“When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.”

-Origin Unknown

Hi, I’m Tanya.

I’m a playwright, author, workshop leader, editor and writing coach.

If you’re looking for a quick snapshot of my plays, publications, and accolades, you can find that here.

In this space, I’d like to share with you the story of how all my life writing has been my best friend, my secret keeper, and my compass for navigating the world, even in the toughest of times.

I hope my story can inspire you:

to open the floodgates and let whatever arises spill out onto the page.
to kick your inner critic to the curb and write with wild abandon.
and to start—or remember —your own passionate love affair with writing.

Whatever life throws at you, writing can help you navigate it.

I started keeping a journal when I was eight years old, following my parents’ separation. At camp that summer, I kept my flashlight on inside my sleeping bag long after lights out, scribbling away.

As I wrote, the tangled threads of my thoughts and emotions began to unravel. It felt as though I were writing myself to a place of clarity.

I learned that summer that writing could help me make sense of the world. To this day, I sometimes don’t know what I think until I see it on the page.

There’s power in crafting your own narrative.

In my twenties, wandering and working my way across several continents, my notebook was my constant companion and closest friend. With it safely tucked in my backpack, I never felt alone. In trains or cafes, at roadsides or construction sites, I’d plunk myself down and write.

When you write the stories of your life, you become the author of even your most painful experiences. They are yours now, to shape, grieve, laugh at, or release.

My roadside scratchings eventually made their way into the world as stories, plays, and my travel memoir, Somebody’s Heart is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa. The book came out the same year my first child came out. My most productive year ever.

Did you ever lose touch with an essential part of yourself?

A decade and a half slid by in a blur, as I birthed a second child and a bouncing baby musical. In the crash and scramble of daily life, my beloved notebook languished on a shelf.

Then one day, an announcement for a writing workshop arrived in my in-box. Not a traditional, critique-based workshop, but one where people gathered and wrote together, wild and loose and free.

Oooh, that sounds fun, I thought.

As a mom of young children, I’d had to keep my head down and focus on what was in front of me. Now my boys were getting older—not yet grown, but older.

I felt a sliver of space open up.

I stepped into it.

Ever land in a place that felt like home?

The workshop was called Wild Writing, and from the moment I walked into teacher Laurie Wagner’s living room, which was painted ochre and rust and smelled of coffee and cinnamon, I knew I’d come home.

I’d been writing in this unbridled way on my own for years, but doing it in community, witnessing and being witnessed…that was new. The power of the experience floored me. It quickly became the highlight of my week, a place I felt wholly myself.

I soon realized I didn’t just love participating in these circles, I wanted to lead them. I took Laurie’s Wild Writing teacher training, then struck out on my own.

What’s another word for letting go?

When I asked my nine-year-old son what to call my workshops, he said it had to have something to do with puppies.

I immediately pictured a dog in an open field, the moment the leash is unclipped. That freedom. That pure, uncomplicated joy.

Off-Leash Writing was born.

When I started getting questions from students about what to do with all the fabulous material they were generating, I added the Memoir & Fiction Workshop to help people shape and polish their raw, gorgeous drafts into finished work.

Then to Now

For the last seven years, through Off-Leash Writing Workshops, Memoir & Fiction Workshops, and Coaching & Editing Services, I’ve helped hundreds of people free their authentic voices, shape and polish their work, and get their stories out into the world.

This year I realized a long-held dream by co-hosting my first Women’s Creativity Retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii. Stay tuned for more chances to create and rejuvenate in magical places.

As I’ve nurtured my students’ creative souls, they’ve nurtured mine. Getting to write with and support so many extraordinary individuals and to witness their courage and vulnerability has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

I’d love to share it with you.

Professional Snapshot

I’m the author of the book Somebody’s Heart is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa, the plays Miss America’s Daughters, Brigadista, Let My Enemy Live Long!, Baby Taj, and Manatee on Mars, and the musical The Fourth Messenger (with composer Vienna Teng).

My plays have been seen at major regional theatres such as Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks, and A Contemporary Theatre and have toured to more than forty cities in the U.S. and Canada. The soundtrack album of The Fourth Messenger was released to critical acclaim and is available here.

I also co-wrote the musical satires Social Work and Ripple Effect for the Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. I was a Playwrights’ Foundation Resident Playwright from 2008-2012.

I’ve received Bay Area Critics’ Circle Awards and Dramalogue Awards and been nominated for a National Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Award. My work has landed on the year-end Top Ten lists of major media outlets such as the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and KQED-FM.

As a travel writer, I was a regular contributor to the Wanderlust section of Salon. My stories and essays have appeared in more than a dozen anthologies.

From 2020 to 2024, I hosted the podcast Off-Leash Arts: Conversations on Creativity.

I currently publish the blog Tanya Shaffer’s Off-Leash Chronicles.

For the past seven years, I’ve supported hundreds of writers in finding their authentic voices and getting their work out in the world. Are you next?