About

Why Writing with Heart and Mind?

Hi. I’m BK Loren (she/her), founder of WWHAM, and I’ve been working with writers for four decades, first at the college level, and later, as a freelancer and visiting artist at conferences, universities and MFA programs internationally. I prefer the word “founder” to “teacher,” because good teaching doesn’t “instruct.” It simply uncovers what’s already there—in you as a writer and in your story/essay/poem itself. 

In 1988, when only a handful of MFA programs existed, I received a full ride to the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop MFA program. Three semesters in, I was hit with an illness that lasted a decade. Intermittent aphasia—loss of language recall—was one symptom. I left Iowa, moved to California, had been there a month when everything I owned slid down a hillside in the Loma Prieta earthquake.

That tectonic shift changed everything for me. Take ten years out of life, and the world will be a different place when you return! 

When I regained my health, I was commissioned to write The Way of the River, and later wrote Theft: a novel , and Animal, Mineral, Radical: A Flock of Essays. But the new landscape of the publishing world no longer felt like home to me. Social media’s not my thing, and the state of being required for self-promotion seems antithetical to the state of being required for writing.

And so all that “loss” helped me see that my love of writing is most alive when I’m working with writers of all levels to navigate the wild terrain of personal transformation and/or to hone the rigorous skills required to carve their unique path to publishing. 

I honestly gain far more pleasure from offering a few guideposts on other writers’ paths than in touting my own work.

Upcoming Project

Here is a trailer by Lauren maya Davis, inspired by BK Loren’s novel Theft. BK and Lauren are currently collaborating on the script for the adaption of Theft on screen.

Want to work with BK?

Website designed by Rebecca Kirk