Classes & Retreats

Welcome to the Great Unstuck-ing!

The premise of the year-long group is super-simple: the more you practice your instrument, the more songs you can play. If, for a moment, you think of yourself as a piano, by the end of the year, I want you to have the sense you can play all your keys, freely and with wild abandon.

For those who are participating in a year-long group, there is also the option of adding on the occasional private session with me if you wish to.

Each week, I’ll give you prompts to get the ideas going, and you’ll write. This isn’t delivered as a laborious grind. Instead, you will write in short bursts. This practice helps you to express what is in you as concisely as possible without the time to struggle over being good or right. No one ever believes me until they join the group, but what you will wind up writing in this “make-a-mess” way is usually stunning.
Then you’ll read your work to the class (gasp!). It’s not about being a good writer—it’s about developing the resiliency to be able to say your truth in front of others.
Hopefully, I’ve answered some of that already: it’s about tuning the instrument of you so that you can play confidently, fearlessly. It’s about owning your voice. It’s about letting yourself be heard without the need for perfection. What the groups are doing is so fundamental—it’s like going back to nursery school and starting over. “Oh, this is what it’s like to be in my body with other people around. This is play. This is life. This is my voice. This is who I am.”
In these groups, people gain a kind of community they may never have had before. People in groups often refer to the time as church because it’s a holy thing when people feel seen, heard, and safe. It’s so fun and rewarding because the change is profound. The new friendships and connections made in the year-long groups are often so deep the groups find ways to keep meeting, both online and in person. A group I co-led a couple of years ago recently flew from all over the world to meet in Boston!
Nope! This is about writing as an expressive and therapeutic tool. If you want to write a book (or essays or short stories or whatever) that’s great! If you have zero interest in writing a “finished product”-- that's also great!
I’m a “You Got This!” Writing Coach, not an academic. Come to play. See what happens.
We meet for a year because committing to your practice and to other people in a group is a major power move. I’ll keep each group to 20 participants—enough for a solid community, but not overwhelmingly crowded.
I run 4 groups per year, with a new group starting each season. So no matter when you're reading this, you are at most 3 months away from joining a year-long group.
Groups that begin in Fall and Spring will be for adopted people. I have found it helpful as an adopted person to work only with people who are also adopted so I can get a deep sense of belonging in a way I might never have had before. I have also found that it’s helpful to work with all people so I can see that I belong there, also, out in the world, with people who, like me, have stories they want to tell but, for some reason, maybe believe they can’t. That said, you can choose if you want to be in a year-long group that is only for adopted people or if you want to be in a group that does not focus exclusively on the adoptee community.

A new group for all people at all levels of writing experience
begins July 15th, 2024

(Mondays from 8 PM ET to 9:30)

The rate for the year-long group is $150/month.

This is a year-long commitment, so it is $1800 for the year.

Upcoming short-form workshops

Friendship Lab with Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao and Anne Heffron – for adopted people

Begins June 9th for a year of Sundays. 10-11:30 am ET

$200 monthly for 12 months

Making and keeping friends can be complicated for people who were adopted and both fear and crave connection. We will spend a year of Sunday mornings in Friendship Lab, together defining and claiming the relationships we most desire.

These days, loneliness is a huge public health issue, and because adopted people show up in a higher bracket of suicidality, it’s imperative we slow to look at the importance and value of friendship.

Adopted people often feel under-seen and under-heard and struggle with the ability to trust anyone or anything wholeheartedly. Friendship then, both with ourselves and with others, can feel complicated, like something other people have and do well. Join us in a year-long course to explore how those who were relinquished and adopted wade through trust/mistrust and friendship. We will look for ways to strengthen the bonds that we have and create new ones that make us feel like an even more vital presence in the world.

There are so many different types of friends. Friends, to scratch the surface, include family by birth and by adoption, childhood/ historical friends, work or school friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, and others. Over the year, we will look at questions such as How do you both create and fall out of friendship? What happens when friends don’t feel the same level of friendship? When do you shuttle friends from a circle to a lower or higher one, or out of all circles entirely?

In the groups we’ve done in the past, we’ve been deeply moved by the quality of friendships that develop solely on Zoom. The best is when people then go to the trouble to meet in real life and become, possibly, forever friends--friends who know what it means to be adopted and just how life-affirming trust and connection are.

