You've written a dissertation, articles, proposals, conference papers, book chapters, reviewer responses, and countless other things academia has asked of you.
And yet writing may still feel harder than you think it should.
Maybe you procrastinate even when the project matters deeply to you. Maybe perfectionism makes every sentence feel consequential. Maybe feedback stays with you much longer than you'd like. Maybe you've learned to associate writing with evaluation, productivity, rejection, comparison, urgency, or the persistent feeling that whatever you produce is never quite enough.
And maybe you've responded by asking yourself:
What's wrong with me?
Healing the Writing Wound asks more of a compassionate question.
Healing the Writing Wound
A 12-week, trauma-informed small-group experience for scholars who want to understand what has shaped their relationship with writing—and practice writing with greater agency, connection, and possibility.
Compassion for what you’ve carried
Trust in your voice and knowledge
Community that makes room for you
Writing practices that honor your capacity
FALL 2026 COHORT - FULL NEXT COHORT - FALL 2027
Maybe writing itself was never the problem.
Reclaim your voice. Rebuild trust. Make room for the writing that is yours.
12-week small-group experience
“You can’t punish yourself into productivity.”
“But you can write your way into wholeness—slowly, gently, in your own time.”
the thinking behind the work
What has shaped my relationship with writing—and what do I want that relationship to become?
READ THE ESSAY IN INSIDE HIGHER ED →
A dismissive comment. A humiliating encounter with feedback. Repeated messages that your language, experiences, or ways of knowing don’t belong. Years of treating exhaustion as evidence that you’re working hard enough.
These experiences can change how you approach the page: what you say, what you leave out, whose voice you trust, and whether writing feels possible at all.
HTWW makes room to acknowledge those experiences without requiring you to revisit every painful detail.
Together, we explore what you’ve carried—and practice choosing what you want to carry forward.
You don’t have to carry your writing wounds alone.
A writing wound is about what happened around the writing.
From understanding to possibility.
We can understand what shaped us without staying there.
Understanding why writing feels difficult can open possibilities. So can experimenting with a different practice, sharing an unfinished idea, or discovering that someone else understands exactly what you mean.
Over 12 weeks, we make room for both reflection and action.
Healing and reclamation belong together.
What you may be carrying:
What we practice together.
Writing tangled with pressure, shame, or dread
A habit of questioning your own voice
Fear of criticism before anyone has read a word
Productivity expectations that ignore your capacity
The feeling that you must figure it all out alone
Approaching writing with greater curiosity and care
Recognizing your knowledge and trusting your choices
Sharing work without requiring perfection first
Building rhythms that respond to your actual life
Receiving support without having to perform brilliance
The invitation is to develop more choice in how you meet the page, especially when writing feels difficult.
The ANCHOR Framework
The ANCHOR Framework guides our work together, offering practical ways to meet writing blocks with compassion and take a next step.
A — Acknowledge & Name Your Block
Notice what is getting in the way without turning it into a verdict about yourself.
N — Nurture Your Ideas and Self
Give emerging ideas room to develop while attending to the person doing the writing.
C — Create a Plan
Choose manageable next steps that reflect your priorities and capacity.
H — Harness Momentum
Recognize what helps you begin, continue, and return.
O — Overcome Perfectionism
Practice letting writing develop through experimentation, imperfection, and revision.
R — Reflect & Revise
Learn from the process and adjust both your writing and the practices supporting it.
We return to these practices throughout the program, making room for the different ways writing unfolds.
a structure to return to when writing feels uncertain
what participants say
Stories of finding their way back to writing—and themselves.
Participants describe greater trust in their voices, more room to experiment, and the relief of being accompanied by people who understand.
Their experiences offer a glimpse of what becomes possible when writing is met with compassion, curiosity, and community.
Deidre Hill Butler, PhD
Professor & Chair
Sociology Department
Union College
Healing the Writing Wound Alumna
“I didn’t realize how much I needed a space like this until I was in it.
Healing the Writing Wound gave me permission—permission to be silent, permission not to perform, permission to just be. And that was powerful for me, because I’ve been socialized to always say something, always show up in a certain way. But in this space, I was already seen. I didn’t have to prove anything.
