
About Body Stories
Our bodies speak to us; they hold our stories, secrets, and memories. Every story you want to write is already alive in your cells. Our bodies are storerooms for everything that has ever happened to us. Allen Ginsberg talked about images coming down from the brian and air coming up from the lungs and the images and air meeting in the throat, where words come. But our stories are also entwined in our hips, our knees, our teeth and our sternum. Your stories live in your heart and your lungs and your eyes. All stories and poetry are about the body, because we use our bodies to understand ourselves and the world.
Writing through the body and about the body puts us in touch with something bigger than language, the whole life journey through to our own mortality.
Your Body on a Journey
In this 6-week somatic writing course, writers are invited to tap into the Hero’s Journey of their body -which includes all of it: birthing, coming of age, breaking, hunger and celebration. During this course, you will also practice literary and poetic techniques. Your body is a personal navigation system, an antique map, a key to the stories that want to find their way into your books, essays or blogs.
“Writing is for you, you are for you;
your body is yours, take it. . . . Women must write through their bodies,
they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics,
regulations and codes . . .”
— Hélène Cixous
Bodies Break & Suffer
Bodies eventually break or break down – they age, they break or they experience grief. How a body response to all the trials takes on many forms. Bodies also teach us – they emerge with wisdom for how to move through the world in a new way. This is something we can trust will happen at some point, from injury, cancer, or the natural aging process. You can also trust there is a wellspring of wisdom residing in your cells. Our physical challenges and limitations are also a source of creativity and grace.
Together, over six weeks, we will write our trials and triumphs of the the body through guided exercises and literary inspiration. – step by step, hip by hip, heart by heart. We will call the body back to the page and activate its pulse, breath and passion.
Who is this Workshop For:
Our six week themed workshops are designed for all writers as a writing practice, and also to authors and experienced writers seeking to create content for memoir. This workshop creates a weekly practice, and heart connecting support of a community of writers all taking the same course. This themed workshop may also resonate for anyone who has had any physical challenges or is facing physical challenges. Our bodies are on a Hero’s Journey, which is connected to our spiritual journey. informing every story we write. In the end, all our physical challenges offer us a unique wisdom and a new lens of compassion – for ourselves and others.
Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories,
and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.
— Katie Canno
The Desire to Write
For hundreds of years poets and writers have described the creative process as a physical urgency, a sense that things will fly apart if they don’t get the pencil to the page in time. Memories are stored in our lungs, lower back, liver and hearts. They live on our skin, our feet, our mouths and our sex organs…..
“every organ embodies a purpose and has an influence
that goes far beyond its biological function.
As every organ contributes to your life story,
it embodies a specific theme,
holding its important piece in the cosmos’ great mysteries.”
— Nancy Mellon, Body Eloquence
TOPICS EXPLORED IN THIS CLASS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING*:
BIRTH – We all came out of a body, and the act was transformational. Then, many of us went onto birth. The opening week we explore the complexity of this act, and the beauty and trauma that often walk side by side.
COMING OF AGE – Our bodies got through many stages throughout our lives, but our first Coming of Age is notoriously adolescence, when a body is going through it’s second major transformation.
BREAKING–At some time in our lives, something in our body breaks and breaks down and we are forced to slow down, stop, ask for help. Maybe it’s cancer, arthritis, or simply aging. There is an opening in any breaking.
INTUITION– Our bodies tell us when to come and when to go, they can save our life or the life of someone we love. This is an exploration of knowing, through our body’s organs. In this class, we will write through several organs in our body.
HUNGER – Our physical & sexual hungers drive many of our life decisions. In Chinese medicine the stomach is the catalyst. We will explore the all of hunger through the body, including how hunger assists us to make major changes in our lives.
BOUNDARY – Our human skin is not just our boundary keeper, it’s the threshold through which we experience the world. It’s a guard that keeps watch on and around our body. Its strategy is to enhance pleasure and avoid pain. It protects our body and our souls.
CELEBRATIONS– Bodies celebrate through sensuality, sexuality, dance, walking, hiking and moving inside nature. Celebrating is an important gift to the body and is an important part of healing. In this class we will explore the moments in our lives when our bodies bloomed.
*Topics are subject to change as the class curriculum develops




About Literati Academy Workshops
PRACTICE TECHNIQUE
In classes wee merge inspirational topics with poetic and literary techniques.
We often explore utilizing questions, odes, metaphor, dialogue and place by exploring technique a series of pre-writing exercises, while creating content in small writing segments – content that can be used in creating memoir, fiction, poetry, essays and blogs.
This style of learning to write becomes a fun exploration by connecting us more deeply with our own stories through a unique kind of practice that up levels our writing and invites us to play, while also learning technique.
SMALL, INTIMATE ONLINE GROUP
Each week you will take the class with the same students, writing together and sharing your stories in a 2 1/2 hour class. The intimate, live group becomes a family of writers who often will work together for months and years! If you have to miss a week, you can audit the class with another live group on another day, or receive the class via Keynote. Writers learn from the curriculum, but also from the feedback you receive from other writers, and hearing what works in the stories created by the writers in the small group and larger community also taking the class.
