Did you know that TLAN has assembled a library of resources to help you find collaborators and discover new ways to expand your TLA practice?
The TLAN Resource Database contains a curated selection of books, podcasts, literary magazines, organizations, training programs, and practitioners that do the work of changing the world with words. The database has been designed to help you deepen your knowledge of TLA, broaden your skills, and research methods to amplify your work out in the world.
On this page you'll find an example of the TLAN Resource database. If you're a member, make sure you're logged in, and you can access the full library from the Membership menu or directly through this link: TLAN Member Resources.
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Recently AddedDrama:Community, Resources, Workshops Expressive Writing:Certification TWI was created by Kathleen (Kay) Adams in 2008 as a comprehensive, turn-key distance-learning training institute for facilitators of therapeutic writing. After a rigorous course of study that interweaves core theory, professional development and supervised practice, trainees complete a capstone project and apply for credentials as a Certified Journal Facilitator (or, for licensed psychotherapists, Certified Journal Therapist). StorytellingArticle |
Highlighted Selections from the TLAN Resource Database
Diverse VoicesHighlighting voices and collections from underrepresented communities.
Native American Poetry & Culture Collection from the Poetry Foundation |
Drama
Resources
and examples for using the tools of drama and drama therapy to create
work that transforms both performers and the audience.
Practitioner
The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. Today, Bread and Puppet continues to be one of the oldest, nonprofit, political theatre companies in the country.
Practitioner
Theatre of the Oppressed NYC partners with community members at local organizations to form theatre troupes. These troupes devise and perform plays based on their challenges confronting economic inequality, racism, and other social, health and human rights injustices. After each performance, actors and audiences engage in theatrical brainstorming – called Forum Theatre – with the aim of catalyzing creative change on the individual, community, and political levels.
Education
Resources for educators, examples of using TLA in the classroom, and lesson planning for student transformation (including examples of DEI+, antiracism, social and ecological activism).
Book
Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.
Organization, Resources
The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. Our website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and grade level. Based on the approach to history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, our teaching materials emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history
Facilitation
Resources on best practices, toolboxes and guides on how facilitating in-person and online groups.
Classes
Facilitation classes led by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Joy Roulier Sawyer. Our comprehensive class will help you facilitate workshops, classes, meetings, collaborations, events, coaching sessions, and so much more. We'll help you learn to stay true to your values and ethics, as well as to work mindfully with purpose, people, and places where you facilitate. This deep immersion into leadership training can also strengthen your ability to help others find their voices, vision, and direction
Training, Resources
Training for Change is a training and capacity building organization for activists and organizers. We believe strong training and group facilitation is vital to movement building for social justice and radical change. We’re adept at cross-cultural work and bring an awareness of power, identity, and conflict to every workshop we do. As an organization, we’re committed to supporting historically marginalized communities in the U.S. and across the world, including Indigenous, Black, and other people of color, working class and poor communities, and women, femme, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks. Excellent tools and resources for facilitators to use in their own groups.
Music
Resources in songwriting and using music for social change and healing.
Retreats, Consulting
Founded by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Kelley Hunt, Brave Voice embraces finding, developing and sharing our voices—on the page or out loud—to bring greater vision and resilience to our lives, workplaces, and communities. We know how opening our voice through writing, singing and songwriting enhances our lives, work, and world.
Practioner, Educator
Taína Asili, a dynamic New York-based Puerto Rican singer, composer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Taína Asili earned a Master of Arts degree in Transformative Language Arts from Goddard College, where she developed the curriculum that has become the foundation for the art and social change educational workshops she facilitates with youth and adults today.
Narrative Theory, Therapy & MedicineResources on sociological, medical and other therapeutic models that study how stories help people make sense of the world, and how people make sense of stories.
Resources, Training, Member Organization Founded in 1983, the Dulwich Centre is an innovative home for narrative therapy, community work, training and publishing. We are also a hub for a growing community of international practitioners.
Article Article from Ohio State University defining Narrative theory as a field. |
Oral History & Documentary Practices
Resources on data collection, research and nonfiction presentation, such as ethnography, autoethnography, and creative nonfiction styles (for memoir, see Expressive Writing).
StoryCorps is committed to the idea that everyone has an important story to tell and that everyone’s story matters. The organization is a resource for recording your own or a loved one’s story through the StoryCorps app and other tools. They have also launched initiatives to record stories in specific communities including: conversations between people who don’t agree politically; military voices; and stories of refugees, asylees, immigrants and Muslims living in the United States.
Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
Book
Perhaps Studs Terkel’s best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a moving snapshot of people’s feelings about their working lives, as well as a timeless look at how work fits into American life
Poetry
Resources in writing poetry, performing spoken word, and poetry therapy.
Organization, Resources
The Calgary Spoken Word Society was created in November 2003 by poet Sheri-D Wilson. Influenced by its founder's passion, the Society's vision is to develop a forum for the dissemination and promotion of Spoken Word Poetry locally, provincially, nationally and internationally, through performance and education. Excellent writing prompts through the Omniverse Project and monthly slams in Calgary.
Book
Poetry as Survival is a complex and lucid analysis of the powerful role poetry can play in confronting, surviving, and transcending pain and suffering. As a poet who has experienced considerable trauma, Gregory Orr refers to the damaging experiences of his past and to the role poetry played in his ability to recover and survive. His personal narrative makes all the more poignant and vivid Orr's claims for lyric poetry's power as a tool for healing.
Storytelling
Examples and resources for interpreting, telling, and revising traditional folk tales, myths and fairy tales.
Resources, Workshops, Podcast
The Joseph Campbell Foundation invites you to experience the power of myth. Building on the work of Joseph Campbell, we offer resources and community for those who hear that call to adventure. Offers workshops and graduate certificate through Pacifica Graduate Institute, reading lists, study guides, a podcast and other resources.
Radio, Podcast
TLA in Community
Resources on making a living, creating community and working towards a just world as a transformative language artist.
Article
How
might we embrace stories and storytelling as a practice for remembering
and re-activating community, especially amidst the disparities endured
by people of color? How might stories help us understand the way through
the problems that confront us—the problems that persist? If we should
look to stories as a way forward, whose stories will we seek out and
lift up to be heard?
Independent magazine, Ecological activism
With a focus on place, climate, and justice, Terrain.org is an independent magazine of literature, artwork, commentary, and design founded in 1997.