About Caryn

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Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, a writer, teacher, and facilitator, and coach and consultant who explores how the spoken, written and sung word can help us live more vibrant lives. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, Caryn is the author or editor of over 20 books of poetry, fiction, memoir, non-fiction, and anthologies. A registered songwriter with BMI, her poetry and prose has been published widely. 

 

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is a visionary. She bases her writing within communities for community empowerment. I cannot tell how strongly I feel that we are lucky to have her here for her significant and sustained contributions to the word arts. ~ Denise Low, 2007-09 Kansas Poet Laureate

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As a beloved workshop facilitator, she has led workshops since 1992 for adults in transition, people living with serious illness, and intergenerational and multi-cultural groups. She loves collaborative adventures and leads Brave Voice writing and singing retreats and performances with singer-songwriter Kelley Hunt, Your Right Livelihood with creativity and career coach Kathryn Lorenzen, and The Art of Facilitation classes with poet and facilitator Joy Roulier Sawyer. She adores collaborating with coaching clients on writing, facilitation, and right livelihood.​

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Caryn regularly designs and facilitates sessions for businesses, research institutes, organizations and universities to build  a greater sense of shared purpose, analyze and learn from past endeavors, and set short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. 

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Caryn was born in Brooklyn, and grew up there and in Manalapan, N.J. until she headed west to study journalism at the University of Missouri, where she got a labor history degree instead. She continued west to Lawrence, Kansas, where she fell in love with the land, community, and her husband.

 

Caryn received her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, and she has trained in organizational development and group process, grassroots organizing, poetry therapy, and teaching yoga. She taught for 33 years on the college level, including at Goddard College for 22 years, Haskell Indian Nations University, and the University of Kansas. She is the recipient of Kansas Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Rocky Mountain National Park artist-in-residency, and other honors. 

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Caryn lives in the country, just south of Lawrence, Kansas with her husband, bioregional writer Ken Lassman, a rescue border collie with abandonment issues and an tiny alpha cat who rules the roost, plus three young adult children who visit to the delight of all the humans and animals.