PODCAST · arts
Courageous Wordsmith
by Amy Hallberg
Author, editor & writing mentor Amy Hallberg presents conversations with real-life creatives on how we find and embody our voices. Because if you want to be a real-life creative, it helps to know what that looks like for you. Welcome to Courageous Wordsmith.
Episodes
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Habits of Heart
From Amy: From the beginning, my podcast has done whatever it wanted. It is, at best, loosely scripted. As in: There's no application process. You cannot pitch yourself. I will say no thank you. This is the ONLY way it works: Someone says something that sparks my attention and I reach out to…
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Loving Our Neighbors
From Amy: My friend Jillian Rae has done this thing twice while we've posed for a photo, once at her album launch, once at my book launch: Jillian points to me and makes a face as if she can't believe her luck to have encountered me personally. And yet, Jillian is a bonafide rockstar. I use that...
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Writing for Good
From Amy: You likely know that Renee Nicole Good was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota two Wednesdays ago. ICE is occupying our state because the Supreme Court said that they could. Specifically, Brett Kavanaugh—who gave me flashbacks to a Third Reich judge* in his confirmation...
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Women Seeing Our Gifts for the First Time
From Amy: I have so much to say about the richness and challenge of my journey through the life coach world, and someday soon I'll be ready to write about that. But if there's anything I would tell my former self, as she moved through that process, it's this: You aren't doing this wrong, and you...
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How We Are Connected
From Amy: At the heart of my work, I draw connections with and for real-life creatives, often from my lived experience of making those kinds of connections in my own work. Not only would a younger Amy have cringed to see me publish the writing I do, but also at the way I reach out to people and...
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Becoming a Courageous Change Leader
From Amy: Anyone who has been in my world even briefly knows that my work is about books... and yes, I do love a well-written book... and my work is about supporting real-life authors and working creatives... and / but / also there's this affective healing side I'm always paying attention to.…
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What Comes After a Ted Talk?
From Amy: Ten years ago this month, I started my 21st year of teaching with painful confirmations that my career was on its last legs: betrayal by people in power and a frozen right shoulder (my dominant side) that made it hard to write on the board. I didn’t know how or when I would make the…
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Preparing for a TED Talk
From Amy: The big ideas that get us all talking didn't come from nowhere. Someone started talking about them, and somewhere along the way, they got traction. Somebody or something amplified them and they resonated. And that's the big idea behind a TedX talk. It's also the idea behind the...
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Life as a Songwriter
From Amy: I am not a fangirl. I'm not that person who waits at the stage door to talk with famous people after a concert or someone who would approach a famous person at a restaurant to ask for an autograph. I'd rather go home and sleep than attend a loud afterparty where I have to engage in…
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My Greatest Fear Became Freedom
From Amy: Timing for creative work is interesting. Sometimes you start a project that, for whatever reason, doesn't want to come together right then. Later the perfect timing arises, and you understand that this project was preparing itself to meet the moment. I recorded this conversation with...
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Permission to Upspiral
From Amy: Cara Pacific Campbell was the first person who took me up on my offer of a 1:1 Book Writing Mentorship and put her trust in me. I was grateful that someone so vibrant felt drawn to working with me, but looking back, it makes perfect sense. When we are paying attention, we're drawn to…
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Writing for Our Lives
From Amy: When Keri and I recorded this episode in late 2022, I was still editing my second memoir for publication and she was drafting a book that's also now nearing publication. The podcast never got produced at that time, but I happened onto the recording this past winter and it caught my...
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Tiny but Powerful Art
From Amy: I am so ridiculously proud of my latest podcast episode with Corinne Bauer of Tiny Art Maui. And I really hope you will listen to it. Everything about this conversation and how it came to be is unexpected. I met Corinne at an art show in a Hawaiian hotel lobby. But when I talk about…
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Salvaged by Writing Memoir
From Amy: I always knew that I loved writing. But I'm not sure I understood—until I went through a major transition, and not by my own choice—that writing is healing. At first it's writing just for me, raw and unwieldy and terrifying, but I always have the sense that this writing is something…
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How to Build a Healing Writing Practice
From Amy: As long as I've known Sara Taylor, I've thought of her as a gifted writer who—when she gained momentum—would write volumes I want to read. Which is how she was an early participant in what has become my Circle for Real-Life Writers; I've been an up-close witness. Sara's subject matter…
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Revisiting Our Town
From Amy: My junior year in high school, we read Thornton Wilder's play Our Town in English class. My senior year, that same English teacher, Carol Ottoson, directed the play and cast me as the Stage Manager. That role, which spends so much time reflecting on details in life and their meaning…
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I Believe
It's a new season for Courageous Wordsmith. My first two books are launched and I'm focused on helping Real-Life Writers find their voices. Here’s what has my attention, and why. Amy Hallberg is the author of Tiny Altars: A Midlife Revival and German Awakening: Tales from an American Life. She is...
