Sheila Bender Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Washington, United States

I coach, teach, edit and instruct people writing memoir, personal essay, poetry and fiction.

After writing and publishing ten books on writing, I decided to offer my instruction online via a weekly magazine with instructional articles on topics of interest to those who write from personal experience and/or teach others to do so. The business grew to include online classes and other resources for writers, including a yearly writers' conference and additional in-person teaching. I continue to publish books--my recent ones are Creative Writing DeMystified from McGraw-Hill, A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief from Imago Press, Sorrow's Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief from Zoyo Branding, Behind Us the Way Grows Wider: Collected Poems 1980 - 2013 from Imago Press,Perfect Phrases for College Application Essays from McGraw-Hill and now an ebook, Write! Write! Write! 7 Dynamite Instructional Exercises for Those Who Want to Write Prose From Personal Experience . My husband, Kurt VanderSluis, serves as page administrator and editor for Writing It Real.

I publish weekly articles on my website about writers and writing; I edit and evaluate personal essays, book manuscripts, poems and stories. I speak and teach at writing workshop venues and conferences. My newly redesigned website is a membership site with many resources and tools for writers. My work helping those in mourning through writing culminated in a digital book this year: Sorrow's Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief. And a new collection of my poems came out a week later: Behind Us the Way Grows Wider.It made for an exciting spring.I teach online for Writingitreal, Women on Writing; Writers.com; and Story Circle Network.

Seattle

In 1993, I taught creative writing and ran a writers' reading series for the Seattle University English Department. Fall, 2013, I was back again to teach a seminar called "Poetry and Spirituality." An enormous pleasure to teach the Seattle University upper classmen.

I am adjunct faculty in the Creative Writing department, visiting yearly to teach writing intensives.

Coached and edited for undergraduate and graduate school candidates.

Ma, Creative Writing - Poetry

Activities and Societies: Studied with Colleen McElory, David Wagoner, William Matthews, Stanley Plumly and Stephen Dunn among other poets.

Ba, English Literature