meet

laurie wagner

I’M LAURIE WAGNER, THE CREATOR OF 27 POWERS

I’m also a writing teacher, but not the kind who cares about punctuation or grammar. I care about telling true stories. I am about creating brave spaces where people can take risks, part the veil and allow themselves to step onto the page in an honest and true way.

For me, good writing happens when we relax and have the courage not to perform, but to allow ourselves to take a breath, to soften our bellies, and to speak from our home voices.

The poet Leonard Cohen says, “we just want to be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman.” Those are the voices we’re hungry to connect to, that’s the medicine of our time – person to person – voice to voice – and it starts with connecting to ourselves, to our own voices.

WRITING AND TEACHING IS A PATH FOR ME…

It’s not a job, and it’s not separate from my life. I mean to wake up, to become more conscious. Whenever people drop their facade on the page or in a circle, I learn more about what it means to be a human being, and it impacts me. Writing, and especially writing in community, invites me to do this, to open to the world as it is, and to find my way inside of it, naturally and without effort.

I blog, I love interviewing other writers and teachers, I’m a mixed-media artist, collage-maker, and mother of two beautiful children.

welcome to

27 powers

WELCOME TO A WORLD BUILT ON TRUE STORIES

A place where, for the last 25 years, writers and creatives have come to sit in community to learn and to write. At 27 Powers, we practice dropping the facade, taking a breath and tuning out perfectionism so that we can listen to what is moving through us, so we can write, create and connect from a more soulful and honest place.

It’s a space where vulnerability and transparency are celebrated. When we can see and feel you, when you can show us your most pared down, naked human self, we can see ourselves, which is when connection happens – on the page and off.

a few

notable details…

THE CEILING IN MY DINING ROOM IS GOLD, AND THE WALLS ARE BLOOD RED

I have a fire pit surrounded by a motley crew of comfy chairs in my front yard, and sometimes there are owls in the palm trees. On one of the first nights of the Pandemic, I ran worriedly to the end of my street to speak to the full moon and ask for its help. I am completely lit up by music, and when it is warm out, we light the fire pit and host bands on the small stage in the yard. I like long drives, alone or with someone else. I like my own company, and one day I’ll properly tell the story of my grandmother who drove her car into her swimming pool and drowned. I remember that pool in West L.A.. I can still see my father, his arms reaching out to me, “Swim, ” he says, as he begins to back away toward the deep, “swim.”

I teach what I need to learn. I’m down with that. We’re all in this together.

a couple of

true stories…

I’M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR, seven times over. Which is lovely – and unexpected. Because for me, brave + unbound writing has very little to do with landing a book deal. It’s about revealing who you are… and discovering something vital, in the process.

THAT BEING SAID – I’m pretty proud of my books, which include Living Happily Ever After: Couples Talk about Long Term Love and Expectations: Women Talk about Becoming a Mother.

I ONCE WROTE GRANT APPLICATIONS and interviewed hundreds of subjects for an Academy Award-nominated documentary about couples who’d been married for fifty years – or more. For Better or For Worse caught the attention of Chronicle Books, and swirled into a book deal. I love interviewing people and bringing them into the 27 Powers community to teach and inspire us.

MY ESSAYS ON LIFE, KIDS, WRITING + MAYHEM have appeared in Salon, Glamour, Parenting, Brain Child, The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the East Bay Express.

I LIKE TO THINK OF MYSELF AS THE IMPOSSIBLE LOVECHILD of Nancy Drew, Starbuck (from Battlestar Gallactica) and Deanna Troi from Star Trek. Inquisitive, committed + a little bit psychic.

IN MY 25 YEARS AS A WRITING TEACHER, I’ve personally taught over 3,000 students. I’ve seen manuscripts polished + delivered to publishers (terrific) and I’ve seen lives transform, align + shift into focus (even better). These days, I lead the Wild Writing Family membership.I train men and women to become Wild Writing teachers, and I lead writing and creativity retreats in the US and internationally..