The Power of Words Conference

Liberating Yourself and the World Through the Spoken, Written & Sung Word

Sept. 12 - 15, 2008

Explore how we can use our words – written, spoken or sung – to make community, wake ourselves up, and foster empowerment, healing and transformation. Sponsored by the low residency Transformative Language Arts Concentration at Goddard College, this conference features workshops, talking circles, performances, open readings, and celebrations.

Download the 2008

Power of Words

2008 Conference Keynoters and Special Guests:

Julia Alvarez is the author of several novels, including Saving the World, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, iYo!, In the Time of the Butterflies and In The Name of Salome, as well as a book of essays, Something to Declare, and several poetry books, among them, The Woman I Kept to Myself. Her latest adult work is Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA. She has also written for children, and young adults, most recently Before We Were Free and Finding Miracles, and her next work for middle readers and young adults is Return to Sender, to be published in January 2009. She is a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College, and with her husband, Bill Eichner, has established Alta Gracia, a sustainable-farm/literacy project in her native Dominican Republic, where her elderly parents now live.

Kelley Hunt, rhythm and blues touring artist, film scorer, 4 critically-acclaimed CDs, workshop facilitator and teacher of blues piano, boogie woogie piano, songwriting, singing. She will also be available for one-on-one consultation with participants. Visit her website and MySpace page. 

Bread and Puppet, social change theatre that often brings together visual arts with cutting edge social commentary, one of the oldest and most established radical theatre companies in the world. 

Rick Jarow, author of Creating the Work You Love, and founder of the anti-career movement, also very focused on spiritual growth through and beyond right livelihood. 

Sherry Reiter, poetry therapy pioneer, drama therapist, and long-time facilitator of workshops with many populations that combine the arts, therapy and community building.

The Afrikana Madonna, aka Barbara Bethea, spoken word poet and singer in the gospel-soul tradition. 

Lewis Mehl Madrona, author of Coyote Medicine, Native American physician and psychiatrist and professor of family psychiatry.

Facilitators-in-Residence:

Callid and Kristina Keefe-Perry, who will help hold the space during key conference events and be available for discernment circles (sitting in quiet with a question) with participants, and will give a pre-conference workshop. 

Writer-in-Residence:

Janet Aalfs, poet laureate of Northampton, MA., martial arts master, acclaimed poet, who will be available for one-on-one consultation with participants on writing and movement.

Artist-in-Residence:

Cynthia Ross, long-time Goddard faculty member, multi-media visual artist who specializes in spiritual and environmental art, and will set up an arts room where participants can create such projects as Soul Houses.

The Power of Words Conference is a unique and spirited gathering of people who are artists of words - aloud or written, individually or collaboratively - for making community, making meaning, making a living, and making a life. Explore and celebrate the transformative power of the language arts through presentations and performance by over 30 writers, storytellers, performers, community leaders, artists, educators, and health professionals. Learn more about using your voice to create a sustainable, just and joyful future. Our stories, poems, novels and memoirs, performances and collaborations, and so many other forms of Transformative Language Arts show us what language can do and be. As writer and storyteller M. Scott Momaday writes, "Words are intrinsically powerful. They are magical. By means of words can one bring about physical change in the universe. By means of words can one quiet the raging weather, bring forth the harvest, ward off evil, rid the body of sickness and pain, subdue an enemy, capture the heart of a lover, live in the proper way, and venture beyond death." Welding the power of words, as Grace Paley writes, takes precision and daring: "Of course, the pen is mightier than the sword. But the pen must be very sharp."

Please join us to give voice to the daring and magical power of words.

Conference fees begin at $210, and room and board packages (three nights lodging and eight meals) start at $216

To learn more about Transformative Language Arts, look for The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader available at the TLA Network.

Contact Us:

For conference information on scholarships, or work-study positions, please write to: 

Conference Coordinator, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

tlaconference@goddard.edu

For information on registration, logistics, travel details, etc., please contact:

Conference Assistant, Denise Whitesides-Skeeba

denise.whitesides-Skeeba@goddard.edu  
802-454-8311, ext. 204

What conference participants are saying:

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

A wide open door into the multiple layers of words and their healing nature. This conference shows how to weave healing into life itself and inscribes creativity as the essence of that healing. Marianela Medrano-Marra, PhD writer/psychotherapist

The Power of Words Conference reinforced, nurtured and enhanced our emerging and evolving through an elegant, spiraling process in which we transform, and are transformed by, our language. That this happens amid outstanding camaraderie, delicious food, and the autumnal Vermont landscape is all the better. -- Reggie Marra, poet

I feel a renewed commitment to my work because of what I’ve seen and heard here and by learning of all the work of others. The conference offered nourishing magic. It gave me the courage to see myself as a vessel to spread the beauty of good work, to imagine better futures, to make hope concrete. -- S. Wade, teacher and student

What a wonderful conference, fascinating people doing good for so many, fine sessions, and time to write, to refresh my writing self, time to walk among the fall colors, delicious food, and camaraderie. -- Renee Ruderman, poet, author and teacher, Denver

Every experience at this workshop far exceeded my expectations. Every discussion was enlightening. -- Carol Thomas

What I took home above all is the memory of this amazing movement of human energy toward healing and bridge-building and celebration. -- Laurie Baron, poet and workshop facilitator, Holland, MI.

Thanks for an inspiring, well-organized conference. Worth the journey! Wonderful programming, with lots of space in between. Fabulous performances. Inspiring location and great food! – Mandy Carr, drama therapist, London, England.

After sailing alone for so many years, I feel like I’ve just found a full ocean liner of friends, like-minded spirits and support. – Nancy G. Shapiro, Writer and future TLA Student.

The TLA conference provides the rare ground on which to explore the field through hands-on workshops and lectures, to enter deep dialogue with like-minded others already at work in the field, and to explore one’s own needs and desires related to writing as a practice and as a means of healing. – Educator and storyteller.

I am transformed and ready to carry on! – Writer and counselor.

I left with a better understanding of where I want to go. Once again I’m transformed. – Student.

I’ve found my right livelihood. – Writer and counselor.