How do we relate to creativity?

That’s the question I realized was missing in the creative spaces where I studied, learned, taught, and worked. And there have been many!

Before Typewriter Tarot became my primary enterprise, I worked as a print and television journalist. I earned an MFA in creative writing, and worked for more than a decade in creative arts nonprofits, helping people of all ages explore self-expression outside of academia. 

I taught poetry and fiction in public schools, community centers, libraries, museums, and senior housing sites. I learned to teach writing the way I wish it had been taught to me — foregrounding exploration and self-expression over aptitude and mastery. 

Alongside that work, I supported adult writers as a coach and manuscript consultant, and noticed how quickly my interactions with clients leapt off the page and into their hearts and souls.

That inner space often felt like a battlefield, where self-doubt, judgment, and unworthiness made the creative process an ongoing struggle. I became not only a manuscript doctor, but also a counselor for the struggling artist, a relationship coach for the Writer and Creativity.

Through all this, I came to see how academia and the commercialization and commodification of creativity made it challenging for “non-professional” writers and artists to take themselves seriously or share their work with the world in a meaningful way. I understood their dilemma because I felt it too.

In my own graduate program (and I think this is true of many MA and MFA degrees), so little attention was paid to the individual relationship with creativity, to the journey of creating, what processes and strategies work for us, and why we create in the first place. 

The focus instead was almost exclusively the product and how craftsmanship could make the product more effective. These are certainly important conversations, but Creativity is so much more than the end result, or how many people love the outcome, or how much money and attention the product attracts. It’s also about how we change as we create, what the act of creation does for us, and our own learning and growth in the process.

The overly narrow conversation around creativity is compounded by the toxic systems that define our culture and our ability to navigate the world. Capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, and patriarchy all contribute to the inner warfare I see in so many Creative Spirits. When we struggle to even survive, when our creativity is exploited and undervalued, we continue to doubt whether we even deserve to create for ourselves at all. BUT WE DO!

And we must!

These are the questions I’m most interested in now, and my work centers on helping people develop a relationship with Creativity that privileges the soul and spirit above all else. When we are blessed with a visit from Creativity, when it whispers in our ears, taps us on our shoulders, or drops brilliant visions into our imagination… we will be ready to fling the doors open? Will we be willing to enjoy the dance? My job to is help more people definitely and proudly say YES!

I’m also a triple Earth-sign (Capricorn sun and moon + Taurus rising), which helps me naturally — and intentionally — offer my community a grounded container where we can explore this spiritual relationship with Creativity (and nature), while also attending to the very practical, “real world” considerations of making money, raising children, maintaining relationships, managing our energy, and honoring our values. (Because it’s all connected! Everything is everything!)

I work with not only writers, but artists, musicians, dancers, creative business owners, and anyone seeking to reconnect with Creativity or reframe and reimagine their relationship with it.

What does Tarot have to do with it?

In 2017, almost a year after I began a recovery journey from alcohol addiction, Tarot came into my life like a fairy godmother bursting from a sparkly portal I never saw coming.

My boyfriend at the time moved in with a Tarot deck he didn’t use, and I saw no reason to keep. I gifted it to my step-sister, but first we did a reading using one of the spreads in the little guidebook tucked inside the box. 

The cards that turned up were so knowing and attuned that I immediately wanted to know as much about Tarot as I possibly could ASAP. I’d been looking for a way to help others, because I’d been helped so generously by many people, often strangers, as I went through my own recovery. I could see very quickly that Tarot offered me a beautiful meeting place to be of service in fascinating and creative ways.

As a writer, I was also captivated by Tarot as a storytelling and psychological tool. Tarot is a visual and symbolic system invested wholly in the stories of humanity — the dynamics, pitfalls, and possibilities that inscribe our lived experience. It felt like the perfect friend to my preexisting writerly passions, which blossomed at such a young age.

Since we met and fell in love, Tarot has helped me define a spiritual outlook that serves and inspires me. It’s helped me gain clarity around my values and live into them more fully. It’s helped me make big moves that I might have been too afraid to embrace on my own. And it’s given me a job I truly love, one that feels absolutely perfect for the person I’ve become.

I created Typewriter Tarot within a month of that first reading with my sister, before (honestly) I knew what I was doing. Since then, I’ve been exploring the intersections of Tarot, storytelling, creativity, and magic — for myself, but alongside a beautiful and growing community of Creative Spirits, mystics, seekers, weirdos, and change-makers. My work continues to evolve, and I evolve along with it! 

If my story resonates with you, I hope you’ll hang out sometime, check out Typewriter Tarot’s workshops and offerings, and let me know about you! Maybe we can make some big, creative magic together!