I can use my words to work through issues and to achieve clarity, and in turn, the woman that I am now can dream of changing the world one day.
Sharon Bippus, PhD, is an ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) instructor who finds inspiration in the intersection of creativity, mystery, and synchronicity. As an undergraduate, she was awarded two scholarships to study in Germany which fueled her desire to learn more about the diverse world we live in. Since that time, she has taught English in Slovakia and China and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Western Russia. She currently teaches ESOL at a community college in the suburbs of Houston, Texas where she works with students from all over the world. In her free time, she enjoys mixed media, collage, and photography and has received training in trauma-informed expressive arts and nature-based therapeutic practices. She is a SoulCollage® facilitator, a Veriditas-trained labyrinth facilitator, and a student in the Haden Institute’s Dream Work Program.
You’ve seen the iconic poster—a woman in profile, her head turned to look boldly at the artist, her right arm raised in a fist while her left hand rolls up her sleeve. She wears a blue work shirt and a red, polka-dot scarf tied around her temples. Eyebrows immaculately sculpted, eyelashes done up, red lipstick topping it all off.
During the height of the pandemic, my cousin sent around a photo she’d unearthed, of our grandmother with a work crew, wearing that same blue shirt. When I asked my mother about it, she said my grandmother was part of a World War II “ladies’ crew,” and that her work had to do with ball bearings or something. My mother would have been four. I’d seen the poster a million times, but never knew my grandmother had been a “Rosie the Riveter.” I set out on a mission and eventually found a mug online representing her in this role.
Rosie the Riveter: We Can Do It!
My grandparents were part of the “The Great Migration” of Black people from the Deep South to the northern and western states that took place in the early 1940s. Although their movement was within the same continent, when I think about it, I get the feeling of something epic, and it is, because their choice to undertake the journey deeply impacted my quality of life, even though I wouldn’t be born until decades later. I heard about this journey in detail from my grandfather, with whom I was very close, yet I recently wrote about it from the perspective of my grandmother, who I never knew—she passed away well before I was born. In “Departure,” I take on her voice, describing how my grandfather came to California, started working on the naval shipyards, set up house, then sent for her and their two girls—my mother and my aunt. “The air is different here. Lighter. It could be that I’ve never been this close to an ocean, never felt the calm mist tickling my skin. Or maybe this is what it feels like to breathe easy, and free.” Those lines were my attempt to capture the emotional journey, the change that seems to be coming from outside conditions but is actually burgeoning from within.
Ship scaler Eastine Cowner helps construct the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver. 1943. Kaiser shipyards, Richmond, California. E.F. Joseph/Library of Congress.
Because while my grandparents’ movement was definitely physical, through numerous states from one end of the country to the gorgeous Pacific Coast, I know that faith, perseverance, and fortitude were the true inner gifts of the journey, the qualities they silently nurtured and developed in their own hearts to have the fortitude to make the trip.
Although the narrow definition of a journey is geographical, a movement from point A to B, we know an emotional component is always present. The richness of the inner adventure compels us to see the journey as a metaphor for countless situations, no physical change of place required. We face challenges, find allies, and overcome obstacles on the way to a final destination. We experience personal growth and development, chances to rise to the occasion, and strength arising from finding our innate gifts. We triumph, determining for ourselves what success truly means.
IAM members from District Lodge 751 were among the African-American Rosie the Riveters who played a large part in building planes during WWII.
Joseph Campbell described the well-known archetypal pattern of the hero’s journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. While Maria Tatar’s recent The Heroine with 1001 Faces might be seen as a response to that work, it goes beyond it by expanding our view of heroism to include qualities and narrative arcs centering the power of women to effect change. Similarly, the journey of the healer and seeker, along with the journey of integrity, offer fruitful ways to view the universal struggles and joys we face on life’s trajectory. On each of these paths, even if there is physical relocation, the deeper journey always takes place within. The process may be as silent as caterpillars transforming within the confines of silky, stationary cocoons. They emerge exquisite and renewed—altogether new creatures—as a result of the inner journey. Containing invisible remnants of the past yet exploding with flight into the future, they affect their own destiny and that of those to come. We are those butterflies.
