How can we ethically write about other people—and what does it mean to do it well? In this 6-hour workshop, explore the craft of building nuanced characters, consider the legal or logistical implications of your storytelling, and reckon with owning your story’s difficult truths.

Although writing can be healing, crafting and publishing our most difficult stories can make trauma worse. In this 3-hour workshop with author and trauma specialist Katherine Standefer, learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process. Together, we’ll discuss some of the embodied blocks writers experience, touch into the craft problems common to this material, and explore tools for moving forward at the right time and with the right pace.

As the final card in the tarot’s Major Arcana, the World card signals successful completion of a cycle. In this 2-hour writing workshop at The Ninth House, we’ll write into our long journeys and celebrate our final threshold crossing. The World card wants you to know: You did it. And bigger things await.

Near the end of any journey comes a reckoning: How have we changed—and have we changed enough? In this 2-hour writing workshop at The Ninth House, we’ll hold up the mirror to thoroughly and honestly account for who we are. Sounding its wake-up call, the Judgment Card wants us to know: Transformation is here. But it requires our full participation.

After a long, disorienting night, we blink into the light of a new day. In this 2-hour workshop, we’ll continue our journey through the Third Line of the tarot with The Sun card, asking ourselves: After destruction, deep tending, and shadow work, how have we transformed? Together, we’ll write into the celebrations, joys and successes of The Sun card, as well as the tentativeness we often feel when moving back into illumination. The Sun card announces: The light has returned.

Learn how the physiological processes of trauma and shame interact with a writing process. Discuss some of the embodied blocks writers experience, touch into the craft problems common to traumatic material, and explore tools for moving forward at the right time and with the right pace.

At night, shapes lengthen and shadows grow. We can’t quite be sure of what we’re seeing. In this 2-hour writing workshop, we’ll continue our journey through the Third Line of the tarot, moving from the gentle self-tending of the Star card into the void energy of The Moon, noticing the dreams, visions, delusions, spells, madnesses and shadow work beckoning us. Moon energy is rarely comfortable, but it offers an essential invitation into spiritual mystery. The Moon card reminds us: There is a way to see in the dark.

Following the fires of the Tower card, the Star brings rain and rest. In this 2-hour writing workshop hosted by the Ninth House Shop, we’ll write into the raw moments after crisis, touch into our experiences of gentleness, identify what needs grieving, and step into a faith that can lead us forward. The Star card wants us to know: There is a way to come home to ourselves.

All of us live within structures—our days shaped by jobs, families, ideologies and laws. With its images of lightning, fire, and bodies falling from the sky, the Tower card makes clear: What has long stood is coming down. In this 2-hour writing workshop hosted by The Ninth House Shop, write into your relationship with destruction, revolution, and disaster, and touch into the Tower-season clarity, clearings, and awakenings that can point you toward what is next. The Tower card wants us to know: Starting over can be the truest gift.

With its connotations of addiction and shadow, pulling The Devil card in a tarot spread can make our stomachs twist. Yet beyond this spike of shame lies The Devil’s true promise: what tarot teacher Lindsay Mack calls “transformative liberation.” In this two-hour writing workshop, we’ll familiarize ourselves with the traditional meanings of The Devil card, explore our inner saboteur, and write into the risk-taking, pleasure, defiance, and sensuality that are our birthright. Through writing prompts, card-pulls, and sharing opportunities, The Devil card will help us commit: we will serve no master but our own souls.

In this 90-minute gathering, writers have the opportunity to ask Kati their questions— whether craft questions about writing trauma, illness, and sexuality; the way a writing life intersects spiritual invitations; or what it means to put our work in the world at this moment.

What happens when you’re living one life, and you suddenly receive clear spiritual instructions to live another? In this 75-minute conversation facilitated by poet and bone-thrower Kim Stoll, author Kati Standefer, brewery owner/founder Julie Vernon, and Ninth House owner/founder Melisa Doran Cole discuss their experiences being told there was a thing they must do, and becoming the person who could do it.

Join Kati for a virtual reading at Elk River Books of Livingston, Montana, one of the communities where she worked on Lightning Flowers. The free event will stream live on Elk River Books’ Facebook page.

From being featured on NPR's Fresh Air to appearing in Oprah Magazine's Reading Room, Kati Standefer's debut book Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life is making a splash. What's it like to go from dreaming of being an author to actually seeing your book in the world? In this virtual Kaleidoscope discussion, Kati Standefer will share her behind-the-scenes journey, give a short reading, and offer FUMCAH members a glimpse into why this book is so relevant right now.

Telling our stories of trauma can be excruciating, and the process—if not undertaken carefully—can damage our nervous systems. But for some of us the task is spiritually mandatory. In this 1 hour workshop as part of The Yoga Seed Collective's Roots to Resilience Summit, we’ll explore what it looks like to surrender to a writing process that is operating on multiple planes.

"If you can't talk about something, you can't think about something," writer Eula Biss told Krista Tippett. Join me in April as alumni of my classes-- writers of sex, illness, and trauma-- read together for the 4th Annual Literary Bacchanal on the patio at Tucson Hop Shop.

"If you can't talk about something, you can't think about something," writer Eula Biss told Krista Tippett. Join me in San Antonio in March as alumni of my classes and the authors they’ve loved-- writers of sex, illness, and trauma-- read together at the first national Literary Bacchanal, hosted near the annual AWP conference.

With its connotations of addiction and shadow, pulling The Devil card in a tarot spread can make our stomachs twist. Yet beyond this spike of shame lies The Devil’s true promise: what tarot teacher Lindsay Mack calls “transformative liberation.” In this two-hour writing workshop, we’ll familiarize ourselves with the traditional meanings of The Devil card, explore our inner saboteur, and write into the risk-taking, pleasure, defiance, and sensuality that are our birthright. Through writing prompts, card-pulls, and sharing opportunities, The Devil card will help us commit: In 2020, we will serve no master but our own souls.