Who We Are
At Vancouver Women’s Writing Courses, our mission is to create vibrant, creative, supportive and healing online communities.
We do this through our Women’s Writing as Healing workshop series, our Muse Lab series and our Women’s Intuitive Development + Energy Work series.
As part of our mandate, we offer one-on-one writing coaching and energy-work sessions for women at any stage in their writing/healing journey.
Vision
Our vision is to create an environment where women feel safe to explore their creative writing processes, grow their voices, find healing and empowerment and connect significantly with each other.
Pedagogy of love
At VWWC, we embrace a pedagogy of love, as opposed to the more traditional critique offered by many writing workshops. We have found that through positive reflection and kindness, women grow their writing tremendously over a short period of time. Our workshops are feminist, trauma-informed and warmly inviting of women of all races, ages and abilities.
In addition, our workshops assume an organic connection between the creative process and the life journey of a woman. Check-ins at the start of sessions offer opportunities to hear and respond to each participant with regard to where they are at in both their writing and healing processes.
Why choose us?
Women choose to work with VWWC to grow their writing in a dynamic and supportive circle of women!
Women often choose the Writing as Healing series when they are new to the craft, feel blocked or are addressing a trauma in their life. Sometimes they are experiencing anxiety or depression. Other times they are experienced writers attracted to writing to empowering prompts in a close circle of women.
Women often choose the Muse Lab to explore and expand their creative writing, play with new genres and stretch their concept of how they write.
Women join the Intuitive Development series to grow their intuition, learn the basics of energy work and give and receive weekly readings and healings.
About Marn
Marn’s programs are built on a lifetime of work in facilitation, communications and complementary health.
She’s facilitated workshops in creative writing, creative business writing, writing for healing, intuitive development, energy work, acupressure for self-care and shiatsu.
She created Vancouver Writing Courses in 2014 and Vancouver Women’s Writing Courses in 2019.
She has taught through Continuing Studies at Vancouver’s Langara College and Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She’s also facilitated for organizations like CUPE and MOSAIC, and for groups of over 100.
Prior, she facilitated in schools, prisons and treatment centres.
Marn has a background as a journalist and worked as a writer, editor and consultant for 25 years. As a journalist, she’s specialized in social justice, complementary health and women’s issues, and her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, CBC and Georgia Straight (links to examples of her work).
Marn brings a spirit of levity to her programs, with her background as a comedic poet and playwright.
She’s the author of an IPPY award-winning collection of poetry — Wildflowers at my doorstep, Karma press — and has read and performed her work on many Vancouver stages.
As a playwright, she has written for the Toronto and Vancouver Fringe Festivals. Her recent musical comedy, A Coveted Wife of East Van, premiered at the Vancouver Fringe in September, 2021. (Read the Vancouver Sun review and an interview with Marn about the play.)
Marn has been practicing energy work for 30 years and has studied modalities from Healing Touch and shiatsu through reiki and body-centred energy-counseling.
Her experience as an energy-work therapist, intuitive and empath provides the foundation for her intuitive development programs.
From February through June of 2023, she served as Artist-in-Residence for the City of Port Coquitlam.
Marn was nominated as a YWCA Woman of Distinction for Metro Vancouver, 2024, in the category of Art, Culture + Design.
She has two poetry books forthcoming and is currently at work on a full-length version her musical comedy and a book of nonfiction about…the writing process!
VWWC’s workshop participants
Our participants come from all over the English-speaking world! They are typically between the ages of 25 and 65, from every background and level of experience and ability.
It is a joy to witness the love and support offered to each other by women in these workshops! Geography has no bearing on their capacity to inspire each other to greatness.
Something truly magical transpires through Marn's facilitation. She leads by example, responding thoughtfully to each contribution, holding space, and validating where we are in our healing journey.
Her intuitive, attentive approach creates a nearly palpable sense of safety and connection in the room, transforming strangers into a circle of trust, support, and inspiration.
Marn's approach to the writing itself is equally masterful. Her prompts are expansive: she invites us to look deeply into ourselves and our worlds and to visualize with honesty what we want in our present and future.
I've struggled with rumination in my writing for years, but Marn's techniques have helped me to transcend those blocks and write with fresh perspectives.
Her writing insights are always encouraging and tailored to each person's style, purpose, and goals.
I leave each workshop brimming with inspiration and new self-knowledge.
Attending her workshops is easily one of the best things I've ever done for my well-being, for my love of writing, and for my sense of wonder and appreciation for women.
Marn's writing workshops are a healing offering that is rare to find. Each week, I felt myself open and ease into processing different layers of what was moving through my body, mind, and spirit. Her facilitation is graceful and intuitive, filled with love, powerful insights, and ways of seeing deep into you that feel nurturing and give you permission to finally see yourself with the same bright eyes. The women she attracts are truly just as caring, talented, and genuine as Marn, which created a safe, nourishing, and enjoyable space amongst us even when we were exploring heavier material. There's so much I could say about this workshop and Marn but it's a sliver of the full embodiment of the gorgeous, uplifting, and unique journey that I experienced.