What does it take to have a long writing life? Drawing on her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Natalie Goldberg shares the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive - experiences that point the way forward in our lives and our writing. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again - the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example.

"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.

This weekend workshop, recorded live, is a primer on writing the modern memoir, which, unlike your grandmother's memoir, can be written at any age. Also, a memoir can be about just part of your life. "The more you are present, the more the past will come up and be alive," says Natalie. "Only right now can give you your past."

The best-selling author of Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind offers a Zen approach to creative writing to help you find your own voice. Goldberg offers techniques for getting to the essential speech of your mind, bypassing the internal editor, and developing the confidence to trust the writer within. This workshop is about writing - it is also about helping you penetrate your life and become sane. Goldberg is a poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, and a teacher.

Writer, poet, and teacher Natalie Goldberg shows you how to unleash your "wild mind" - the true source of your creative power. In this crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, nonfiction and poetry, Goldberg strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive, and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical, and humorous. "Even if it's just a leg hanging out the window, she says, "write it down." Highlights include: provocative "try this" exercises to compel you into action, advice on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. She'll also explore the larger vision of the writer's task: knowing when to take risks as a writer and a person, learning self-acceptance in life and art.

Here is a new collector's edition of this modern classic as you have never heard it before, read by Natalie Goldberg herself and then infused with her most personal reflections about this "magic manual" for all writers. Try these ingenious, Zen-based exercises to expand your writing skills - or just for fun.

Your most potent writer's tool is your own mind, Natalie Goldberg says. From there springs the detail and truth that give your written words power and authenticity. Now this best-selling author introduces you to the pleasure of creating vivid memoirs of your own with Old Friend from Far Away.

One of the world’s foremost writing teachers invites listeners on a joyful journey into the reading and origins of haiku.

Observant and relentlessly honest, Long Quiet Highway starts out as a reflection on the people, places, and experiences that helped best selling author Natalie Goldberg discover the transformational power of writing. Soon it crystallizes into a winding koan that cuts through sentiment to get at the truth of the spiritual life and the discipline needed to achieve it.

The challenge we face as writers, Natalie Goldberg says, begins with the process of turning inward and then trying to communicate what we find. From the secret of letting characters and stories "write themselves" to finding mentor sources and responding to criticism to writing's one essential ingredient, which is the mind - here are all-new Zen-based lessons and reflections, refined and proven at Natalie's acclaimed national writers' workshops.

People of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.

At the beginning of his career, Joseph Campbell developed a lasting fascination with the cultures of the Far East, and explorations of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy later became recurring motifs in his vast body of work. However, Campbell had to wait until middle age to visit the lands that inspired him so deeply. In 1954, he took a sabbatical from his teaching position and embarked on a year-long voyage through India, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and finally Japan.

Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and Ebenezer Scrooge come to marvelous life in Patrick Stewart's critically-acclaimed solo interpretation of A Christmas Carol. The star of X-Men and The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart has performed his one-man stage production of this holiday classic to sell-out audiences.

Writing a memoir is daunting! You're the expert on your life, naturally, but narrating and organizing your own experiences in the best way can feel impossible. Many writers become frustrated in early drafting stages and quit after a couple of brief attempts. Learn from best-selling memoirist Rachael Herron (who teaches this class at Stanford Continuing Studies) how to fast-draft your memoir while keeping its structure compelling. Learn how to frame your life's story and give it a natural arc to keep your reader glued to the page.

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins—New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly matters: YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn't realize she's heading straight into a blizzard. She never arrives at her destination. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she's made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle occurs: she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn't right.

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving - every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams. But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end. In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed.

This weekend workshop, recorded live, is a primer on writing the modern memoir, which, unlike your grandmother's memoir, can be written at any age. Also, a memoir can be about just part of your life. "The more you are present, the more the past will come up and be alive," says Natalie. "Only right now can give you your past."

Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.

Your most potent writer's tool is your own mind, Natalie Goldberg says. From there springs the detail and truth that give your written words power and authenticity. Now this best-selling author introduces you to the pleasure of creating vivid memoirs of your own with Old Friend from Far Away.

Writer, poet, and teacher Natalie Goldberg shows you how to unleash your "wild mind" - the true source of your creative power. In this crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, nonfiction and poetry, Goldberg strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive, and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical, and humorous. "Even if it's just a leg hanging out the window, she says, "write it down." Highlights include: provocative "try this" exercises to compel you into action, advice on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. She'll also explore the larger vision of the writer's task: knowing when to take risks as a writer and a person, learning self-acceptance in life and art.

"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.