upcoming classes & events
This time in the United States requires bravery. In this three-session generative class hosted over Zoom, connect weekly with your writing voice through prompts inspired by archetype cards—emerging beautifully in touch with your most resourced, powerful, and essential selves.
In this two-hour session at a private home in Midtown Tucson, write to deep, soulful prompts and connect with other writers.
The world needs our wildness—our sharp eyes and trickery and heart compass and bravery and resourcefulness and beauty—more than ever. In this two-hour virtual session, write alongside other women to prompts inspired by the the timeless Clarissa Pinkola Estés classic Women Who Run With the Wolves.
The world needs our wildness—our sharp eyes and trickery and heart compass and bravery and resourcefulness and beauty—more than ever. In these two-hour in-person sessions hosted at a private home, write alongside other women to prompts inspired by the the timeless Clarissa Pinkola Estés classic Women Who Run With the Wolves.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
What’s going on when gorgeous timely writing repeatedly comes close, yet fails to be accepted? In this one-session class, explore how your subconscious beliefs impact the way your writing goes into the world, and create a plan for shifting your energetics.
Join us for a facilitated book club conversation about Lightning Flowers with Kati at Violet Volumes Bookstore in Victor, ID.
Join Kati and the Teton Science Schools for a book talk and conversation on the iconic porch of conservationist Mardy Murie’s cabin on the historic Murie Ranch.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
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.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
Take advantage of Kati’s trauma writing doula experience in a lower-cost, asynchronous format. Over six weeks on WetInk, you’ll assess what’s getting in the way of your writing, connect with the resources you need to move forward, and find a narrative toehold in your project—ultimately stepping forward into your necessary writing transformation with power and momentum.
Join Katherine Standefer for a virtual reading, book talk, and Q&A hosted by the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation. The EKR Foundation continues the work of the famed Swiss psychiatrist who developed the now-famous Five Stages of Grief. In this event, Katherine shares her experience living in relationship to death as a young person.
Join Kati at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, where she’ll deliver the Nonfiction Keynote, teach a workshop, and consult on manuscripts. For nearly three decades, the Jackson Hole Writers Conference has brought together writers of all levels from all walks of life to share ideas, hone craft, and form community.
In a world full of sexual trauma, silencing, and shame, writing about sexuality can be intimidating. Yet your experiences carry the medicine we all need. Join writer Katherine Standefer and feminist psychologist Tracy Sidesinger for an intimate, joyful retreat designed to help you tell your sexual story. Dig into desire, improve your sex scenes, organize your experiences, gain skills for safely engaging trauma on the page, and benefit from time to write deeply, with the rare community that only crystallizes when we do the brave, magical work of owning our stories together.
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.
All humans die. To focus on this fundamental truth can be macabre-- yet death exists hand in hand with some of our most powerful, precious, and beautiful experiences. In this 6-week nonfiction class, we'll explore the craft of writing about death, noticing the narrative structures and syntax that effectively hold brutal experiences.
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.
A year after a strange virus appeared in China, ripped through New York, and shut down the world, our lives are marked. In this 10-week class, we’ll tell the story of what we lived. Moving intentionally through different levels of our pandemic experience, week by week we’ll turn experiences into wisdom—examining changes in our parenting, career, partnerships, and friendships, as well as our experiences of politics, social justice, the environment, and our bodies. We’ll arrive, at the end, with the beginnings of writing that can minister to us all.
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.
Telling our stories of trauma can be excruciating, and the process—if not undertaken carefully—can further damage our nervous systems. But for some of us the task is spiritually mandatory, demanding that we lean forward into a process not just of drafting, but of transforming. In this two-day online workshop, we’ll explore what it looks like to surrender to a writing process that is operating on multiple planes, while digging into the specifics of crafting inventive and powerful art from difficult stories.
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.
