Hi, I am Sam!
I am a writer, writing mentor and book coach, and a poet at heart. I offer transformational writing circles, workshops, group coaching programs, private mentoring, and residential retreats for local, national, and international clients.
I create opportunities for writers, want-to-be writers, and non-writers alike to
- discover and own their voice
- get clear on the deeper purpose and focus of their writing
- commit to a regular writing practice
- understand their process & create structures to support it
- experience more creative flow and joy
so they can fully express who they are on and off the page and make the contribution they are here to make.
My work is shaped by 20+ years of mindfulness/meditation practice and a love for going deeper into the mystery and meaning of things. I have an M.F.A. in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where writing as a personal, political, and spiritual practice is at the forefront.
Everyone has a valuable story that has the power to restore our soul. We all need support getting that story out into the world. I offer one-on-one coaching and group programs and retreats to help you get clear on what that story is, why it’s important, and how to bring it into the world through writing.
“With panoramic awareness you see the whole scene. Panoramic awareness is based on a certain amount of trust, or optimism. Basically, nothing is regarded as a failure or as dangerous. Rather, whatever arises is experienced as part of a creative and loving relationship towards oneself.”
—Chögyam Trungpa, Tibetan Buddhist teacher and founder of Naropa University.
My story
My work uniquely combines three elements that have been foundational to my personal and professional life:
- writing
- the practice of looking deeply
- the desire for home
The intention is to create a foundation to “see the whole scene.” This is done by using the power of language to tell your story, to look deeply into how your experiences create meaning and the unique wisdom you have to share, and to come home to the truth that you absolutely belong here and your life is of value and consequence.
WRITING
I often don’t know what I really think or feel until I have a pen in my hand. Writing has always been my way out—out of confusion, heart break, an inability to say what I really want or need to say when my voice can’t find the right words. I didn’t write mounds of poems or short stories as a kid. I wrote notes to my mom when I wanted to talk about difficult things or ask for something I knew she would likely say no to. I wrote letters to my dad telling him I hated that he left us and that I longed to know him more. I wrote my crushes, dreams, dislikes, rages, sorrows, and over and over again, I wrote my aching, heartsick love for my chronically ill mother in countless diaries and journals. Eventually, I expanded my writing into academic essays, newspaper articles, poems, blogs, business and marketing copy, and a memoir, but I still had a hard time claiming myself as a writer.
I used to think there were two different types of writing—the writing I did (that easily flowed onto the pages of my journals) and the real writing that others did (polished, brilliant, revered, literary, widely-published). I spent a lot of time and anguish trying to figure out how to do the “real writing” until I arrived at the truth that ALL writing is real writing! All writers are real writers! The only difference is that published writers make a commitment to the process of writing and to making their writing visible to others. That’s it.
Writing is a guide, a lifeline. Writing pulled me off the floor after I lost my home to foreclosure, carried me through the grief of my mom’s death, expanded my ability to communicate and be truly intimate in my marriage, revealed my value and deepest purpose, and led me to start a business making money doing what I truly love. Writing is how I connect to soul, the invisible, ineffable, often inarticulatable parts of myself and my life that long to be known and expressed. To attempt to bring that essence, that meaning and mystery into form delights and challenges me like nothing else. I am here to help others do the same.
LOOKING DEEPLY
I was born to see and feel everything deeply. When I was 9, I began to stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. I’d gaze into the little black hole pupils of my eyes and say, “You’re you…” over and over again. I delighted in the rush of goose bumps that raced up from that mysterious place inside me and arrived on my skin. I was the place where the known and the unknown met. I also imagined being sucked into black holes in outer space, which both enchanted and terrified me. You could say these were my first practices of looking deeply. I wanted to touch what lived behind the visible world. I wanted to witness the underlying soul that animates and sustains everything (and have my skin crawl and my mind blown at the same time).
As a teenager I sat outside at night and stared at the starry sky smoking cigarettes wondering what the meaning of life was and what my purpose was in it. In my twenties, I learned to formally meditate, went on my first of many silent retreats where I could spend days going deep inside myself, and started a decade long career at a Buddhist inspired university whose mission was to bridge conceptual knowledge with self-understanding by not just focusing on academic learning alone, but by also seeking to understand the meaning behind it as well.
Every part of my personal and professional life has been about tending to the connective thread–the connecting life principle–the invisible, mysterious essence that holds the entire world together rather than apart. This is where meaning is found. Meaning at its root means—“the thing one intends to convey, especially through language and writing.” Writing and the practice of looking deeply allow you to touch the meaning of your own life and what it intends to convey. This is the subject of your book. You must look deeply to truly understand what that is. You must touch and know your own soul. When you do, you touch and know the soul of the entire world. This is what I was born to do and to help others do.