6th Century Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Through the lens of the heroine’s path and other narratives, the thousand-mile journey becomes our lives, splayed out across the years of our existence. We look back to see where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, then venture on, knowing that just as fog clears when we move forward, our next steps will be revealed.
Welders at the Landers, Frary, and Clark plant in New Britain, Connecticut, 1943. Gordan Parks/Library of Congress.
Last year I cut and pasted this quote, author unknown, to a vision board: “Take every curious little opportunity and own it.” A flyer that read “Jobs For Negroes” was the curious little opportunity my grandparents seized in the mid-twentieth century, buoyed by hopes and dreams for safety, security, and larger, more fulfilled lives. They didn’t know the ultimate outcome, but had faith that if they took the leap, a net would surely be there. As musician Jan Garrett sang: Fight to stay awake/Choose the path you take/Even if you don’t know where it’s going/Trust your own unknowing. Like my grandparents, we don’t need exact certainty to enter uncharted territory. Whether our movement is physical or centered on the journey within, we only have to believe in the possibilities and stay awake to the signs that illuminate our path, guiding us to precisely where we need to be.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey: Exploring the Paths of the Heroine, Healer, and Seeker, with Kimberly Lee, runs from September 14 to October 26 on the TLA Network. Join Kimberly for an engaging exploration of long-established and recently-outlined journeys in literature, film, poetry, videos, podcasts, and the lives of public figures. Through creative writing prompts, SoulCollage®, and other interactive exercises and activities, we’ll discover how aspects of these paths exist within our own lives and can be used to inform and enrich our work with others.
Kimberly Lee (@klcreatrix) left the practice of law some years ago to focus on motherhood, community work, and creative pursuits. A graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law, she is certified as a workshop facilitator by Amherst Writers & Artists, the Center for Journal Therapy, and SoulCollage®. She has led workshops at numerous retreats and conferences and is a teaching artist with Hugo House and Loft Literary. She serves on the board of the Transformative Language Arts Network and is actively involved with The Center for Intentional Creativity. A former editor and regular contributor at Literary Mama, Kimberly has served on the staffs of Carve and F(r)iction magazines. She holds a certificate in copyediting from UC San Diego Extension and is an active member of the Editorial Freelancers Association and ACES: The Society for Editing. Kimberly’s stories and essays have appeared in publications and anthologies including Minerva Rising, LA Parent, Fresh Ink, Words and Whispers, Toyon, The Ekphrastic Review, Wow! Women on Writing, Read650, Quillkeepers Press, I Am Woman: Expressions of Black Womanhood in America, and elsewhere. Kimberly trusts in the magic and mystery of miracles and synchronicity, and believes that everyone is creative and has unique gifts to share. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.
“Putting to work poetry and gospel, side by side with story and Celtic spirituality, Ó Tuama explores ideas of shelter along life’s journey, opening up gentle ways of living well in a troubled world. The reader can’t help but be drawn in, slip-sliding into the harbor of the author’s soulful words.” —Chicago Tribune
“Probably the best public speaker I know.” —William Crawley, BBC
The TLA Network is pleased to include noted Irish Poet Pádraig Ó Tuama as one of three keynotes at the upcoming TLA Network’s 2022 Power of Words Conference. The conference also features keynotes poet and writer Camille Dungy, and Kathleen Adams, founder of the Therapeutic Writing Institute and the Center for Journal Therapy. The conference will be online October 13-16 next fall, and the super early bird registration fee (20% off the regular price) is available now through December 31, 2021
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a theologian, conflict resolution mediator, and the author of four volumes of poetry, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community (2017), In the Shelter (2015), Sorry for your Troubles (2013), and Readings from the Books of Exile (2012), which was longlisted for the 2013 Polari First Book Prize.