Join us!

Camp Impossible: Name an Impossible Goal and Go For It

Begins May 7, 2024 for a year of Tuesdays noon-1 ET

FREE

Name an impossible goal and go for it this year!

Hi Campers! This is a year-long free group for people who were adopted.

Please join me for a year of Tuesdays if:

You are able to commit to attending Camp regularly. (Life happens, I know, but regular most sessions.)
You are willing to focus on what is possible to achieve in your life.
You want to be a cheerleader for a whole group of people as well as for yourself.
You are willing to change.
You agree to give me some sort of gift at the year’s end that reflects what you got from the class.

I have learned a lot from writing two books about being adopted and from helping the winningest coach in Ivy League history write a book about her leadership style.

I want to share my optimism and desire for peace of mind, felt safety, love, success, awe, and wonder in life.

I want those things for me, and I want them for you.

I believe in collaboration and hive mind.

I believe as a group we can do almost anything.

Let’s test that idea out and see what happens!

Write or Die

Ongoing

$200

Write or Die is my signature 90-minute workshop. In this workshop you will be taken through my 5-question process, which helps people to get unstuck fast, and also introduces people to a new way of thinking and to new possibilities.

Write or Die is my signature 90-minute workshop. In this workshop you will be taken through my 5-question process, which helps people to get unstuck fast, and also introduces people to a new way of thinking and to new possibilities.

In other words, a lot can happen in 90-minutes, and it also plants the seeds for ongoing a-has that unfold over time.

Contact me to sign up for the next group or to ask any questions.

What people have said about working with me:

Anne opened my world and my mind, gave wings to my words, and allowed my thoughts to play. Through our work, I have found my voice and honed my craft.

I am forever grateful.

– K.B.

The 3 classes I have taken with Anne over the past 1.5 years have resulted in more personal healing and growth than any other time in my life. I have never been a writer, yet I love learning from Anne. I would describe her classes as spending quality time with a smart, creative, funny, thoughtful, and talented writer who shares her knowledge while encouraging the class to discover and acknowledge the individual, painful, hidden parts of their stories. She asks questions that get to the core of who I am so that I’m able to write about it. She helps to put words to feelings I can’t articulate. Working with Anne is more like learning and growing together rather than being told how or what to write.

Anne wants to hear the true story of you, the one at the heart of your being, not the “nice” one you think everyone wants to hear. Two years ago, I would have said my story didn’t matter and nobody would want to hear it. With Anne’s help and guidance, I am writing pieces of my story and growing and healing in ways I never imagined possible. I feel both challenged and a sense of calm. I finally feel whole and alive. Anne hears me and genuinely cares about each person in the class. She asks incredibly intuitive questions that result in “ah ha” moments of discovery for many of us.

I am so grateful I found Anne when I was coming out of the fog after finding my first family. She has a way of helping others put words to feelings and stories that have been hidden for decades. She has an amazing gift, and she gives freely of herself to every single person in each class. She speaks of her own truth and growth in such a way that encourages and shows a way to articulate the deepest parts of me.

– K.K.

With little to no previous writing experience, I lacked the confidence and know-how to tell my story. Since working with Anne, I have learned new ways to express my thoughts into words– far beyond my expectations.

Anne continues to inspire, challenge, and motivate me with her incredible knowledge and infectious personality!

– K.V.

Hearing Anne's voice on a podcast was the catalyst to finally pursuing the truth of who and what I am. Now, she helps me find my voice in writing and always encourages me being me.

– A.G.

Working with Anne has unlocked my most authentic voice and given me the courage and focus to say everything I never knew I had to say with a momentum that is like life and death. Also, she's like a magical fairy guiding us into the darkest places with the gentlest and most hilarious spirit. I've never felt so generously and skillfully supported in my own journey of writing and self- discovery.

– L.C.

Anne made me believe the unbelievable — that I could write a book.
She saw the writer in me before I saw it in myself.

– S.C.

Anne makes me brave, both as a writer and an adoptee. She pays close attention and has a true gift for reading in between the lines of her student’s work and provides accessible feedback on how to enrich their stories. She encourages breaking the rules of what story telling is supposed to look like, which gave me the permission I needed to convey mine in my own way. And that is invaluable.

