For Academics Who Want to Write Again

If you want to write and you’re not writing, there are simple tools that can help. This group isn’t about academic writing per se, but it will support your academic writing by helping you reduce resistance and build a more consistent creative practice. It’s about getting in touch with the throughline, the inner vein of creativity that runs through everything you do.

In this group, you will:

• Move out of “stuckness” and reduce the resistance that keeps you from writing

• Build a more consistent, sustainable creative practice that supports your academic work

• Reconnect with your creative self and bring that energy back into your writing and your life

  
  

I am an academic writing coach and editor. For the past several years, I’ve worked independently with faculty and advanced doctoral students on publishing their work. Prior to starting my business, I served on the faculty of the Harvard Writing Program, where I taught courses on academic writing. I also led writing workshops for graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and for faculty and students in the Psychology Department. I typically work with clients one-on-one to support them through the writing and publication process. This group is something new.

This summer, I’m piloting a weekly, discussion-based group where we work through the program laid out by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. This group is specifically for academics (present or past) who feel that a part of their life is blocked or missing, and who want to explore creative ways of living a more whole and fulfilling life. A life that isn’t just about making deadlines or responding to every email that fills your inbox, but one that makes time for creativity and true self-expression.

If you’re not familiar with The Artist’s Way, it is a manual for creative recovery that Julia Cameron wrote in 1992. It’s a simple, readable book that presents tools for creative recovery—practices you can do that will shift you out of “stuckness” and back into the flow of a creative life.  After presenting these basic tools, the book is broken up into 12 chapters, each with a focus and set of exercises.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Each weekly meeting will include a mix of discussion about the ideas in that week’s chapter, reflections on the exercises and assignments from the book (which will be optional; I encourage you to do what feels feasible and enjoyable), and hands-on creative time during the session. This work doesn’t just help you feel more creative. It helps you return to the page more consistently, with less resistance, and with a clearer sense of what you want to say.

The group will meet once a week for 12 weeks over the summer from June to August. (We will take off June 29^th, the Monday of the July 4^th holiday week.) We’ll meet on Mondays from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm Eastern Time. Meetings will take place live, over Zoom, and they will not be recorded. I’m limiting enrollment in this first run to six people, because I want to foster community, support, and connection among the members of the group. You have to be there live for that to happen! I also want people to feel comfortable sharing their experiences and speaking openly, which is why there will be no recording. It’s kind of like Vegas—what gets said in Creative Recovery Group stays in Creative Recovery Group.

All the details

If you identify as an academic, from any discipline, this group is for you. That doesn’t necessarily mean you currently work as a faculty member, although it’s likely you have a doctorate or master’s degree in your field. This group is for academics who want to get unstuck, build a more consistent writing practice, and reconnect with the creative part of themselves that often gets pushed aside. If you’ve been wanting to strengthen your academic writing, or if the creative side of you rarely gets attention because your writing time always goes to the serious work, the work that “counts,” this group is for you.

Email me at julia@juliagalindocoaching.com to join or ask questions. If this resonates but you’re not available this summer, please reach out anyway and I’ll add you to the email list if there’s a next run.