Untether your Storyteller’s Voice:
An Author’s Identity Retreat with Tanya Taylor Rubinstein and the Somatic Writing Team
Featuring special guest Mary Gauthier, Grammy-nominated songwriter and author of Saved by a Song (St. Martin’s Press)
Saturday - Sunday, February 18-19, 2023
10 am - 3 pm each day Central Time
Dear Writer,
We are so very excited to invite you to our upcoming Somatic Writing Author’s Identity Retreat!
This two-day retreat will be a deep dive into helping you sink down into your body, connect with resources, including your ancestors and your connection to the land, as well as your connection to spirits and magic. All of these are Somatic Writing practices designed to facilitate your most radical breakthroughs.
We could not be more thrilled to announce our amazing, inspiring special guest for this retreat: Mary Gauthier, musician, Grammy-nominated songwriter, author of Saved by a Song (St. Martin’s Press, 2021), and an incredibly honest, transparent, brilliant human being. Mary and Tanya will have a rich, intimate conversation about the journey to becoming a published author, followed by Q&A.
Here are just some of the topics we’ll cover with Mary, and throughout the weekend:
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How does one open through trauma to get to the deeper material?
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How does one heal and liberate after traumatic events? After grief and disappointment?
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How to work with these emotions, and get resourced and supported enough to get the words onto the page
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Determining which path to publication is right for you
In addition to our special guest conversations and Q&A, You will be led through incredible exercises, including:
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Core foundational Somatic Writing practices designed to connect with the body, with the ancestors, with land, and land spirits.
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How to enchant your writing process with the magical Writers’ Black Book practice
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How to set up your own Writing Altar and work with it
Together we will explore how to energetically open and ground in a way where you can deepen your relationship with your storyteller’s voice, and express new levels of freedom and spaciousness in your writing.
We can’t wait to be together soon!
About our Special Guest:
Mary Gauthier
The Associated Press named Mary Gauthier as one of the best songwriters of her generation. Mary has been nominated for a Grammy award for Best Folk Album, and Record of the Year by the Americana Music Association in the US. The UK Americana Association named Mary their 2019 International Artist of the Year, and Folk Alliance International named Mary’s Rifles & Rosary Beads the 2019 Record of the Year.
Mary is also a published author; her first book Saved by a Song came out on St. Martin’s Press in 2021. Rolling Stone Country called Saved by a Song "A handbook for compassion... a Must-Read Music Book.”
Mary’s songs have been recorded by dozens of artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Dolly Parton, Boy George, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Bettye Lavette, Mike Farris, Kathy Mattea, Bobby Bare, Amy Helm and Candi Staton, and have appeared extensively in Film and Television, most recently on HBO TV’s Yellowstone and ABC’s Nashville.
About the Facilitators:
Courtney Reed-Marsh: Trained as a fiction writer, with a deep love of myth and a publishing industry background in personal story-based nonfiction, I thrive in the liminal spaces where well honed craft comes together with image and metaphor, lived experience and collective knowing to bring great storytelling to life.
As a coach and developmental editor, I approach wordcraft—especially with personal story material—as a kind of spell work, combining the elements of everyday reality with intention to reveal new and powerful truths. Drawing on my collaborative experience with literary agents, big name publishers, small presses, and self-publishing authors alike, I work synergistically with writers who are already gifted at storytelling but need the right support to reach their true literary potential.
My people are the outsiders—the subversives and visionaries, queers and witches, anyone brave enough to look deeply into whatever it is that makes them different and allow the poetry and potency of their personal story to be laid bare on the page as an offering to the world. I’ll offer live and written feedback on your drafted material to uncover the shimmering threads, resonant metaphors, and authentic writer’s voice that elevate your story and showcase your book’s unique beauty and relevance within the wider cultural landscape.
Tanya Taylor Rubinstein, founder of Somatic Writing, has been a story mentor for the last 25 years. Starting off as an award-winning actor and solo performer, in 2002 she published her book on her methodology, The Cancer Monologue Project, to establish herself as one of the most globally-recognized personal narrative, story and writing coaches.
Since then, she has trained scores of other story coaches and helped over 1,000 people write and publish memoirs, write and perform one person shows, and share their stories as therapeutic, transformational monologues on stages.
The Somatic Writing process is an integration of her mastery in the fields of story, embodiment, and healing. Somatic Writing culminates in profoundly impactful, ethical, and evolutionary leadership.
