27 Powers

27 Powers rides on one fierce belief: when we put the truth into words, life swings into focus. Lear Sign up on my list. You’ll be the first to know.

Welcome to 27 powers, the creative writing community hosted by me, Laurie Wagner. A published writer for over 25 years, and a teacher to thousands of students, I offer weekly writing classes in the Northern California Bay Area for beginning and well-seasoned women writers who gather in Alameda, and in Berkeley at Teahouse Studio. I also offer creative writing classes online through my e-course, T

elling True Stories and in 2013, Straw into Gold . I also produce the 27 Powers Traveling Writer Series, which brings world-class poets and writers like Ellen Bass, Tony Hoagland, Stephen Dunn, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, Joe Millar, Deena Metzger and Philip Gerard to the San Francisco Bay Area to teach, to converse and tell stories. Want to be nudged when new e-courses, live classes and series dates get announced? http://27Powers.org

06/05/2026

✨ What if becoming a writer wasn’t about talent, perfection, or having an extraordinary life… but about telling the truth?

If you’ve ever dreamed of writing but don’t know where to start…
If your inner critic is louder than your creativity…
If you’re craving a deeper connection to your voice and your story…

You’re invited to join 4 days of FREE Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner.

💻 Live & recorded sessions
🖋 Honest, unfiltered writing
💛 A beautiful community of brave, curious humans

This is writing as practice. Writing as permission. Writing that frees you.

📅 Starts Monday, June 8th
🎟 Free to join → https://hi.27powers.org/wild-writing-4-day

Come exactly as you are. You don’t need to be a writer to write.

06/04/2026

It’s almost here...
4 days of Wild Writing begins Monday, June 8th — and you’re invited.

Wild Writing isn’t just about writing.
It’s a practice of coming home to yourself.
Of telling the truth.
Of listening deeply to what you didn’t know you knew.

If you want to:
🖋 Reconnect with yourself on the page
🖋 Start (or restart) a writing practice
🖋 Be guided gently, honestly, and with intention
🖋 Write in community with others who are doing the same…

Then come join us.

📅 June 8-11
💻 Live + pre-recorded sessions (with replays!)
🎟 Totally free! Just register here: https://hi.27powers.org/wild-writing-4-day

This is for you. For me. For all of us.
Let’s write together.

06/01/2026

Nourished, by Jeannette Encinias

I worry seriously
about only a handful of things.
Eyes to the ground
furrowed brow
beating heart
sleep.

Then I remember
that I am here right now.
Here-
with good work and a big, bright love.
With a dog who just had a bath
after running in the mud.
With a mother who gardens and does yoga
and a father who makes rosaries and reads books.
And my brother, my friend, with a sweet baby daughter.

And I have my legs
and they walk for miles when I worry.
And I have my soul
and it is vast and kinder
than this wild world.
And I have books
with their strong spines and medicine.
And music, all the music
and there is the mailman
who delivers mail almost every single day
bless him.

And the market with wine and radishes.
And the flowers falling through my hands
trusting me to make bouquets.
And there is the green earth and the tall mountain
the water birds, seedlings, snowfall, the sound of rain, sun finally
spring!

The bed and the water.
The paper and the pens.
The bathtub and the salt.
And the food he made me
and the letter she sent me
and Spain, San Francisco
your bedroom, this kitchen.

It's all been so much beauty among
the worry.
And I have kept nourished
and alive
this way.

05/30/2026

Lately, it feels like the world doesn’t stop.
The news. The grief. The noise inside our own heads.

More than ever, we need a way to come back to center.
To remember what’s true.
To listen.

That’s what Wild Writing has been for me—for 35 years.
A place to land.
A practice of paying attention.
A way to live more honestly—on the page and in life.

💛 Starting Monday, June 2, I’m offering 4 days of free Wild Writing.

You’ll get:
🖋 2 live classes with me on Zoom
🎥 2 pre-recorded sessions you can do on your own time
🧘♀️ Gentle, honest prompts to guide you back to yourself

No experience needed. Just a willingness to show up.

📅 June 8-11
💻 Live at 1pm PT (with replays if you can’t make it)
🎟 FREE — but registration is required
👉 Sign up here: https://hi.27powers.org/wild-writing-4-day

Come write with us. Bring your story. Bring a friend. We’d love to have you.

05/27/2026

Since September I’ve been doing a writing practice I call Five Things. It’s simply five paragraphs where I try to describe something that is still with me, still rattling around my head. I try to create a scene, a vignette. I try to stay away from writing about feelings, but hope that the writing conveys feeling. I try to put the onus on the details. I also try to tell the truth, to reveal something from my interior. Sometimes when I sit down to blog, I think I’m supposed to make a point or have a good story to tell, and I find that exhausting. With Five Things I’m simply lifting the curtain and seeing what’s there.

To set the stage for the five things, I will say that for the last six years I’ve been living six months a year, with my former husband, Mark, who sleeps upstairs with his dog in our old bedroom, while I sleep downstairs. That detail is meant to give you a picture of us – a couple who were together for 30 years, divorced for 12, and during much of that time lived together as friends in the house. But now there are changes. Mark, who lives outside of Taos, New Mexico for the warm parts of the year, has gone to live there permanently, and this week we said goodbye.

Read on here :: https://27powers.org/blog/five-true-things/

05/18/2026

Disrobing in Time by Mark Nepo

Nothing is easy, but to tell the truth.
The truth of what I see and feel.
This somehow cleanses my eye
and it becomes clear what to do.

In my pain I forget to admit what is
true and things get worse. Because
I don’t want to be sad, I don’t admit
that I already am. Then I feel like
I’m drowning.

Because I don’t want things to change,
I don’t admit that they already have.
Then I feel like the wheel of life
is tearing me apart.

The greatest power we have when
feeling powerless is to admit what
is already true. Then the stepping
stones of Eternity rise out of the
mud, showing us where to go.

-The Way Under the Way

05/11/2026

The Forgotten Corners by Jeff Foster

Feed the cat.
Fold the towels.
Clean the lint from the dryer.
Say thank you for someone’s kindness.
And mean it.
This is the temple –
Not on some distant mountaintop,
but here,
in a messy kitchen,
in a real apology
in a long exhale
when you’re stuck in morning traffic.
Enlightenment isn’t an escape.
It’s seeing, really seeing,
what’s right in front of you.
It’s staying.
Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Even when it’s brutally mundane.
There’s holiness in every breath.
In doing the small things with love.
In the life you already have.

04/30/2026

We're going to the beach. 🌊

Andrea and I have been hosting Wild Wonder retreats together for nearly 10 years, and we've been coming to Mexico for decades. But we've never taken our work to the beach. Until now.

This December, we're gathering for 7 nights at Mar de Jade, a lush, oceanfront sanctuary just outside Puerto Vallarta.

We'll write. We'll make art. We'll sit together for delicious meals.

A place to exhale at the end of the year. To lay down what's been heavy. To return to something more essential.

Our first-ever beach retreat. December 12-19, 2026. Come with us.

Click below for all the dreamy details. 🌴

wildwonderretreats.com/mardejade

Address

27 Powers Court
Alameda, CA
94501

Website

http://27Powers.org/

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