Our mission

I believe that great literature and honest writing belong to everyone so I help curious adults read harder texts and write truer sentences with real confidence and skill.

My courses exist because I kept meeting the same person: someone who loves books and words, who always meant to read Shakespeare or study Beowulf or write that essay, but who never quite felt equipped enough — or who kept waiting for the right moment, the right class, the right permission. I built these courses for that person.\n\nWhat you'll find here is scholarship that doesn't perform itself. Whether we're reading Hamlet line by line, translating Old English with Bosworth-Toller in hand, or learning to compress a vivid memory into 800 words that hit harder than a novel, the goal is always the same: to leave you genuinely capable, not just informed. I care about the difference between knowing a theme and being able to argue for it with evidence. Between having written in a journal and having built a real daily practice.\n\nI also teach contemplative and creative courses — lectio divina, morning pages, flash memoir, poetry — because I think the inner life deserves the same rigor we bring to literary analysis. A daily writing practice isn't decoration. It's how we find out what we actually think and feel, over time.\n\nIf you're here because something on this page felt like it was written for you, I'd trust that instinct. You don't need a literature degree, a theology background, or a finished manuscript to begin. You just need the willingness to show up — and I'll meet you there.

Carla

Our ethos

  1. 1I believe that difficulty is not an obstacle to learning — it's the material itself, and the teacher's job is to walk into it with you, not around it.
  2. 2I believe that reading and writing are disciplines, not talents — which means they can be taught, practiced, and genuinely improved by anyone willing to show up consistently.
  3. 3I believe that intellectual rigor and personal meaning belong together — that the best literary education doesn't just sharpen your mind, it changes what you notice and how you live.

Learn with me

Theoria: The Morning Scriptorium - Lectio Divina and Contemplative Writing