Writing your story is one of the most powerful ways to heal.

Learn how and get started with supportive, somatic writing processes and simple memoir-writing techniques from 20+ skilled healers and writers, in this free 4-day virtual event.

April 14th - 17th

Learn how to write in a way that helps you move forward on your healing journey, and feels supportive and creative

Explore creative writing and life story writing processes that support your healing journey.

During the Healing Through Writing Festival you’ll learn how to:

  • Use writing and the creative arts as a tool for healing

  • Tap into the wisdom of your body through writing (and discover how that's connected to your healing)

  • Write about your life experiences and have your perspective (and triggers) change as a result

  • Source your healing from your inner life, your bodypsyche

Get your free ticket and join us to learn 20+ somatic healing and writing techniques from skilled guides and writers.

Explore writing and healing through these 4 different themes:

  • Take the lid off: dealing with and embracing grief, rage and challenges

  • Finding joy, delight and pleasure in healing

  • The foundations of healing and creativity: working with somatic (body) techniques, your nervous system, gentle structure and writer's block

  • Integrating your healing journey, claiming and telling your stories

Meet your Healing and Writing Guides

Just look at this stellar lineup of kind and skilled healers you’ll learn from at the Healing Through Writing Festival!

Take the Lid Off: Dealing With Grief, Rage and Challenges

The healing journey can feel messy, ugly and hard. We’ll explore how to make these tricky experiences our allies as we untangle ourselves with workshops and talks by dynamic, kind healers and writers.

  • Sense Writing: Stepping into the Harder Terrain

    Madelyn Kent, Founder, Sense Writing™

  • Brave The Page: Writing Through the Fear of Retaliation

    Megan Febuary, Author + Trauma-Informed Writing Coach

  • Memory Portals: Using Treasured Objects to Write Poetry About Grief

    Rayya Liebich (she/her), Poet and Writer and Creative Writing Instructor

  • Writing at the Threshold of Change

    Kristen Roderick, Ceremonialist & Rites of Passage Guide

  • Shrinking Your Inner Critic: Quieting Self-Doubt and Reclaiming Your Courageous Voice

    Eric Linden (he/him), Creativity Coach

  • Writing Legacy Love Letters

    Reena Lazar (she/her), Life and Death Educator, CEO, Willow End of Life Education and Planning

  • Writing as Community When Systems Fail Us: A Workshop for Chronically Ill & Disabled Writers

    Grace Quantock (she/her), Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Writer

  • Words as Witness: Writing for Incest Survivors

    Kelsey Zazanis, Writer

  • Writing After Spiritual Trauma and Abuse

    Aimee Byrd, Author and Speaker

Find Joy, Delight and Pleasure in Healing

Healing isn’t all serious challenges. Tapping into, and writing about beauty, marvel and awe is anything but frivolous, and helps us expand our capacity to work with the tougher stuff. The uplifting and joyful then become our healing resources.

  • Shadow Daddies, Dragon Riders, and Surviving in the Muggle World: The Role of Romance, Fantasy, and Erotica in Healing from Purity Culture—and Leading the Resistance

    Amy Everhart (she/her), Intimacy Coach, CPC

  • Using Tarot to Unlock Your Creativity

    Giselle Vriesen (she/they), Author & Tarot Reader

  • Creativity Cycling: Writing in Sync with Your Natural Rhythms

    Kailey Brennan DelloRusso, Writer and Founder/Editor in Chief of Write or Die Magazine

  • Find Your Vana: Breathwork and Writing as a Path to Transformation

    Lucie Forster, Breathwork and Transformation Coach

  • Unpolished Writers Club: The healing power of gathering, for writers of color

    Sabrina Estudillo Butler (she/her), Book Coach + Editor

  • The Sensual Artist's Way: An Embodied Path to Creativity & Flow

    Shawnrey Notto (she/her), Author, Artist & Sensual IQ Guide

The Foundations of Healing

We’ll kick things off with sessions that explore what healing is, how to shift resistance and creative block using your body (and how that’s connected to healing), and how gentle structure, can be your very good friend when you want to write joyful stories and also heal from your difficult stories.