– K.S.

Working with Anne and sharing real-life experiences with other adoptee writers in this serene and safe space gave me the strength and confidence to continue writing my story in ways far beyond my expectations.

– L.V.

Anne has a keen ability as a coach to take her students where we don’t want to go. Deep inside ourselves. She can take a linear/binary thinker like me safely into the world of the esoteric, making for a more courageous and meaningful story.

– R.P.

I was ordered by a friend to enlist Anne Heffron as my memoir mentor. Was my friend ever correct! Anne listens with the keenest heart-mind imaginable, always asking hard questions and making observations that push me through my own walls. She has taught me to question every soft landing or bit of flowery narrative and to look for the more definitive truths hidden beneath those words. And then to dig even deeper.

– K.W.

Working with Anne is a magical experience. She has offered a steady, compassionate hand to keep me focused and has helped me uncover things for my book that I never would have come up with on my own. Asking her to be my writing coach was one of the best decisions I've made.

– T.T.

Anne opens doors that readers and writers have not even realized existed. She lets the light into the rooms of imagination and possibilities. She is the instigator of words. She is both a writer and a writing coach. She is amazing at both of these roles.

– C.R.

No way I would have finished my memoir without Anne Heffron. Anne is no mere coach. She is a mentor and a tireless advocate. I can’t say enough good about Anne. Writing my own story as an adoptee discovering my origin story late in life is one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced. Thank God Anne was there with me. It made the difference between writing and publishing, between journaling and becoming a published author.

– S.W.

Working with Anne Heffron has been nothing short of a miracle. I can't stress strongly enough how remarkable it's been to finally capture what had previously been so elusive. Anne, with her innate ability to connect with the writer inside me and that long-abandoned desire, made it happen.

– E.L.

Working with Anne continues to amaze and inspire me to write. There is a warmth, immediate sense of trust, and mutual respect that instinctively arrives from the minute Anne starts to coach you. Her dedication to encourage self-growth is delivered with an unfounded respect for everyone affected by adoption. She has helped change my life as an adoptee. Now I look forward writing and have Anne to help coach me through the feelings this creative process has unleashed.

– D.F.

Anne Heffron is a midwife of authentic writing. Her belief in the importance of the stories people have to tell is inspirational. She knows that the most beautiful telling of a good story is in the voice of the person who has lived it. Anne will coach you to write, not for your college English professor, but for yourself .... AND for the world....in YOUR voice.

– A.G.

Using encouragement and wit, Anne guides me, like a yoga instructor, through challenging poses until I release my inner voice. She is that special person every writer needs among their community.

– S.S.

Anne possesses that rare gift of compassionate professionalism. Attuned to what this writer needs to make it to the next chapter...she cheers, rebukes, questions, and gives orders (such as, drink lots of water)! She sees the invisible obstacles, helps me see them for myself, and sets me free to write again.

A true author’s advocate, she possesses that rare gift of compassionate professionalism. She’s hilarious, empathetic, straightforward, and focused! Over this year, Anne’s coaching has given me the courage to tell my story and the confidence to persevere.

– J.L.

Some people just make you smile for every reason. Anne is funny and is as real as it gets. She admittedly shares what she knows and challenges you to journey with her to figure out what she doesn’t know. On more than one occasion, she has said to me, “I’ll help you. You go figure it out and then teach me.” She is a master of compassionate mischief and wholehearted encouragement. When I signed up for Write or Die, I knew I had some interesting stories to tell, but truth be told, I simply wanted to meet Anne. After reading her book, I felt like she had entered my brain and put words to all my crazy thoughts! Then, she enthusiastically convinced me that my words mattered, too. I treasure her and her joy.

– R.M.

Anne has been mentoring me for a few years; she encouraged me to start a blog and go public with my writing. She asks questions that really get to the heart of what you know you want to write about. I have been to a Write or Die workshop of hers and it is amazing what she can draw out of writers. Anne really takes into account the life of the writer when she is coaching. All of my interactions with her reveal something new about myself. She has given me confidence to put my work out there and to feel as though I have something to say that people will want to read.