Open To a New page oF Your story
upcoming courses
WRITING TIME
Writers are time-travelers. Through memory, reflection, and imagination we can heal old stories and call in the understandings, timelines, and narratives that we need now. In this 6-week generative workshop, we will use time as a framework to explore creativity and consciousness through meditative writing. Each live class will include guided meditation and freewriting, and will be recorded for those who wish to attend asynchronously. Lessons will be supported with more than 40 additional resources and prompts so you can continue writing and learning at your own pace. This course is suitable for beginning writers who wish to commit to their process, and experienced writers looking to bring more inspiration and spaciousness to existing projects. See the curriculum here.
Writers are time-travelers. Through memory, reflection, and imagination we can heal old stories and call in the understandings, timelines, and narratives that we need now. In this 6-week generative workshop, we will use time as a framework to explore creativity and consciousness through meditative writing. Each live class will include guided meditation and freewriting, and will be recorded for those who wish to attend asynchronously. Supportive for both beginning and experienced writers.
Writing fosters spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth.
BY Writing our stories, we gain agency over them.
We lessen our attachment to them as self-definitions,
And WE CONNECT TO OThERS.
How can you transcend your pain, your story, your closed identity, AND PUT IT into THE service oF greater awakening?
One way is to keep writing.
Rachel Jamison Webster
MEET YOUR instructor
Hello! I am Rachel Jamison Webster. I have taught creative writing at Northwestern University for 20 years and have developed community writing workshops through the Urban League, After School Matters, and Gallery 37. I have also facilitated end-of-life care, and have studied meditation for more than 20 years, completing trainings in meditation and energy healing at Invision Chicago. I love to help people to heal old stories, and inspire them to write the work that only they can write. My students have gone on to publish successful books, and to fulfill themselves with creative careers and multi-media projects. (Some of these amazing students include the comedian Ziwe, and the authors Tara Stringfellow, Zining Mok, Liv Behr, and Aozora Brockman. I highly recommend their work!)
While guiding students and clients in their creative process, I continue to experiment, learn, and meet my own goals as a writer. I have published five books, including Mary is a River, a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, which was chosen as a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker, and a notable book by The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly and others. I am currently writing a book about my female ancestors and the creative processes special to women. I publish essays, poems, and stories in outlets like Poetry, Lit Hub, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review. My practice as a writer informs my teaching, and I love sharing my ideas for fulfilling our full creative potential.