Online Writing Classes and Coaching Nadia Colburn, Boston

Online Writing Classes and Coaching Nadia Colburn, Boston Online Writing Classes and Coaching | Nadia Colburn, Boston. Memoir and poetry classes for writers of all levels. Write your best work with personalized support.
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A unique integrated approach with mediation, and embodied practices. I'm Nadia Colburn, and I believe that every person's voice matters. I'm passionate about helping people share their stories and their unique creativity with the world. I grew up in New York City in a house full of books and have always loved to read. I studied English literature at Harvard and then at Columbia, where I got a PhD.

I write mostly poetry and creative nonfiction, often bringing together themes of spirituality, social justice and literature, and my work has won awards and been widely published in places like The New Yorker, American Poetry Review and many other places (please see my writer's bio and I invite you to explore some of my own writing). As I said, I love reading and writing, but in my thirties, I began to look for something more. I was a mother of two young children. America was fighting a war in Iraq I had protested, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about climate change and environmental destruction. And then I went through a period of intense personal growth and healing. I realized that my story was not only in my mind but also in my body. Literature and writing were important to me, but they were not enough, and the writing world often seemed unhappy and unhealthy. I needed different kinds of answers, and I set off on my own spiritual quest. I began to practice Kundalini yoga and became a serious student of Thich Nhat Hanh. In yoga practice and meditation, I found levels of integration that I hadn't found in writing alone. But it was still important to me to to honor my inherent creativity, and to have and be a voice for change, and more spiritual communities did not really provide support for those sides of me. For a while, I felt like my writing practice, my love of literature, my meditation and my yoga practices were separate, fragmented in different parts of my life. And then I decided they didn't need to be. I began to make more and more connections between them. When I did this, amazing synergy began to happen. It is from that synergy that I created Align Your Story. To read more about me, my story, and how I came to create Align Your Story, read this feature article in Spirituality and Health magazine: http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/make-your-story-gift

Today, I want to share one of my poems from my book, I Say the Sky.May this poem find you just as you are, in whatever s...
08/31/2026

Today, I want to share one of my poems from my book, I Say the Sky.

May this poem find you just as you are, in whatever state of wonder or hardship—or both—you find yourself in.

As we come to the end of August, the end of summer, I want to share this poem from my book I Say the Sky, first publishe...
08/27/2026

As we come to the end of August, the end of summer, I want to share this poem from my book I Say the Sky, first published in The Sun.

The world is so full of such complexity. I try to remember the miracle of being alive, and of the cycles and balance of this beautiful globe that’s our only home.

I wrote this poem thinking of our summers in Prince Edward Island, where I’ve been lucky to visit this year again.

Thank you to The Sun () for publishing my “Poem for the Self”. I'm so honored to be in this magazine (one of my favorite...
08/19/2026

Thank you to The Sun () for publishing my “Poem for the Self”. I'm so honored to be in this magazine (one of my favorites) with so many amazing pieces.

You can also hear me reading the poem on The Sun website.

I hope my poem can inspire others to listen and to speak—and write into your own wholeness, whatever has happened.

This is a poem about silence and voice–and I’m happy to announce that I’m going to be teaching a brand new poetry class this fall: The Poetry of Silence and Voice.

The class will include lots of close readings, teachings, meditation and embodied practices, lessons, prompts, and community! I'm very excited for this class--we'll be exploring how to listen to and speak into all kinds of silence, from sacred silence to political or social or traumatic silences, how to write from the body, write for these times, and how to use poetry as a way to explore new forms of expression.

If you'd like to learn more about The Poetry of Silence and Voice, I invite you to join my newsletter.

Publication is just one step in an ever-evolving journey as writers, a journey in which we get to encounter and transfor...
08/12/2026

Publication is just one step in an ever-evolving journey as writers, a journey in which we get to encounter and transform our relationship with ourselves and others. I've come to see my own publication path as crucial to my personal as well as my professional development.

Publishing my work—and dealing with the many ups and downs that were part of that process—forced me to confront some difficult things: at the heart of my life as a writer was also a core of silence that I was always both writing from and protecting. What was that silence, and how did I want, as an adult, to interact with it? How would I learn to melt it?

It took me thirteen years to publish my first book, and in that time, I did a lot of personal healing. For a while, that long process felt like a failure, but eventually, I came to see that story about "failure" was pointing me to my own internal resistances and had important lessons to teach me.

I share my personal publication story and my story of trauma because I believe that each of us has experiences that can help others, and the very things that sometimes make us feel separate are often the things that unite us.

As we understand our story more fully, we have the tools not only to shift that larger social fabric, but also to celebrate our resilience and to step beyond our silences and work together to support what we believe in and love.