  • Safekeeping Your Aligned Writing Ecosystem

    Chelene Knight, Personal Development Coach & Writing Mentor

  • Writing Romance as a Radical Act (of Self-Healing)

    Danika Bloom (she/her), Romance author & mentor to early career romance authors

  • Crack the Code: Unlocking Creativity through Thinking Preferences

    Eva Manole, Managing Director, Emergenetics (learn your thinking styles)

  • Muscle and Pencil: An Unexpected Link between Resistance Training, Creative Writing & Emotional Freedom

    Holly Goldsmith-Jones (she/her), Strong Feelings Fitness Coach

  • Shifting Resistance and Writer's Block Using Your Body

    Janelle Hardy (she/her), Writer, Somatic Healer, host of this event

  • Writing Self-Intimacy: Attachment Styles, Inner Dialogue and You

    taunē lyons (she/they), Licensed psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Writer

Integrate Your Healing and Tell Your Stories

Healing and integration is about holding the paradox of both/and. On our last day together we explore how how and why writing and telling our stories is so very important.

  • Mythmaking, Memoir Writing and Healing Workshop: how cultivating a meaning-making process helps you heal

    Janelle Hardy (she/her), Writer, Somatic Healer, host of this event

  • Wild Wisdom: finding your true north after life's big shifts

    Jenner Linden, Spiritual Alchemist, Creatrix of The Wild Ones, Conscious Business Mentor

  • Daily Writing Rituals: Harness Your Story Through the Power of Ritual

    Megan Sheldon, Humanist Celebrant & End-of-Life Doula

  • Echoes of the Soul: Journaling Your Soul Transformation

    Nadege Laure, Author, Poet, Inner Journey + Soulful Living Guide, Yin Yoga and Meditation Teacher, Forest Bathing Guide

As you can see from these thoughtful and wide-ranging presentations and workshops, this is a uniquely curated event that you won’t want to miss.

Get your free ticket to learn from 20+ skilled (and kind!) healers and writers about supportive writing processes and simple memoir-writing techniques.

Healing Through Writing was created with your healing in mind.

It’s a workshop and presentation series that trusts you.

  • That trusts your discernment, your hunger for growth, the wisdom of your body, your creativity and your stories.

It’s a festival, not just about healing the difficult, but about inviting in joy, expansion and depth.

Healing Through Writing was specifically created for sensitive, thoughtful, creative seekers like you. People who:

  • love writing and other creative practices

  • are struggling to understand their discontent, their discomfort, their weird symptoms

  • are hungry to grow beyond what their cultures, societies and families have told them they are

  • feel the deep and potent promise of a transformative process

  • have stories that have been held inside too tightly for far too long

This festival is about giving you embodied, experiential practices and ways to write your personal stories that are healing.

What to expect

When and Where

The Healing Through Writing Festival will run from April 14th - 17th, with a variety of presentations to choose from each day. This event is entirely virtual, so you’ll be able to attend from anywhere in the world with internet access.

Private Festival Community

You’ll also have access to our private online community of creative, big-hearted, growth-oriented writers just like you. Tap into the collective synergy of kindred spirits on a healing and writing path! This is where you’ll be able to connect with the speakers and other attendees before and during the event.

Apply for a Scholarship Spot

For my transformational memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking, which uses body-based, trauma-informed writing prompts, stories like fairy tale and myth, and themed modules to support people who want to heal from the difficult parts of their life stories as they write their memoirs.

Upgrade for a Supportive Experience

After registering, you’ll also have the chance to upgrade to the All Access Pass which includes ongoing access to the presentations after the summit wraps up, premium bonuses from our speakers, and more! You’ll get all the details (and a special offer) after grabbing your free ticket! 

Sessions with Skilled Healers and Writing Teachers

Attend workshops and presentations from our lineup of 20+ presenters, writing teachers, and healers, with wide-ranging sessions such as outline your memoir using fairy tale and myth as your guide, writing from the body, writing and attachment theory, and more. Your free ticket includes access to each presentation during the four days of the summit.

