Writer and Teacher Laurie Wagner: Pray That You Get Lost

Photo by Stephanie Williamson

Laurie Wagner has been publishing books and essays and teaching writing for the last 25 years. In her Wild Writing classes, she helps people unzip what’s inside them and get ink on the page. Laurie teaches online and takes people around the world to places like Kathmandu; San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca, Mexico; and Taos, New Mexico. (There’s still room on her upcoming trips to Nepal and San Miguel!) Her books include Living Happily Ever After: Couples Talk about Lasting Love, and Expectations: 30 Women Talk about Becoming a Mother. She was also a writer on the Oscar-nominated documentary For Better or For Worse. Laurie was a teacher and mentor of Off-Leash Arts host, Tanya Shaffer. In this conversation, the two women talk about the trajectory that led Laurie from journalism to work in the publishing industry to leading Wild Writing workshops, the power of “lowering our gaze,” and the transformational nature of naming things exactly as they are. Laurie also shares an excerpt from her lyric memoir-in-progress.