THE ALCHEMY OF COMMUNITY
Stories save lives, and will ultimately save our world. When we tell our same stories over and over, those stories gain in strength and wisdom. The roots of the stories going deeper with every retelling. Our stories become powerful mythologies, where the magic shines out of words and paragraphs, swirling around the reader, filled with symbology and magic.
Writers come to our writing community to be in the practice of creating new material each week, to write inside a developed curriculum designed to teach through contemporary poets and authors as inspiration to create your own unique story.
By participating in these live classes, you learn the art of writing by practicing, deeply listening,
reading out loud and hearing what is good in your story reflected back to your by students.
BECOME PART OF A LARGER ACTIVE WRITING COMMUNITY
Between 80 and 100 writers will be taking the same class as you, taught in small groups. Throughout the week, stories are shared in a private Facebook group just for writers taking this class. In this active writing community, you will receive additional feedback on your writing throughout the six week course.
By getting to know and reading the work of other writers outside your group, you receive encouragement and positive feedback on the work you create in your smaller group, preparing you and giving you the confidence needed to continue with your stortelling.
WEEKLY 6-WEEK SERIES
Each group is an intimate group of 8 to 10 writers who work closely together for six weeks, deeply bonding and supporting each other’s creative leaps. Writers who must miss a class may audit another live class on the schedule.
CONTENT FOR YOUR MEMOIR
Though writing is a practice, in this group you have the opportunity to create first drafts of content if you are working on a memoir, poetry or essays. Many of our students have gone on to publication through this process of writing every week in our community, and many of our writers are authors often writing beside writers who are new to the practice.
Writing Teacher, Author & Founder of LITerati Academy: Laura Lentz
Laura Lentz is the author of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey, and the founder of Literati Academy. She has been teaching themed, intensive writing workshops for ten years, building a community of writers and authors from around the globe. Laura teaches intimate groups of ten through Zoom and live on the North Shore of Kauai. Her workbook, inspired by Christopher Vogler and Joseph Campbell and her students, helps writers write to every stage of their story through a series of prompts beside literary inspiration from best selling memoirs and poetry.
In her six week themes writing series, Laura helps writers create content and expand their body of work through unique methods – offering challenging and thought provoking writing prompts inspired by poetry, mythology and segments from literature. Laura carefully designs the curriculum for each 6-week writing workshops and also chooses guest teachers for each series.
Her exploratory writing workshops have expanded to include a workshop called Second Draft to move her experienced writers toward publication through peer critique.
Laura serves on the faculty of The Kauai Writers Conference and is conducting a Master Class for writers who want to write in sacred places on Kauai and allow Kauai’s beauty to influence their work.
Literati Academy frequently has guest authors, actors, astrologers and agents speak to students. Past authors have included Ellen Bass, Christina Baker Kline, Dorianne Laux, Raymond Barfield, Jeff Arch, John Lee and Debbie Augenthaler.
Educator: Robin Gadient
Meet Robin Gadient – Teaching Friday and Saturday
Robin Gadient, teacher of STORYquest, the Writer, the Hero, the Journey has developed a following as both a writer and a teacher. Robin has been writing in Laura’s writing groups creating poetry and heart opening stories for several series. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher right before your eyes. Robin graduated from UCSB with a BA in literature. Robin has the uncanny ability to hold space for all writers and respond in a way that creates the needed energy to create her community within a larger community. Robin is a talented poet you can follow on her Facebook wall.
Educator: Elizabeth Becker
Elizabeth has been writing poetry and personal essays in Laura’s groups since the early days and has taught several series including STORYquest. Her background in marketing and hospitality have fueled her mid-life shift as an Interfaith Chaplain and Spiritual Companion. She convenes groups of many purposes, often using story-telling as a means for transformation. A student of grief and renewal, she designs retreats and workshops. Her writing and film projects are woven into her life in a magical cottage, shared with her children and 98-year-old “uber-elder” father, John Becker.
New Sunday class available with Elizabeth Becker
If you do do not see a time that works for you, please email Laura with your request @Laurawriter@me.com
Thursday
Online
with Laura Lentz
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 19, 26
June 2, 9, 16 & 23rd
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247
Sunday
Online
with Laura Lentz
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 22nd, 29
June 5, 12, 9, 26
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247
Monday
Online
with Laura Lentz
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 23, 30
June 6, 13, 20, 27
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.
Tuesday
Online
with Laura Lentz
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 24, 31
June 7, 14, 21, 28
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
4pm PDT / 7pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.00
Wednesday
Kauai & Online
w/ Laura Lentz
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 25
June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
5:30 pm Hawaii time/8:30 p.m. PST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.00
Classes Taught by Robin Gadient & Elizabeth Becker
Saturday Online
w/ Elizabeth Becker
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 21, 28
June 4, 11, 18, 25
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
10:30 am PDT / 1:30 am EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.00
SUNDAY Online –
w/ Elizabeth Becker
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 22, 29
June 5, 12, 19, 26
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
3:00 PDT / 6:00 EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.00
Friday online
w/ Robin
SOLD OUT
– 6 weeks –
May 20, 27
June 3, 10, 17, 24
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch
(will be recorded)
11 am PDT / 2pm EST
Class is 2 1/2 hours
$247.00
Saturday Online
w/Robin
1 SPOT AVAILABLE
– 6 weeks –
May 21, 28
June 4, 11, 18, 25
Friday June 17th – 4 pm PST:
Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte & Annie Finch