Throughout my thirties while juggling marriage, parenthood, full-time work, and pursuing an MFA in Writing and Poetics, I continued to deepen my writing and meditation practice and to more fully understand that at the heart of everything I do in my life there is a hunger to find and touch the deeper meaning of what it means to be alive. Now, in my forties, I understand that my purpose is to support others in finding the deeper meaning of their lives through writing their book.
DESIRE FOR HOME
I want to belong and be at home in this world. My search for home consciously began at the age of 9 when I bought a subscription to Home magazine with my allowance. At the time, I lived in the second of what would become 11 houses in 6 cities by the time I was 17. My parents were divorced and my mom was chronically ill. My dad had moved on to his third family, and my mom, between hospital stays and multiple marriages, was living out her motto of “Do It Now!” Today that number has grown to 22 houses in 11 cities.
In the glossy pages I saw spacious, luxurious, light-filled rooms that made me feel at ease. Each person or thing in those rooms seemed to belong, to be in perfect relationship to each other, and to know their place. I wanted to be in the architecture of my place. I wanted to know I’d been set purposefully into the living room of life right where I was supposed to be and could rest there, assured of my safety and my belonging. I decided I would build a house like that. I would create that kind of security and assurance, a place to rest in the face of changing and unknown circumstances.
I did build a house of my own, by hand, with my spouse when I was 23. We sold it, bought and remodeled another, sold it and gutted and rebuilt another, and then lost it all to bankruptcy and foreclosure in the economic crash of 2008. That’s when I learned that the root of the word mortgage literally means “death pledge.” Losing the dream of home I’d built on the outside and the inside helped me see just how deep my inner sense of insecurity and unworthiness really went. When the value and worth of my external structure failed, I had to find the value and worth of my internal one. Writing my book helped me discover and embody my true value. It helped me fully take residence in the home that’s been within me all along and to help others do the same. I create spaces, on and off the page, where people can truly be at home, because everyone, everyone belongs and is valuable simply because they are alive.
My qualifications and experiences
My writing training and development includes:
- M.F.A. in Writing & Poetics, Naropa University
- B.A. English Literature, University of Wyoming
(One year at Nottingham University, United Kingdom)
Courses, trainings, and/or workshops with:
- David Whyte
- Elizabeth Gilbert
- Rebecca Foust
- Lisa Cron
- Andrew Schelling
- Anne Waldman
- Sonia Sanchez
- Amiri Baraka
- Daisy Zamora
- Cecilia Vicuña
- Jericho Brown
- Akilah Oliver
- Bhanu Kapil Rider
- Harryette Mullen
- Sherwin Bitsui
- Michael Meade
- Terry Tempest Williams
- Joanne Kyger
- Steve Almond
- Mark Matousek
- Ellen Bass
and more….
Fun Facts about Sam
- I jumped out of an airplane (with my kids) to welcome the “empty nest!”
- I got a flat tire while driving with Black Arts Movement poet, Sonia Sanchez. (She laughed the whole time!)
- My favorite book as kid was: The People in Pineapple Place by Anne Lindbergh. (There’s too many greats now to choose a favorite!)
- New Mexican green chili is my weakness.
- My mom hypnotized me when I was young so I could visit my spirit guide Nancy and my spirit animal, Squirrel.
- I’ve never had green eggs and ham, but I think I would like them, especially if the green is green chili!
Writing, Leadership, Teaching, and Coaching Skills Development Positions:
- Adjunct Faculty, Naropa University
- Graduate Academic Advisor, Department of Writing & Poetics, Naropa University
- Interim Department Director, Department of Writing & Poetics, Naropa University
- Editor, Bombay Gin literary journal
- Co-Founder/Co-Editor, Sliding Uteri: A Biannual Literary Journal
- Freelance Writer, Grand Teton Printing & Publishing
- Workshop Leader, The Hivery
- Workshop Leader, Woven
- Workshop Leader, Mill Valley Community Center
- Writing Instructor, Safe House Progressive Alliance for Non-Violence
- Co-Presenter/Panelist, National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education
- Diversity Trainer/Facilitator, Naropa University
- Key Note Speaker, BadAss Leaders Align Retreat featuring Elizabeth Gilbert
- Contributing Writer, The Writing Cooperative
- Contributing Writer, Poets Unlimited
- Contributing Writer, Haiku Hub
To see a more comprehensive list of my professional experience, achievements, presentations, publications, and performances check out my LinkedIn Profile.
“When you write what wants to be written, you fall in love with the particulars of your life.
You see how the window latch grants you freedom, how the kitchen sink enables you, or how the light of your lamp connects you to the earth’s generosity.“