One thing I love about working remotely is that I can work from beautiful places. There's a different rhythm to not only...
08/10/2026

One thing I love about working remotely is that I can work from beautiful places. There's a different rhythm to not only my life but also my thoughts when I'm outside in the natural world.

I find that often my best ideas come after I've paused, stopped actually thinking, when my nervous system slows down, when my body relaxes. This, of course, is what meditation helps us do, and is one reason I so often bring meditation into my writing teaching.

Most great scientific and mathematical discoveries come not when the person is actually working on the problem directly, but instead when they are walking, or just woken up from sleeping--when their mind seems to be occupied with something else, and there is space for a new way of approaching a problem to arise.

(We need new approaches in so many areas—certainly in our larger social sphere as well!)

With that in mind, I invite you to give yourself permission truly to take time off. We are not machines. Our writing life is not a factory. Allow yourself to listen to what this season is asking of you. Pausing is not an indulgence; it's a human right and need.

One of my poetry teachers and mentors, Lucie Brock-Broido, used to only write poetry in the fall. I have another friend who does her best work in summer—and another who mainly writes in the winter.

When do you get your best writing done?

I always tell my students: Listen to your own rhythms. Trust that your creative life will be there for you even if you pause, that your own cycles, your own body and subconscious have a wisdom you can trust.

Whatever the challenges or the wonders are that meet you, is there some sacred encounter taking place with a message for...
08/07/2026

Whatever the challenges or the wonders are that meet you, is there some sacred encounter taking place with a message for you to listen?

I invite you to read more about seeing differently and the process of revision here: https://nadiacolburn.com/seeing-differently-on-revision/

My goal is for you to fall in love (or deeper in love) with poetry—and with your own poetic voice. And for you to bring ...
08/05/2026

My goal is for you to fall in love (or deeper in love) with poetry—and with your own poetic voice. And for you to bring that level of insight, appreciation, and engagement into other areas of your life, as well.

It’s such a joy working with poets and helping support them in writing poems they love that are truer to their voice. Thanks Christine for this review–and honored to help support your beautiful poetry!

I want to share a poem from my book I Say the Sky. I suggest meditating and then reading this poem.And then here is a pr...
08/04/2026

I want to share a poem from my book I Say the Sky. I suggest meditating and then reading this poem.

And then here is a prompt: what is something that has taught you to love part of yourself?

You can interpret the word “love” however you want. Be in dialogue with whatever that teacher is. Here are a few words you might want to incorporate into your piece: complication, heart, voice, leaves.

If you do this prompt after meditating, you might find that it’s easier to come out of your head and drop into your body and heart as you write. Allow your pen to move without needing to “control” it or write something good or even coherent. You might surprise yourself. See where it takes you.

Most poetry classes focus on critique without really teaching you how to go deeper into your creative process or the rev...
07/31/2026

Most poetry classes focus on critique without really teaching you how to go deeper into your creative process or the revision process. This leaves students in a constant cycle of writing for others and waiting for critique and feedback.

In my more than 20 years of teaching, I've found that writers improve if they can learn how to establish a relationship with their own work, cut through that dependency on other readers, and develop their own skills to write and revise themselves.

I believe in your creative voice. I'd be honored to support it and work with you this fall and beyond.

Why poetry? Why poetry now?When I began to study Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings, I learned that Thay (as he's called by his...
07/29/2026

Why poetry? Why poetry now?

When I began to study Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings, I learned that Thay (as he's called by his students) talks about mindful consumption not just of food, but also of what we consume with our ears, our eyes, our minds.

Just as our foods can be filled with toxins that make us sick or nutrients that make us healthy, so, too, our media, the conversations we partake in, even the ideas we believe can affect our wellbeing.

Poetry recognizes the importance of where we place our attention. It recognizes the relationship between word and action.

I believe it's more important than ever that we pay careful attention to where we place our minds. This doesn't mean that we turn away from the truth. Far from it. But it does mean that we are mindful.

The lies that we come into contact with on social media, the complete untruth that is coming from many parts of our government, the crass hurtful ways in which images, language, media are used to rob people of their rights, to plunder money, to start stupid wars that kill innocent civilians and children, to deny the clear damage we are doing to other species and ourselves--the world that we are living in often feels unreal.

It's not surprising that millions of people suffer in their mental health, that our bodies get sick, that we feel anxiety and uncertainty. It's not surprising that people can no longer tell what is true and false.

But poetry is a place that we can come back to more careful attention and discernment, a place to ask questions, to reconnect with ourselves and what matters.

Poetry gives us stamina, support, and resilience, so that we can be with what is difficult.

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48 Cedar Street
Cambridge, MA
02140

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Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

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(617) 785-6627

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