Dear Reader, I hope you're well! I'm spending these last few days of summer in Maine with my husband, Eric, and in this precious pause before the busyness of the fall begins, I've been thinking a lot about silence. One of my teachers, the Buddhist monk and activist, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes: If you don't have silence in yourself, you cannot hear the call of life. Your heart is calling you, but you don't hear. You don't have time to listen to your heart. So many of us don't have the silence and...
15 days ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, How are you? How are your mind, body, and spirit doing? I'm writing to you today with a few exciting announcements, reminders, and reflections for the week :) Next Week! FREE Online Mini Writing Retreat on August 29th As I look ahead to the fall, I'm excited to offer a FREE online mini writing retreat. At this time of transition, use these 75 minutes together to center, come into your creative vision, and make a plan for your writing for this fall! A FREE Online Mini Writing...
20 days ago • 5 min read
Dear Reader, How are you doing? It's mid-August; amazing! I'm spending a few days in Vermont with Eric and the kids before the kids head off to their fall adventures (college and a new job); I find myself already looking back with nostalgia to earlier in the summer, looking ahead to the fall, and, at the same time, trying to be fully present, right here, right now. Today, I thought I'd share one of my poems, "August" (recently published in The Sun). The poem is about looking back and looking...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, I'm here in Panama taking a little break from my own creative writing to email you :) I'm really looking forward to my upcoming publication class next week, so I wanted to talk a bit today about publication and how I'm thinking about it right now... Publication can be a mystery and a challenge, even to the most seasoned writers. It can feel challenging to “promote” our work or to be our own spokesperson. I’ve taught and coached writers for over twenty years, and I’ve seen the...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Dear Reader, I'm so excited to be teaching my first in-person writing retreat in a long time...and this is going to be a really special one! I speak from experience when I say that group retreats, like this one, can be truly transformative. Several years ago, I was feeling I'd hit a plateau; I wasn't sure what was next— I cleared my schedule and set up a solitary writing retreat—but not much happened. Then, I went away with some friends to a group writing retreat, and something magical...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Dear Reader, Outside my window, as I'm writing to you, the birds are singing! Sometimes, we forget all the wonder that's in the world. But writing can be a space to remember, to put ourselves back together, to center, to re-orient. Join me tomorrow, live, for a FREE restorative, generative pop-up workshop with the wonderful teacher Elena Brower. Tuesday, March 19th, 11:30am EDT | Virtual (Online via Zoom) Writing as Practice:A Free Class with Nadia Colburn and Elena Brower Nourish your...
6 months ago • 3 min read
Dear Reader, Happy Friday! Today, I want to share a companion piece to the Make Your Story a Gift essay that I shared earlier this week. In "Make Your Story a Gift," I traced my journey to understand, make peace with, and share my own story—and to support other women in their writing and healing journeys. Today's essay, "The Wrong I Needed to Write," is about how my journey involved not only my mind but also my body. To accompany the essay, I've included a free 5-minute grounding meditation...
6 months ago • 5 min read
Dear Reader, After a wonderful few weeks of traveling on my book tour, I'm now back home in Cambridge, where the days are getting longer and I can begin to see and feel the Earth moving ever so slowly towards spring. Over the next few weeks, in anticipation of the launch of my upcoming spring course, Align Your Story, I’ll be sharing a few essays I’ve written about how I came to understand and make peace with my own difficult story and why I created this distinctive writing class with...
7 months ago • 10 min read
Dear Reader,I’m writing from Colorado where Eric has flown out to meet me. It has been really great visiting our daughter, Simone, and spending time with friends new and old in a number of cities where I've been giving readings. There's much I've been enjoying and relishing–including the snow-capped mountains and clear Colorado skies. I've also been noticing that many of my conversations have been turning to really difficult topics. Many people are feeling uneasy around the political...
7 months ago • 3 min read