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Art is Not a Luxury
From Amy: This year, more than ever, I wanted to honor Black History Month, at a time when attempts have been made to erase it. I invited my friend Terry Newby to help me do that. As a white woman in America, I loved literature, but I did not grow up reading many marginalized voices. While I knew...
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Boundaries Make Love Possible
From Amy: Welcome to my 100th Episode! Thank you for celebrating with me. When I launched this podcast as Frau Amy's World on January 1, 2019, Sarah Bamford Seidelmann was my very first guest. As the original name suggests, I was still transitioning out of my teaching career, through the life…
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What's in the Cards?
From Amy: This episode, in which my dear colleague and peer Orla Collins interviewed me in 2023, introduces my 52-card Tiny Altars oracle deck. My books are available through distributors other than me, and I haven't been interested in opening a storefront to sell these decks. I already tried…
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Writing is Scary. Write Anyway.
From Amy: When Cara Pacific Campbell first inquired about working with me as a 1:1 Book Writing Mentor, she was reluctant, but not because she was my first book writing client per se. She was reluctant because she'd never written a book, especially about such tender topics, but she was determined...
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Living in a Liminal Space
Bridgette Boudreau is a Master-Certified Coach and Advisor for business owners. Bridgette's coaching philosophy is rooted in compassion and finding one's intrinsic motivation versus pushing or hustling. She acts as a strategic thought partner, providing a confidential and supportive environment…
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Storycraft: Under Construction
From Amy: I met Nicole Diaz in the life-coaching world around the time that I was first envisioning my online community for real-life writers. She demonstrated a brilliant understanding of the creative process, and I had this idea of hosting Idea Parties as the centerpiece of my work with writing...
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Storycraft: Resistance
From Amy: I met Nicole Diaz in the life-coaching world around the time that I was first envisioning my online community for real-life writers. She demonstrated a brilliant understanding of the creative process, and I had this idea of hosting Idea Parties as the centerpiece of my work with writing...
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Storycraft: Writing in Layers
From Amy: I met Nicole Diaz in the life-coaching world around the time that I was first envisioning my online community for real-life writers. She demonstrated a brilliant understanding of the creative process, and I had this idea of hosting Idea Parties as the centerpiece of my work with writing...
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Make Space for Your Art
From Amy: In the early days of my podcast, I hired Molly Darling and her now husband, Christian Rivera, to help me understand what it was to be a working creative with a business (as opposed to a dedicated real-life creative). I thought I was hiring them to help make my Instagram design more...
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About the Audiobook
From Amy: From the beginning of my work as a "real" writer (which I had tried to be on my own for a very long time, but I couldn't move past the journaling stage... no matter how "gifted" anyone said I was at wordsmithing...) I have found that I cannot succeed without the support of collaborative...
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The Origin of My Second Book
From Amy: We were originally hoping for a November 22 release of my Tiny Altars audiobook on Audible, but that date came and went while it awaited its turn in Quality Assurance for over two weeks. Now it's December 3, and the audiobook has arrived, which reminds me that books, like children…
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What Tiny Altars Helped Me See
From Amy: I had hopes of my audiobook being one thing, and instead it's another. It's my memoir on coming to deeper awareness of the role I play in my homeland, inside institutions, and how I couldn't stay there, and how I let myself wander and grieve. Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it...
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Poetry to Heal Us
From Amy: I have been a fan of Linda's gorgeous imagery ever since I met her in an online writing forum. At the time, we were both publishing our books with birds on the cover. The thing about poetry is, sometimes, especially at a moment like now—one week out from pivotal presidential elections…
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Voice First: A Writer's Manifesto
From Amy: I met Sonya at a Minneapolis bookstore, where she was reading from her latest collection of essays. Her writing voice is engaging. But it's the multiplicity of roles she occupies as a writer that fascinates me: from established professor of creative writing and published author, to her...
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Returning the Bones
From Amy: Gin Hammond is a friend of a friend, and when I heard about Returning the Bones, Gin's fictionalized account of her beloved Aunt Bebe, I very much wanted to talk with her. Gin had one request: that we release it before elections because this book's themes are so timely. Twenty days out...
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Troublesome Themes Close to Home
From Amy: Terry Newby and I met in the spring of 2023 and found resonance between our writing that led us to trade books. We wanted to explore what it was to write about real people related to us, Terry in historical fiction and plays, me in creative nonfiction, specifically memoir. This is the...
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Writing About People You Know
From Amy: Terry Newby and I met in the spring of 2023 and found resonance between our writing that led us to trade books. We wanted to explore what it was to write about real people related to us, Terry in historical fiction and plays, me in creative nonfiction, specifically memoir. This is the...
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Dangerfield's Promise
From Amy: Terry Newby and I met in the spring of 2023 and found resonance between our writing that led us to trade books. We wanted to explore what it was to write about real people related to us, Terry in historical fiction and plays, me in creative nonfiction, specifically memoir. This is the...
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The Veil Grows Thin
A note from Amy about this excerpt from Tiny Altars: A Midlife Revival Every book, like every child, seems to arrive in its own divine timing and have its own significant birthday, and this is especially true for this memoir of history witnessed in real time. Because I had abruptly ended my...
