The Yogic Writer: Uniting Breath, Body, and Page

Fusing the craft of writing with the philosophy of yoga, The Yogic Writer charts a path to the heart of creativity through the practice of yogic breathing, somatic exercises, and meditations. In response to an oftentimes paralyzing focus on outcome and product, Jennifer Sinor summons decades of experience teaching creative writing and yoga to guide our attention back to the body, the place from which all art arises.
When invested with deep awareness, writing transforms us as human beings. The Yogic Writer connects the recursive process of writing - creating space for intentions, drafting, revision, and sitting in sites of possibility and potential - with the four stages of breath. Through brief insightful essays, Sinor meets writers in the present moment, providing craft advice while challenging us to explore how we look, who is really writing, and how to listen to our bodies.

Steeped in ideas owed to ancient wisdom as well as creative writing pedagogy and Sinor’s own experience, The Yogic Writer offers a unique, alternative approach to finding creativity that forsakes external validation for internal knowledge and experimentation. Inspirational, affirmational, and personal, this book is for anyone seeking permission to embody the life of a writer that they already know, deep down, to be theirs.

Jennifer Sinor is Professor of English at Utah State University. USA. She is the author of several books of literary nonfiction, including Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World and the memoir Ordinary Trauma. A teacher for thirty years, Jennifer Sinor holds a PhD in composition and rhetoric from the University of Michigan and is a certified yoga instructor (RYT 500). Currently, she offers creative writing to undergraduate and graduate students as well as community classes on writing memoir. In addition to teaching weekly yoga classes, Jennifer helps facilitate the Amrita Yoga Satsang, has offered meditation in the Cache County Jail, and taken numerous courses and classes in yoga history, philosophy, and practice in both the US and India.