Conversations
Join us for conversations that engage writers and seekers in meaningful discussions about creative practice and transformation.
In person and over Zoom. Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on these conversational events with authors, poets, filmmakers, and more!
Encounters with the Divine: Writing and Mussar
Nov. 9, 6:30-8 CT
In person in St. Paul and on Zoom
How can we bring empathetic hearts to our writing and our communities? Author Heidi Schneider will share how the Jewish spiritual practice of Mussar can help us see beyond ourselves, embrace transformation, and connect deeply with our readers. In conversation with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, Heidi will share her experiences of speaking the truth of moral indignation and personal pain while always making room for kindness. She will offer Mussar as a practice of meaningful, compassionate writing and living.
More About Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is a wisdom teacher and writing coach dedicated to facilitating creative emergence.
As a writer she elicits the spirit’s movement within stories; as a teacher she supports transformation within writers and on the page. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Hamline University, her spiritual direction training from the Center for Spiritual Guidance, and her contemplative formation from the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Living School. She is the author of the spiritual memoir Swinging on the Garden Gate, now in its second edition; the novel Hannah, Delivered; a collection of personal essays, On the Threshold: Home, Hardwood, and Holiness; and two books on writing: Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice, winner of the silver Nautilus Award, and Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir. You can connect with Elizabeth at www.spiritualmemoir.com and www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com.
More about Heidi:
A spiritual seeker since Saturday morning religious school, Heidi Schneider wrote a book of psalms at age ten, which she then lost somewhere in the town square of her hometown. She is still searching for those mislaid blessings. Heidi’s poetry and essays have been published in Months to Years magazine, Sleet magazine, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Twin City Jewfolk, and several anthologies, including Together We Carry, Dear Body, and Choosing Judaism: 36 Stories. She is working on a memoir about journeys to find her birth family, becoming a mother, and finding Judaism. Learn more at www.heidi-schneider.com.
Partnering with the Center for Contemporary Mussar
Elizabeth's 2026-2027 curriculum development and conversations programming are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage.
Past Conversations
These conversations often leave us in awe of the creative capacity we humans are gifted with.
We record the conversations every chance we can get, but only leave them up for 30-days publicly. After that, we shift them into our online writing community.
An Embodied Voice: Writing and Sufism
Quebec-based author Munirah Maclean believes that our capacity to experience our interior life can bring transform society. When women, especially, are empowered to understand their inner reality and 'claim their voice', they call on a power that creates, sustains, and forms networks and communities. In conversation with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, Munirah will discuss her journey with Sufism and Islam, writing’s role in spiritual transformation, and share a short Sufi meditation practice.
Munirah Maclean’s passion for writing began with fairy tales, especially those with wise animals. Later those animals transformed into odd characters and teachers who gave her nuggets of clarity, insight and understanding of the world and her place in it. Munirah's spiritual search has involved travels in countries where traditional Sufism is practiced. In her writing she explores how mystical traditions teach us many ways of being and impact our modern lives. Her spiritual memoir: Veils of the Heart, A Sufi Woman's Spiritual Journey was self-published in June 2025 by Friesen, Canada.
Speculative Fiction: Leaning into the Imagination during Troubling Times
During the last spring of Trump’s first term, in the crux of Covid, George Floyd’s murder and the climate crisis, Maggie O’Connor brought her questions to the writing desk: What if the destruction of the world as we know it could make possible a more just society? What would it look like to live in right relationship with the earth? How might gift economy work in a community? By writing a story about a post-apocalyptic culture, Maggie was able to contemplate possibilities.
Six years later, in the face of ongoing atrocities, the practice of imagining a better future within a story lends Maggie hope, regulates her nervous system, and has become a spiritual act of resistance. Join Maggie and Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew for a conversation about the value of leaning into the imagination during troubling times.
More about Maggie:
Maggie O’Connor has kept journals since age 12, but avoided college classes that assigned essays because of writing anxiety. She became a doctor with a career ranging from family practice to student health to palliative medicine. At 47 she addressed her writer’s anxiety by taking classes in memoir, poetry, and humor. She published four medicine-related articles before retiring in 2014. In 2020 she ventured into fiction with a book she is calling, ‘The People of Them.’
Voice and Belonging: An Immersive Film and Conversation
Your voice reveals your identity, lends you self-worth, and connects you with others. What if you were to lose it? How might you find your true voice? Join film-maker Lucy Mathews Heegaard for an immersive film and conversation experience centered around her documentary, Diplophonia: A Diary of Voice Loss. Recently premiered at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Diplophonia narrates Lucy’s year of vocal cord paralysis in her own words and voice. Her experience of suddenly being unable to speak beyond a hoarse whisper led her on a circuitous path from the physical to the metaphysical, the anatomical to the philosophical. This event is a mindful gathering to reflect on the significance of voice in our lives. After the screening, we will engage in facilitated small-group discussion and Lucy will engage with audience responses. We invite you to join us for this unique, participatory art experience.
Lucy Mathews Heegaard is is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker who combines writing, visual imagery, sound, and video tell stories that are an invitation to self-reflection. A graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Master of Fine Arts program, Lucy served for two years as Artist in Residence for a program providing support to women with cancer. She’s also produced a series of short, meditative films for Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For more about Lucy’s work, visit: studiolustories.org. For more information about the file, see diplophonia.org.
The Poetics of Rage & Reverence
This conversation with Charity E. Yoro left us wondering about how poetry can help us channel our rage and reverence both in a world that is falling apart at the seams, or at the very least, seems to be. Listen and be inspired by her poetic voice and learn about how writing can be a transformative practice—for all of us.!
Find Charity’s new poetry collection here: ten cent flower & other territories.
Heeding Spirit Voices: Intuition & Healing in A Council of Dolls
Long-time writer friends Mona Susan Power and Elizabeth Fletcher discuss the part intuition plays in their writing practices. Readers often imagine that creative writing is a wholly cerebral enterprise where each step of the way authors make conscious choices regarding craft, character, and plot. In reality, some writers surrender to the mystery of a process that can never be controlled, but rather is accessed by an open-hearted trust in the deep intelligence of our connection to all beings, past and present. Part of the conversation will focus on Power's recently published novel, A Council of Dolls, which felt like a gift from her ancestors rather than a project she chose to write. This event co-sponsored by Literary Witnesses.