For Ó Tuama, religion, conflict, power, and poetry all circle around language, that original sacrament. Working fluently on the page and in public, Ó Tuama is a compelling poet, teacher, and group worker, and a profoundly engaging public speaker. He has worked with groups to explore story, conflict, their relationship with religion and argument, and violence. Using poetry, group discussion and lectures, his work is marked both by lyricism and pragmatism, and includes a practice of evoking stories and participation from attendees at his always-popular lectures, retreats, and events.
Ó Tuama has been a featured guest on On Being with Krista Tippett twice, and is a regular broadcaster on radio on topics such as Poetry, Religion in the public square, Loneliness, Conflict and Faith, LGBT inclusion, the dangers of so-called Reparative Therapy, and the value of the Arts in public life. In 2011, with Paul Doran, Pádraig co-founded the storytelling event Tenx9 where nine people have up to ten minutes each to tell a true story from their lives. From 2014-2019, Pádraig led the Corrymeela Community, Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. Currently, Pádraig guides the weekly podcast Poetry Unbound through NPR’s On Being, which dives and immerses the listener into one poem every week
His poetry collection Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community draws on the spiritual practices of Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation community Corrymela—of which Ó Tuama was a leader from 2014-2019. Described by Canterbury’s Poetry Laureate Patience Agbabi as “compassionate, contemporary and formally innovative,” this prayer book was structured over 31 days, offering a daily Bible reading with accompanying prayer. His book In the Shelter interweaves everyday stories with narrative theology, gospel reflections with mindfulness and Celtic spirituality with poetry, ultimately revealing the transformational power of welcome. Network Magazine praised it as being remindful of Augustine’s Confessions and Newman’s Apologia: “It comes from the heart, it recognizes the hurts and the triumphs, and it encourages us to say ‘hello’ to new things.” Sorry for Your Troubles, arose out of a decade of O’Tuama’s experiences hearing stories of people who have lived through personal and political conflict in Nothern Ireland, the Middle East, and other places of conflict. One poem, ‘Shaking hands’ was written when Padraig witnessed the historic handshake between Queen Elizabeth II and Martin McGuinness, who has since used the poem publicly. His first book Readings from the Books of Exile interweaves parable, poetry, art, activism and philosophy into an original and striking expression of faith.
His poems have been published at Poetry Ireland Review, Academy of American Poets, Post Road, Cream City Review, Holden Village Voice, Proximity Magazine, On Being, Gutter, America, and Seminary Ridge Review.
Pádraig Ó Tuama holds a BA Div validated by the Pontifical College of Maynooth, an MTh from Queen’s University Belfast and is currently engaged in a PhD in Theology through Creative Practice at the University of Glasgow exploring poetry, Irishness and religion.
Registration is now open for the 2022 Power of Words conference, which will be held online from October 13-16, 2022. On sale now through December 31, save 20% off the 2022 conference fee!
When I developed TLA, I knew that Right Livelihood, the Buddhist tradition of work that builds our communities and betters our world, was essential. By holding brave spaces for people to share their truest words and name and claim their own visions of healing and transformation, we are doing the work of Tikkun Olam, the Hebrew term for helping repair the broken world. Yet we can only do this work if we find ways to sustain our livelihoods and respect our time and gifts.
Likewise, many of the qualities we cultivate for TLA—showing up fully, starting where we are, trusting our innate voices, and taking creative leaps into what wants to be written, said, or sung—are the keys to creating livelihoods that support you and grow the reach of our work. That’s what called me to create the Your Right Livelihood class and retreat, which began as a project of the TLA Network, then grew to be its own small business with new co-leader Kathryn Lorenzen. What’s more, thanks to a generous partnership agreement, all TLAN members receive a discount on our class and retreat.
Both Right Livelihood and TLA are actively revising some myths that don’t serve us, such as the myth of the damaged, starving, or invisible artist, or the myth (so popular in the writing world) that there’s only so many ways the pie can be sliced, leaving many of us with only the crumbs at best. Both Kathryn and I believe that writers, storytellers, and other word artists should be paid (or otherwise compensated) fairly for our time, effort, experience, and education.
