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2025 Power of Words ConferenceOctober 3-5, 2025 at Unity Village, Kansas City, Missouri
Our call for conference proposals is open!We are accepting proposals from Feb 1 through April 1, 2025. Details, information and application are on our conference proposal page.
Join the Power of Words Conference to explore the written, spoken and sung word to find how it can bring liberation, celebration and transformation within our communities. Network with writers, storytellers, performers, musicians, health professionals, educators, and change-makers to connect with those who share your passion of making a difference with words. Discover diversity and experience visionary voices at keynote sessions. Get inspired with workshops in five areas: Social Transformation, Right Livelihood, Engaged Spirituality, Narrative Healing and Ecological TLA. You can register for just the main conference, or both the pre-conference and main conference. (If you join the TLA Network as a member, you will save on the conference now, and on classes and other offerings later.) TLAN offers partial scholarships and work-study opportunities if cost is a barrier. |
Our Keynote PresentersElizabeth AddisonElizabeth Addison is an award winning multi-hyphenate whose work exists at the intersection of recovery and the performing arts. She has written three musicals inspired by her recovery journey, one of which, “Chasing Grace,” is set to have an Off-Broadway run in 2025/26. Elizabeth is a Creative Recovery Coach, Story Coach and Trauma Informed Facilitator with The Meghann Perry Group where she facilitates Recovery Storytelling, Embodied Storytelling and Embodied Songwriting workshops. She is also a consultant for The Opioid Response Network (ORN) and The Grayken Center at Boston Medical Center. Kim AddonizioKim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton, September 2024). Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. Addonizio's work has been widely anthologized and published in many journals, including The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Poetry, The Nation, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Yale Review, and many others. She teaches and performs internationally and has been an occasional presenter for BBC radio. She lives in Oakland CA, where she teaches Zoom poetry classes. Find her online at https://www.kimaddonizio.com. Kelley HuntKelley Hunt is an acclaimed international touring recording artist, singer, songwriter and keyboardist, with seven albums in international commercial distribution, co-scores and song placements in independent and major studio feature films, 6 appearances on the celebrated live radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" and PBS TV specials. She is a co-founder of the Brave Voice retreat and workshops and has given workshops and master classes nationwide at all education levels from elementary up to major universities and the Berklee College of music in Boston. Her callings include a passionate, heart-based approach to songwriting and performance, facilitating/teaching others to find their own voices through stress-free, fearless singing and songwriting and finding as many ways as possible to inspire and lift others up with music. Chris La TrayChris La Tray is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. His third book, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, was published by Milkweed Editions on August 20, 2024. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His book of haiku and haibun poetry, Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, was published in 2021 by Foothills Publishing. Chris writes the weekly newsletter "An Irritable Métis" and lives near Frenchtown, Montana. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025 and will serve as the 2025 Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Montana.
Important LinksMeals, Lodging & Travel | Scholarships & Work-Study Coming by Feb. 7, 2025: Sponsorship & Underwriting |
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Conference Schedule
All times are U.S. Central Time.
FRIDAY:
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1-3 – Pre-conference workshops – Choice of Kelley Hunt or Kim Addonizio
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3:30-5:30 – Pre-conference workshops – Choice of Chris La Tray or Elizabeth Addison
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6-7 – Dinner
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7:30-9 – Opening session featuring one of our keynoters
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9:15-10 – Open Mic
SATURDAY
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9-9:45 – Talking Circles
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10-11:15 – Session #1 (4 options)
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11:30-12:30 – Lunch
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1-2:15 – Keynote with one of our keynote presenters and annual TLAN award ceremony
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2:45-4 – Session #2 (4 options)
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4:30-6 – session #3 (4 options)
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6-7 – Dinner
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7:30-9:15 – Keynote with two of our keynote presenters
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9:30-10:30 – Open Mic
SUNDAY
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9-9:45 – Talking Circles
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10-11:15 – Session #4 (4 options)
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11:30-12:30 – Lunch
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1-1:45 – Session #5 (4 options)
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2-3 – Closing circle
Testimonials From Past Conferences |
"Come and meet some seriously interesting and diverse people with a love of transformational politics, poetry and language. I loved the whole experience!" "I always appreciate the comraderie at this event. People are non-judgemental and open. I don’t think it would be possible to feel more accepted or at peace. This truly satisfies and transcends the human experience by combining heart with art." — Anonymous "The Transformation Language Arts conference provides a home for artists, writers and musicians who want to help create a peaceful world. I go to learn, I go to contribute, I go to sustain hope." | "As an artist and philanthropist who participates in artistic/humanities conference and festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the Middle East - I'm very impressed with this conference! The workshop and performance presenters were diverse; audience participants supportive; key note speakers memorable; staff magnificent. A genuine pleasure to be in attendance!" "The TLA Conference is an adventure of diving into a deep pool of unexpected discoveries. Some are delightful and awe-inspiring, some frightening and strange, but the immersion in diversity and the authenticity of the presenter's (and participant's) stories and presence is palpable and real. A necessary reminder of what we are so starved for in the current climate of media and political rhetoric. If change is going to be sustainable and humane, we need more people trained and working with the qualities of these warriors. The Conference is a way to either dip a toe in or dive in head first." | "The Power of Words Conference...in the midst of the unpredictability of daily life, for a few precious days I found myself surrounded by beauty, reminded yet again how art and wordcraft are not luxuries, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, but tools for survival, 'sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas.' We think and language into existence, whether our language takes the shape of words, images, sounds, or movements, summoning new worlds with our breath and our bodies. And as we come together to share we move away from isolation and fear and into one another, drawing close to the hearth where we warm and nourish ourselves before heading back out. This is the power of words -- that something so fragile, awkward, limited and limiting can, in the end, still be a way in: a key in a lock, a warm breeze signaling an end to winter's slumber, a torch to light the way." |