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Embodied Writing is Healing
Amy chats with Erica Jones about embodied writing. They discuss the healing process through writing, and how their collaboration brings together their unique expertise in writing and somatic nervous system work. In particular, Erica shares her journey of processing trauma through storytelling.…
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A Look Backstage at Courageous Wordsmith
In this episode of Courageous Wordsmith, author and story coach Amy Hallberg reflects on her personal and professional journey over the past year, marked by the decision to re-center her business and hire a virtual assistant, Brooke Roy. Amy discusses the importance of finding collaborative...
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An Exercise from Amy's Archives
This is an old recording I found (or that found me) while I was working with audio files, and it seemed like the perfect timing to give you a sense of what it's like to work with me in a group writing session... which I offer regularly in my Circle for Real-Life Writers and when I facilitate...
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Stories We Tell around Dying
Dr. Martha Jo Atkins, professional counselor, author, and speaker, guides individuals and families through end of life journeys. With three decades of experience, and a passion for storytelling through photography and film, Dr. Atkins fosters a space where fear lessens and courage and…
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Patterns Revealed in a Memoir
Emily P. G. Erickson is a Minnesota-based writer specializing in mental health and parenting. You can find her bylines in major digital publications, including Everyday Health, Health, The New York Times, Parents, Romper, Verywell Mind, Wired, and more. A former PTSD researcher for the U.S....
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Season Five Trailer
It's a whole new season of Courageous Wordsmith. I've published my second memoir, Tiny Altars, and I'm ready to podcast. Amy Hallberg is the author of Tiny Altars: A Midlife Revival and German Awakening: Tales from an American Life. She is the host of Courageous Wordsmith Podcast and founder of...
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Why We Show Up for Our Writing
Bradley Bodeker is an author of poetry and horror fiction. He is also an illustrator, musician, actor, and ordained minister of the Church of the Latter Day Dude. Bradley is currently working on two novels and a horror anthology. Facebook: https://facebook.com/KingBeeRadley Amazon:...
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Show Up for Your Writing
Michelle Wolff teaches, podcasts, and coaches using story, humor, and some salty language. She holds a Master's degree in Education, has 25 years of experience working with people, and loves to help multi-passionate people stop procrastinating, focus up, and get stuff done. She’s been a therapist...
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Train Your Body & Mind to Write
Michelle Wolff teaches, podcasts, and coaches using story, humor, and some salty language. She holds a Master's degree in Education, has 25 years of experience working with people, and loves to help multi-passionate people stop procrastinating, focus up, and get stuff done. She’s been a therapist...
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Tiny Altars Backstory
Amy Hallberg is the award-winning author of German Awakening: Tales from an American Life. She is a podcaster, story coach, book writing mentor, and the founder of Courageous Wordsmith. A lifelong Minnesotan, Amy lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and two cats. https://amyhallberg.com...
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Tiny Altars Launch Jitters
Bradley Bodeker is an author of poetry and horror fiction. He is also an illustrator, musician, actor, and ordained minister of the Church of the Latter Day Dude. Bradley is currently working on two novels and a horror anthology. Facebook: https://facebook.com/KingBeeRadley Amazon:...
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What Stories Can Teach Us
Michael Trotta is a mentor, storyteller, natural learning specialist, proud dyslexic, unapologetic troublemaker (the good kind), artist, hopelessly addicted fly-fisherman, and host of the Story Mischief podcast. After ten years in education, Michael set out to prove to himself that it was…
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Befriending ADHD as a Creative
Emma Magenta is a feminist Life Coach who helps people-pleasers, overachievers, and perfectionists stop being so hard on themselves, and start feeling at home in their lives. As a coach, her North Star is radical self-love. She’s particularly effective at coaching highly sensitive ADHD women,...
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Moving Past Barriers to Healing
Sara Taylor is an existential life coach for people with tendencies toward anxiety, depression, and ADHD. She collaborates with clients to facilitate generational and self healing so they can find more meaning and satisfaction in life, whether it’s in parenting, in profession, or other creative...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Author, editor & writing mentor Amy Hallberg presents conversations with real-life creatives on how we find and embody our voices. Because if you want to be a real-life creative, it helps to know what that looks like for you. Welcome to Courageous Wordsmith.
HOSTED BY
Amy Hallberg
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Courageous Wordsmith have?
Courageous Wordsmith currently has 122 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Courageous Wordsmith about?
Author, editor & writing mentor Amy Hallberg presents conversations with real-life creatives on how we find and embody our voices. Because if you want to be a real-life creative, it helps to know what that looks like for you. Welcome to Courageous Wordsmith.
How often does Courageous Wordsmith release new episodes?
Courageous Wordsmith publishes regularly with 122 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Courageous Wordsmith?
You can listen to Courageous Wordsmith on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Courageous Wordsmith?
Courageous Wordsmith is created and hosted by Amy Hallberg.
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