· About ·
Nadia Colburn
POET, TEACHER, AND CREATOR OF MINDFUL WRITING CLASSES ONLINE
I'm so glad you're here!
The More Professional Bio: About Nadia
(See my more personal bio below this)
Nadia Colburn is the author of two books of poetry, The High Shelf and I Say the Sky (University Press of Kentucky, January 2024), which won both the Best Poetry Book: General and Best Poetry Book: Nature at the 2024 American Book Fest Best Book Awards.
k. Spare, brilliant, and open-hearted, these poems do what we most need art to do in this perilous age: they show how the mind invents both itself and its world, and thus where our responsibility lies. This is a book that will reward both readers of poetry and those seeking insight into suffering and resilience. An exhilarating read."
Chase Twichell
Author of Things as It Is
Nadia Colburn has written a marvelous book of poetry that will appeal to poetry lovers everywhere. These poems speak to the human condition and its transitions and transformations, making meaning of life's difficulties and showing us how to turn them into celebrations. I recommend their imagery, beauty, and powerful metaphors to everyone.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D.
Author of Coyote Medicine
These are sharply-focused lyric meditations that memorably dramatize the simplicity and anguished complexity of the world and the heart that fully inhabits it.
Gregory Orr
Author of The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write and Poetry as Survival
Nadia's poetry and creative nonfiction have been widely published in more than eighty national publications including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion’s Roar, Truthout, Slate.com, American Scholar, Grist.org, Literary Imagination, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, Yes! Magazine, Yale Review, Southwest Review, Boston Globe Magazine, Conjunctions, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly, LA Review of Books, Volt, Columbia: A Journal, elephant journal, Appalachia, and Tiny Buddha. My writing has won numerous awards, including a PEN/NE Discovery Award in Poetry, and my essay “Listening to My Body” appears in the anthology The Anatomy of Silence: Twenty-Six Stories About All the Sh** That Gets in the Way of Speaking About Sexual Violence.
She holds a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, where her studies were supported by a Mellon Fellowship and a Jacob Davits Fellowship, and where she won the Bunner Prize for Best American Essay. She also holds a B.A. from Harvard where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Nadia is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher and an Order of Interbeing aspirant in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Tradition.
Nadia has been a professor at MIT, Lesley, and Stonehill College, where she was a visiting writer, and has served as the writer-in-residence at Northeastern's Center For Spirituality, Dialogue and Service. She has also given popular workshops, retreats and talks on such topics as creative writing, integrating the mind and body, claiming our full stories, healing and re-imagining trauma, and women’s power at The Omega Institute, Grub Street, The Muse and the Marketplace, The Mass Poetry Festival, Om Namo Yoga Center, The Harvard Divinity School, Boston College and many other places.
As the founder of the Nadia Colburn online writing school, Nadia has worked with thousands of students as a writing and development coach and teacher. Her unique approach brings together the best of craft and process.
My Story:
A More Personal Bio from a Writer, and Writing and Meditation Teacher
My path as a writer, teacher, and coach has been an untraditional one.
I love to help create pathways for authentic becoming through writing and am here to support you on your journey!
I’m a mother, wife of more than 27 years, reader, writer, activist, yogi, meditator, citizen, and earth being. I bring all of these experiences to my work.
I’ve always been a seeker, passionate about finding meaning. I grew up in New York City with one younger sister in a house full of books to parents who both worked in publishing. I was an avid reader and a somewhat serious ballet dancer.
I went to Harvard where I majored in English, and after a year in Paris with my boyfriend (now husband), I went to graduate school to study English Literature at Columbia University.
Much as I enjoyed graduate school, I was eager to live more fully, and had my first child, Gabriel, when I was 27. I wanted to move into my heart more, and that baby definitely moved me into my heart: being a mom rocked my world and opened me up.
No longer content primarily to study other people’s literature, I wanted to explore more deeply my own writing as a woman and mother, and I moved to Cambridge, where I studied poetry with the Harvard Professor of Poetry, Jorie Graham.
Five days after I moved from New York to Cambridge was 9/11/01. My heart—and eyes—opened even more. I felt a calling to work for peace and to stop the proliferation of violence. I helped organize peace rallies and became a volunteer counselor with the GI Rights Hotline, which provides free counsel to members of the military, many of whom were looking for ways out of the military and/or dealing with PTSD.
At the same time, I began to publish my poems widely. After having my second child, Simone, four years after Gabriel was born, I began to write prose focusing on issues of transition, motherhood, peace and environmental justice.
The questions I was asking
in my writing led me deeper
into my own story and body
I began to investigate long-standing physical imbalances and chronic illness that conventional medicine hadn't resolved.
This line of personal inquiry and my own writing itself, which forced me to look inward more and more deeply, led to a direct confrontation with my own early childhood trauma.
This confrontation turned my life upside down for several years as I went into very deep healing work to overcome post traumatic stress and be the mother and woman I wanted to be. But as challenging as that work was, it helped me clarify my own commitment to healing on every level, my commitment to a spiritual path, and my commitment to helping create a more peaceful world in which people are able to come into their authentic and aligned voice and vision.
I became an aspirant in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing and a certified Kundalini Yoga instructor. I studied various forms of spiritual and holistic healing and found in them a shared message of peace, compassion, presence, and power.
I believe the shadow sides of our lives — personal, relational, societal — are also opportunities for healing, purpose, and transformation.
My writing explores voice, personal and collective trauma, healing, childhood, motherhood, and our connection to the earth in this time of climate crisis.
Mindful Writing and Online Writing Workshops for Healing and Growth
In addition to writing poetry, I write personal essays and memoir. I believe in the power of art as a transformative practice and sacred space for truth-telling.
As a teacher, it is my honor and calling to help people and organizations find clarity, empowerment, and healing through their stories.
I believe that our personal stories matter deeply. Through our uniqueness, we connect most powerfully with others. When we get clear on our stories, we are able to manifest the change we want to see in the world.
In these times of environmental crisis and political upheaval, there is no greater calling than to come into our centers and develop our voices and visions.
I help people uncover their full stories and unlock the power of their creative voice. I work with writers at all levels, from beginners to published authors. I help students write to heal themselves, others, and the earth. Claiming our voice, speaking, and writing, helps us both be present and take action, and our writing itself is both a form of presence and action.
I'm there to support you from first drafts through revisions and the publication process — both what’s on the page and what’s beneath it.
I work with professionals, academics, and writers who are seeking to bring a more holistic, embodied practice to their writing. I also work with healers and people interested in healing themselves through writing. By integrating mindfulness, creativity, and depth, I support individuals and groups in cultivating greater alignment, clarity, and authentic expression. You can begin this journey today with my free mindful writing resources.
Explore Mindful Writing Classes and Coaching with Nadia Colburn
Join the Free 5-Day Meditation & Writing Challenge
Get over blocks, come into greater insight and flow, and tap into your authentic creative voice when you bring together meditation and writing. For writers and meditators of any level of experience.