We’re big advocates for bypassing the old only-so-much-pie storyline by baking more pies. After all, we’ve had the power all along to create our livelihoods to nourish ourselves and our communities. It’s important we get cooking because artists and facilitators of the arts are essential to this world, especially in times of polarization and uncertainty.
We come by this understanding naturally: Kathryn is a singer-songwriter who found her way into cross-country touring and having her music featured in films along with her twin calling of coaching hundreds of people in career transition over the years. As a poet and writer, I discovered my twin calling in teaching and facilitation, which, along with writing are how I support my livelihood, do my service, and create my art.
It’s no wonder that what we do in Your Right Livelihood is rooted in so much of what we’ve discovered as writers, performers, coaches, facilitators, and teachers is at the core of TLA: deep conversation, expansive writing, the power of the stories we live, the guidance we can glean from our creativity, and the importance of building a loving and wise community. Our annual class, Jan. 23 – Mar. 19, features a combination of all of this to help us grow our vision, plans, courage, clarity, and community, including:
Weekly Zoom discussions, many featuring luminary teachers (including Eric Maisel, Yvette Hyater-Adams, Gregg Levoy, Kevin Willmott, and others),
Online exploration and writing (and other arts) about our callings as well as the inspiration and nuts-and-bolts resources we need to put them into action,
One-on-one in-depth coaching on how to integrate our dream work into our lives,
A guided, personalized portfolio to create step-by-step sequences and priorities to make our next work happen.
To find out more, please contact us today for a Discovery Call (you can reach me here or directly set up a call with Kathryn here), and please consider joining us for our Jan. 4th Life & Livelihood Small Group Coaching session. Our super early bird rate ends Dec. 10th, so please contact us soon.
To consider whether the time is right for you, please take a look at Kathryn’s new blog post, “Waiting for the Perfect Time: Why?” Surely this is your time to shine, especially when the world needs your gifts so much, so please consider how to write and live your own Right Livelihood story in TLA.
P.S. Many wonderful people in the TLA Network (including a bunch of past and present board members) found the Your Right Livelihood class especially helpful in their work — see their testimonials here.
The Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund was established in the fall of 2021 to honor the founder of the transformative language arts and the TLA Network. The Fund provides Power of Words Conference and TLA Network classes support for both BIPOC people and people who are living with serious illness and/or disabilities.
The following remarks by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg were made at the TLA Network’s online Power of Words Conference, on October 30, 2021.
I am so honored by this fund in my name, which will provide scholarships for people of color, people living with serious illness, and people with disabilities.
Why these communities, all of whom are negatively impacted in our problematic world:
As a survivor of both a very common cancer and a very rare cancer, and as someone who’s had the joy and education of facilitating writing workshops for 18 years for people living with serious illness – patients, survivors, caregivers, and community members, I know first-hand how essential is to to have supported spaces for big writing and witnessing.
I’ve also been involved with disabilities rights and communities through my husband’s work for 30 years as an occupational therapist and activist working with people living with disabilities.
Both people living with serious illness and disabilities, which sometimes go hand-in-hand, are so often limited in accessing workshops and conferences like what TLAN offers, and not just by a lack of wheelchair ramps. The isolation and pain, overwhelm and fear we face in such situations can make us feel so alone with our pain, dread, anxiety, difference.
We are missing such important voices at the table, ones that have so much to teach us about resilience in real-time, what it means to age and change, and how to grapple more directly with being humans who are mortal. Scholarships can help us bring life-giving creativity and community into people’s homes through their laptops.
Black, brown Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and other marginalized people of color have too often and so extensively, to the detriment of all of us, been silenced or had their voices abused. My more personal connection is that I live in the home of Haskell Indian Nations University and the ghosts land burial ground where so many children died when it was a boarding school. I’ve also witnessed many people’s stories through teaching at Haskell and facilitating workshops for many years with Indigenous women.