Something shifted in me over these 12 weeks. I started sharing my work again—work that had been sitting for years. I started submitting. I still get that little voice sometimes, like, ‘who’s going to support this?’—but I did it anyway. And that’s new for me.
What surprised me most was the community. Intergenerational, real, honest. I came in used to being the one with the knowledge, but I found myself learning so much from everyone else. We listened to each other. We held space for each other. There was no judgment—just care.
And honestly, it brought me back to myself. I’m an artist at heart, and somewhere along the way, the academy kind of stomped that out. But this space reminded me—no, that part of me is still here. It’s still alive. Now I’m working on my book again. I’m starting a podcast. I’m creating.
This wasn’t just about writing. It was about healing. It was about being in a space where you can actually bloom.
And in the climate we’re in right now? Spaces like this aren’t extra. They’re necessary.”
"My relationship to writing before Healing the Writing Wound felt fragmented-it was too painful to even think about. I gained the confidence to center myself in my writing through the radical love and support of this circle."
"I'm excavating ideas about my writing and work ethic that were never truly mine to begin with. The reflections are helping me claim what's actually mine, honor the limits I'm mavigating, and release the rest."
"l appreciate the spaciousness to talk about what's hard with writing without solving it or making a plan."
"For those of us suffering from resistance exhaustion, this is a breath of fresh air."
"This is a space to take time with yourself and to consider developing a spacious and loving way of engaging with writing."
"I now stop and pay attention to what I'm feeling and try to name it, think about it. let myself feel without judgement and continue to write. It has made writing feel more connected to who I am."
Pamela (Iyabo) Twyman Hoff, PhD
Professor, University of Illinois Springfield
Healing the Writing Wound Alumna
"Before Healing the Writing Wound, I was writing consistently—but I no longer felt connected to my own voice. I knew how to produce scholarly work, but my writing had begun to feel like a performance, shaped more by academic expectations than by who I was. It was technically strong, but spiritually distant.
This program helped me realize that my writing process wasn't broken—it was simply different. I stopped seeing my nonlinear, intuitive way of writing as a flaw and began to recognize it as an essential part of how I make meaning. I reconnected with my voice through greater compassion, reflection, and trust in my own process.
What made the experience extraordinary was the community. Together, we created a space that refused the isolation and performance so common in academia. We met one another with honesty, grace, and deep care. Through conversation, stories, music, poetry, and reflection, healing became something we experienced—not just something we talked about.
If your writing feels disconnected from who you are—if you're producing but no longer feel present in your own work—Writing Reclaimed offers something rare: a space to return to yourself. I didn't leave with a new writing process. I left having reclaimed the one that had always been mine."
TTT
The Rhythm
This program is for you if:
You're a faculty member, graduate student, or scholar who has internalized writing wounds-and you're ready to name and transform them.
You've ever been told your writing wasn't "academic enough," "too emotional," or "not polished"-and those words still linger.
You find yourself avoiding writing, procrastinating, over-editing, or writing in someone else's voice.
You're navigating academic spaces where your full self hasn't always been welcomed-because of your race, gender, class, language, ability, or identity.
12 weeks each fall
Weekly Small-group co-writing
Midpoint Saturday Writing Retreat
Private online community
Weekly 90-minute gatherings
1:1 Coaching Sessions w/ Aurora
Healing the Writing Wound is not therapy. It is a trauma-informed educational and developmental writing program. While we may explore experiences that have shaped our relationships with writing and academia, our focus is on writing, authorship, agency, and developing more sustainable ways of being with the page.
Consistent support. Room to be human.
Healing the Writing Wound is a 12-week experience.
total investment
$3,500
August 30-November 15, 2027
12 weeks
live sessions: mondays
9am PT 10am MT 11am CT 12pm ET
Because I believe transformative support should be available to scholars from a range of financial circumstances, each cohort includes a limited number of community access scholarships. If finances are the primary barrier to participating, I encourage you to reach out.
dates
Registration Deadline: April 15, 2027