Chances to Win

You’ll also have a chance to win prizes by showing up and participating throughout the summit. Be sure to keep an eye out for your BINGO card and come hang out with us in the online community for chances to win prizes, to be announced.

Meet your host

Hi! I’m Janelle Hardy.

I’m a writer, somatic (body) healer and transformational memoir-writing teacher.

I’ve been on a healing path since I was 20, seeking to find relief from extreme shyness, loneliness, chronic fatigue, intense tooth grinding and tummy troubles.

And it’s worked. I’ve found relief and healing.

I’m the creator/teacher of a transformational memoir-writing course called The Art of Personal Mythmaking, host of the Memoir Body, Healing Story Podcast, the Dirty, Messy, Alive: Embodied Memoir-Writing Workshop Series, and this festival.

All of which is to say - you’re in good hands with me :-)

I care deeply about the people I serve.

I trust this work, I trust my training and experience, and I trust the incredible lineup of skilled (and kind) healers and writers you’ll hear from during the Healing Through Writing Festival.

Most of all, I trust you and your longing for healing, growth, and kind, skilled support on your journey.

Have questions? Here are some answers.

  • You’ll learn (and try) a wide range of supportive writing processes and simple memoir-writing techniques from 20+ skilled healers and writers.

    We’ll cover a wide range of experiences that support (and hinder) your healing journey, and how to create transformation and flow in your writing journey by working with the challenges instead of against them.

  • If you’re curious about healing, embodied writing techniques, and memoir-writing, this event is for you.

  • The Healing Through Writing Festival runs from April 14th - 17th. Live calls are typically at 6am, 7am, 9am, 12:30pm, and 2:30pm, all Pacific Time.

    Click here to see the full event schedule.

    You’ll also be able to join our private online community after you register.

  • The event's presentations are a mix of pre-recorded and live elements. All recordings and replays are available for the four days of the festival, with your free ticket.

    I encourage you to attend live if you can!

    Set aside time during the event week to attend the live sessions, watch the pre-recorded presentations, and participate with others who are healing through writing.

    However, if you’re not able to attend all of the sessions live, go ahead and grab your free ticket because you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade to the All Access Pass for extended access to all of the presentations.

  • Your free ticket includes access to each of the presentations for the duration of the event.

    If you need more time, you can always upgrade your ticket to the All-Access Pass after registering, which will give you extended access to the presentations along with exclusive live sessions during the event week and premium bonuses from our speakers.

  • Some are live and some are pre-recorded.

    Live calls are typically at 6am, 7am, 9am, 12:30pm, and 2:30pm, all Pacific Time.
    Click here to see the full event schedule.

    To avoid tech glitches, give you the best possible experience, and keep things easy for the speakers, some of the presentations are pre-recorded and will be released on the first day of the event.

  • No.

    When you register, you’ll be added to the host Janelle Hardy’s (me) Healing Through Writing Festival newsletter and email list so I can send you updates for the event and links to each day’s presentations.

    After the event is over, you’ll continue to hear from me, but you can unsubscribe at any time.

    Each of the speakers will have free resources available that you can access by providing an email address, but the speakers will not get your email address unless you choose to give it to them specifically.

    That way, you only hear from the people you really love and don’t have to worry about getting added to 20+ email lists that you’re not interested in. 😬

  • Yes.

    All presentations have closed captioning.

    Please reach out if there’s anything we can do to ensure you’re able to enjoy this event: jaha @ janellehardy.com

  • If you still have questions, I encourage you to go ahead and sign up.

    Your questions will likely be answered during the event or in the online community, which you’ll be able to join right after getting your free ticket.

    However, if you need to ask a question before registering, feel free to send an e-mail to me at jaha @ janellehardy.com or DM me on instagram @janellemackinnonhardy

Dive into this enriching, experiential, Healing Through Writing Festival to learn, explore and feel the possibilities that await you.