When we started the POW conference, we began with a commitment to continually work on undoing racism and inviting many more voices to the table, or even forgetting the old table and making a new one. From our first conference, we had scholarships for POC, a determination to bring in keynoters from unrepresented communities, and outreach to communities of color. Most arts-based organizations like ours are primarily white and although we’ve come a long way, we have so so so long to go.
Removing financial barriers where and when needed is part of this work, and it also helps foster new leadership and a more attuned vision to how TLA can bring voices previously ignored or debased into our civic conversations.
In 2014, we were able to bring close to a dozen people living with serious illness and disabilities to the POW conference to share their stories and truths. A year later, we brought 15 young people of color, all in the foster care system, to the conference. How wonderful it would be to have scholarship funds available for people who want to attend Angie Ebba’s superb upcoming TLAN class, “Not Enough Spoons: Writing About Disabilities and Chronic Illness” and to next year, have even more black and brown faces, people undergoing heavy cancer treatment or navigating disabilities in an ableist world at this conference.
Please consider giving what you can give to make our offerings more accessible to others. Please help create this new table where we can all come and speak our lives and visions.
Contribute to theCaryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund here.
All funds will be processed through the TLA Network’s fiscal sponsor, The Foundation for Delaware County. When contributing via FDC, make sure to note your donation is made “in honor of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.”
Writing coach, community builder and author Jade Eby is a TLAN Board member, and the chair of the 2021 Power of Words Conference Committee. We were excited to sit down with Jade to talk about her work as a creative empowerment advocate, her creative community, and what she hopes to bring to the TLA Network.
You call yourself a creative empowerment advocate, can you tell us a little more about what that means?
Yes! Ever since I was a little girl, creativity has been an instrumental part of my life. I’ve used creativity as part of my trauma recovery journey, and I’ve used creativity to help hundreds of other individuals find their voices and tell their stories.
I strongly believe that when a person can get in touch with their creative side and then lean into it — they are able to fully step into an empowered state of being. I feel like that’s my life’s purpose, actually. To help others realize the inherent power and creativity they already have inside of them. I empower individuals to become empowered.
This is the main reason I created my digital community.
Can you talk about your community a little more? What role does it play? Who is it for?
I like to say that my Creative Empowerment Community is really a sanctuary for creatives. It’s a small but mighty community that encourages, supports, and empowers creatives to create. But what’s really amazing about it is that we get to come together as our authentic and whole selves. Members come from many walks of life, but we share a common passion of being creative.
There are many wonderful online communities out there to learn how to be creative, but I haven’t found many communities that embrace the actual living as a creative. The trials and tribulations that come with that. There’s more to living a creative life than just creating and that’s really where the benefit of this community comes in.
We come together as a family and work through the highs and lows of this creative life we’re living, as a community. It’s really beautiful! And it fits in with my work at TLA network so well.
How does supporting the TLA Network connect to the work you are doing?
What drew me to the TLA Network to begin with was that same sense of community and connection that I felt was missing from my life. When I understood the mission and goal of the TLA Network, I knew I wanted to be a part of the organization on a deeper level because the work is so important. Connecting creativity to our social justice activism and making change is one of the most beautiful ways to use the gifts we’ve been given.
When I was asked to chair the conference for the 2021 Power of Words Conference, I was elated because it puts everything I stand for to work!
How amazing to be able to help spearhead a conference where we lift up diverse voices and stories. How amazing to be able to show other creatives that we can build a safe and supportive community that will honor what everyone has to say. Being part of this conference is another form of empowerment to me, and as you know, I’m all about empowerment!
Jade Eby has dedicated her career to empowering others to find their voice. As a creative empowerment advocate, Jade specializes in expressive writing + journaling, writing fiction, and creative writing as a healing modality. She is certified in trauma recovery coaching, group facilitation, and workshops for journaling. She earned her B.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. You can find more information about her and her programs at www.jadeeby.com
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