The Power of Words Conference           

CALL FOR PROPOSALS        PAST CONFERENCES                    

Liberation, Transformation & Celebration Through the Spoken, Written & Sung Word


September 4-7, 2009 at Goddard College, Plainfield, VT.hugTLA.jpg

Explore how we can use our words — written,  spoken or sung — to make community, deepen healing, witness one another, wake ourselv es up, and foster empowerment and transformation. Sponsored by Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, this conference features experiential workshops on a wide range of the expressive language arts and right livelihood, performances, open readings, and celebrations. Make community with others who share your passion. Keynote presenters for the 2009 conference include:

  • Kayhan Irani, performer of the Theatre of the Oppressed and creator of Artivista, an organization that combines art and activism as a form of political expression and engagement

  • John Fox, poet, author, poetry therapist, and founder of Poetic Medicine, and author of Poetic Medicine and Finding What You Didn't Lose.

  • Lewis Mehl Medrona, author of Coyote Medicine, Native American physician and psychiatrist and professor of family psychiatry who calls himself a post-modern, semi-urban neo-shaman.

  • Dovie Thomason, award-winning Native American storyteller, recording artist and author

  • Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, founder of Transformative Languages Arts, and award-winning author of several books including Write Where You Are and Lot’s Wife, who will be debuting her memoir, The Sky Begins at Your Feet.

  • Sherry Reiter, poetry therapy pioneer and drama therapist presenting a workshop on the possibilities inherent in poetry therapy.

  • Callid Keefe & Kristina Perry, facilitators-in-residence and writers on Theopoetics and the Quaker meeting tradition.

  • Terry Hauptman, artist-in-residence, painter and poet, and author of On Hearing Thunder, Rattle, and Masquerading in Clover.


We seek your proposals for experiential, didactic, and/or performance-based workshops that focus on writing, storytelling, drama, film, songwriting, and other forms of TLA. Because we are strongly committed to including individuals from diverse backgrounds, we also encourage workshop proposals from people of color, or proposals that focus on social change, the spoken or sung word, and how to make a living using transformative language arts in service to our communities, and medicine medicine.

guyTLA.jpg

“A wide open door into the multiple layers of words and  their healing nature.” – Marianela Medrano-Marra, Ph.D.,  writer and psychotherapist

“Rarely have I felt so present and full in each and every       moment...from the beginning to the end, I was moved,  inspired, challenged, and changed. I did, indeed, leave differently than I had arrived.” -- Embrya deShango, spoken word performer, Cincinnati