27 Powers

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

Lately, it feels like the world doesn’t stop.The news. The grief. The noise inside our own heads.More than ever, we need...
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/

It’s almost here...4 days of Wild Writing begins Monday, June 8th — and you’re invited.Wild Writing isn’t just about wri...
05/27/2026

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.

Disrobing in Time by Mark Nepo Nothing is easy, but to tell the truth.The truth of what I see and feel.This somehow clea...
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

The Forgotten Corners by Jeff FosterFeed the cat.Fold the towels.Clean the lint from the dryer.Say thank you for someone...
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.

We're going to the beach. 🌊Andrea and I have been hosting Wild Wonder retreats together for nearly 10 years, and we've b...
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

Kate Baer hates small talk.She doesn't want to hear about soccer schedules or what you're making for dinner. She wants t...
04/29/2026

Kate Baer hates small talk.

She doesn't want to hear about soccer schedules or what you're making for dinner. She wants to talk about your marriage. Your sexuality. Your depression. The things we're trained to hide, soften, or pass over.

Join Kate on Friday, May 1 for a 90-minute class on truth, visibility, and the courage to drop the facade — with time to write together, using her poems as a starting point.

Come ready to skip the small talk. Come ready to tell the truth. Come ready to be seen.

9:00–10:30am PT · https://27powers.org/kate-baer/

A class with #1 New York Times bestselling poet Kate Baer.On truth, visibility, and the courage to drop the facade — th...
04/27/2026

A class with #1 New York Times bestselling poet Kate Baer.

On truth, visibility, and the courage to drop the facade — the "good" woman, the "acceptable" writer, the curated self. Writing not as performance, but as presence.
We'll use Kate's poems as a starting point and write our own acts of truth-telling.

Friday, May 1 · 9:00–10:30am PT · https://27powers.org/kate-baer/

What happens when you stop protecting the version of yourself you think you're supposed to be?That's the question at the...
04/25/2026

What happens when you stop protecting the version of yourself you think you're supposed to be?

That's the question at the heart of Kate Baer's poetry — and the one she'll explore with us on Friday, May 1. A 90-minute class on vulnerability over polish, honesty over likability, and writing as a way of telling the truth about who you are.

We'll talk. We'll write. We'll abandon niceness on the page.

Friday, May 1 · 9:00–10:30am PT · https://27powers.org/kate-baer/

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27 Powers Court
Alameda, CA
94501

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