I bring insights from: neuroscience and somatic (body) awareness; mindfulness practices; and the crafting of literature to host safe spaces where learners of all skill levels can explore how the artful use of language can help us create meaning, foster connection and belonging, and open us to the compassion we need for resilience and healing.

* I prompt learners with a variety of artistic disciplines and mediums--literature, music, dance/somatic movement, visual art, film, folk arts/crafts--as well as the natural world, to inspire their creative oral and written responses.
* I teach and practice somatic and mindfulness strategies to cultivate the emotional safety and self-compassion necessary for exploring and nurturing our creativity.
* I teach critical thinking, revising, and recycling techniques for intentionally examining our cognitive biases and stories stuck in trauma / violence, in order to rewrite the old stories into bigger, braver, more truthful, inclusive, and healing narratives.
* I teach collaborative communal poetry writing to promote community inclusion, personal power, creative self-expression, and life fulfillment.

PARTY WITH PAINTS AND POEMS: a series of three 90-minute sessions with young people 4-15, in collaboration with Antionette Lee (No Limit Painting); using student's paintings to elicit words to create poems, Art In Motion On The Lake Wobegon Trail, Holdingford, MN

DUTIES OF THE SPIRIT--PRACTICES IN CREATIVE EXPRESSION: six 90-minute sessions with 12 elder women at Whitney Senior Center, exploring how, by accessing the joy and serenity always around us, we can carry our accumulating griefs with wisdom.

COLLABORATIVE COMMUNAL POETRY: with adult Somali Immigrants beginning English language learners, La Cruz Community Center, St. Cloud.

Monthly COLLABORATIVE COMMUNAL POETRY WORKSHOPS: for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Warwick, RI (2 years), resulted in the publication of a poetry book / used as a fundraiser for the organization.

PLOT YOUR STORY: memoir writing workshop for adults, Linebaugh Public Library in Murfreesboro, TN, and Warwick Senior Center, RI.

YOUNG PEOPLE'S THEATER WORKSHOP: a series of three 15-day summer residencies, with learners from 8-15 to write plays, Northfield, MN

POETRY PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP: a week long summer residency with middle school students to turn poems into a theater production, New Prague, MN

POET-IN-RESIDENCE: 5-weeks of residency with high school students as visiting poet/instructor, Faribault, MN