Lower stress, process emotion, and activate creativity

Taking workshops and seminars with Valley has utterly transformed our community. She has served as our death doula as we grieve perfectionism, laying it to rest in the ground. When we strike gold within ourselves and it breaks us wide open, she gently helps us sew ourselves back up with the surgical precision of her strengths based feedback. Her kindness and authenticity serves as a constant reminder that we no longer need to apologize for being humans who write something down. She disarms all the parts of us who say we’re not good enough to write what’s true. She provides open, no strings attached access to all the benefits writing offers to us, 10 minutes at a time.

Lauren D. Powell, M.Ed.Program Coordinator, Rams in Recovery, Virginia Commonwealth University

Valley gave a workshop for 20 of my direct marketing copywriters, and afterwards I heard many of them talk about how refreshing it was. This workshop gave them the chance to see writing in a different way, and to see their coworkers in a different way … and to feel supported as both writers and as employees. For some, it was a chance to learn more about each other than they knew before. In this way, Valley’s workshop offers both skill-building and team-building. For corporate creatives, it can be hard to find either of those, much less both! I highly recommend this experience!

Anne Carson, Copy Manager, Enrollment Services, EAB

In the years that I have facilitated Life In 10 Minutes groups in an assisted living facility, I have witnessed writers in their 70’s and 80’s use this format to create legacy pieces, manage adjustments to aging and relocation, process grief, and to face their own mortality. They have evolved as writers and have become confident in their ability to express themselves and in the value of their stories. The group has been a source of connection and comfort for writers in an age when our society often isolates and undervalues the oldest members. Being able to bear witness and hold space for these writers has been a gift to me and, I think, to the writers, as well.

—Jennifer Jurlando

I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Valley Haggard when she provided a transformative writing workshop as part of a VCU health equity seminar series. The workshop, delivered with her characteristic openness and gentle feedback, provided a rare opportunity for graduate level health science students at VCU to reflect upon and share their experiences as current and future health care providers. Valley's process is creative, engaging, and empowering and yielded unexpected and valuable insight to participants. I am eager to bring the experience to future students and faculty and would highly recommend Valley's writing workshop for any level of education, profession, or group.

Dr. Patricia Carcaise-Edinboro

VCU Spring 2018 Health Equity Implicit Bias lecture series

As a trauma informed yoga teacher, I have used the Halfway House for Writers as a resource to teach men in treatment, women in prison, and survivors of sexual trauma how to reject what others have drilled into them and find their own truth. The book has been a valuable tool and resource in the healing process for these men and women who have been victimized how to not victimize themselves.

Billie Southworth Carroll
Trauma Informed/Addiction Recovery Yoga Instructor

Every writer, novice or published, poet or prose, needs to hear what Valley has to say: 'No words are wasted. Everything you've written has brought you here. You're safe.' The Halfway House is an instrumental tool for the writer and her inner critic. I use it as a primary text in my creative writing classes. We return to it again and again. It gives everyone permission to be vulnerable and get to the task at hand--telling the truth, saying what needs to be said. Opening the door to possibility and holiness. I use it because it saved me.

Michele Young Stone, author of Lost in the Beehive

Valley's living room workshop was one of the most intimate experiences I've had with my group of friends. Even in a room full of people I've known for most of my life, we learned new things about each other, laughed, cried and exposed our hearts in ways we never had before. I felt more clarity about the things that weigh on my mind than I'd ever been able to reach in a professional therapy session. Valley is wonderful, kind and a really special soul.

Megan Tickle, Atlanta, GA