we feed the
storyteller
The Howler organization hosts and facilitates thoughtful opportunities for expanding holistic humanness, which includes tending to physical, emotional, spiritual, environmental, and community dimensions.
With the integration of arts and wellness, we offer a variety of considerations a storyteller might explore for inner and outer discoveries.
Our workshop topics include:
-
the mind/body connection
-
reflective awareness
-
spirituality and meaning-making
-
sustainability
-
transformative social change
-
regenerative leadership
-
philosophy of happiness
-
experiential expression and creative enrichment
...and much, much more. Our innovative programming is free and begins in early 2023.
journey
with us
Join us, won't you?
Find a story.
Share your unique observation of living.
Ignite a conversation about the human experience.
Create an opportunity for collective connection.
journey with us
Join us, won't you?
Find a story.
Share your unique observation of living.
Ignite a conversation about the human experience.
Create an opportunity for collective connection.
we celebrate
the story
Stories are everywhere—a person alone on a park bench, a (red) balloon in the sky, a bicyclist on a quiet sidewalk at midnight.
Stories are a part of us—our grief, our joy, the complicated simultaneous sensation of both.
Sometimes we tell stories with words but not always. There are numerous containers for storytelling:
words, images, sounds,
film, canvas, song,
a nuanced intersection of two
or more.
how do you make
a story howl?
welcome
to the
collective
The Howler Project is anchored in the belief that the arts are a universal language and storytelling, a bridge to human connection.
Telling stories allows us to bear witness to the experience, to see and be seen. The organization has a vision for a less lonely world and aims to remove the physical and internal barriers that can make it such.
We offer a safe space to share living, express longing, empower creativity, and revivify through restorative talks and workshops.
we feed the storyteller
The Howler organization hosts and facilitates thoughtful opportunities for expanding holistic humanness, which includes tending to physical, emotional, spiritual, environmental, and community dimensions.
With the integration of arts and wellness, we offer a variety of considerations a storyteller might explore for inner and outer discoveries.
Our workshop topics include:
-
the mind/body connection
-
reflective awareness
-
spirituality and meaning-making
-
sustainability
-
transformative social change
-
regenerative leadership
-
philosophy of happiness
-
experiential expression and creative enrichment
...and much, much more. Our innovative programming is free and begins in early 2023.
JOHN PRICE
John T. Price is an award-winning author and the Regents’/Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he directs the English Department’s Creative Nonfiction Writing Program. A native of Fort Dodge, Iowa, he was raised within a multi-generational family who instilled in him an appreciation for the beauty of nature, the wisdom of ancestral stories, the urgency of social justice, the responsibilities of faith, and the healing power of a good laugh. His childhood home was filled with books, which he often picked up to embark on an adventure, connect with characters both human and animal, or to learn something new about the world—a restless (and relentless) curiosity that continues to inform his life and writing.
John attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a BA in Religion, MFA in Nonfiction Writing, and PhD in English. Since then, he has authored four creative nonfiction books, often using humor to explore the wildish intersections of nature, family, community, and spirit. These include All is Leaf: Essays and Transformations (U. of Iowa Press, 2022), Daddy Long legs: The Natural Education of a Father (Trumpeter/Shambhala, 2013), and Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships (Merloyd Lawrence Books/Da Capo Press, 2008; Paperback, U. of Iowa Press). He is also the editor of The Tallgrass Prairie Reader (U. of Iowa Press, 2014), the first collection of nature writing entirely dedicated to the beauty of the tallgrass region.
A recipient of a prose fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and many other recognitions, his nonfiction has appeared in numerous journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Above all, he is proudest of his family. Together, they have made their home in the Loess Hills of western Iowa, where John continues to discover new wonders, new stories, every day.
REBECCA ROTERT
Rebecca Rotert received her MA from Hollins College in Virginia. Her work has appeared in Santa Clara Review, America magazine, and the New York Times among others. Her books include Last Night at the Blue Angel, a novel, All the Animals We Ever Were, a poetry collection, and the book-length poem Understory. Her work has received the American Academy of Poets Award, the Nebraska Book Award, and the Friends of American Writers Award, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Dublin International Literary Award. Rotert lives in Omaha, NE.
HOWEVER, she remains stubbornly committed to the idea that none of the above matters a lick. That what matters is the way in which sentences can change everything, can drag us from the burning buildings of our moods, our histories, our epoch, and show us something new. She loves the intimate, gristly bond between writer and reader and her favorite courage is the courage to be quiet a minute, wait, and write what rises up. She has a tiny notebook problem. (The problem is tiny, the notebooks variously sized.) She hides the good pens. She really wants to see your sentences.
JACK PHILLIPS
After a teaching and academic career that took him from Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest to the Levant and North Africa and many points between, Jack Phillips embraced the poetics of North American ecosystems. He is a poet, naturalist, nature writer and founder of The Naturalist School.
Jack seeks advice from cottonwood murmurs and grandmother oaks, sonic frogs and bluebird sutras, dragonfly rattles and the cosmogonic cracking of pond ice and helps other seekers do the same. Wild nature – the heart of every living thing – sprouts and grows creativity; every generative act when born of the wildest self offers our hands and voice, body-souls and feral imaginations to the fertile pulse of the cosmos, and hers to ours. Healing and compassion are rooted here.
This is practical work. Jack gathers people from all walks for contemplative mornings in the woods and meadows and sometimes in a river, and for ecosystem-based workshops to nourish our nature-love through wildly creative acts and good science. The Naturalist School meets in the Missouri River watershed and farther-flung biomes.
In wider circles he is author of The Bur Oak Manifesto: Seeking Nature and Planting Trees in the Great Plains and co-editor of Natural Treasures of the Great Plains: an Ecological Perspective (with Paul Johnsgard and Tom Lynch). His poetry has appeared in Wild Roof, Flora Fiction, EcoTheo, The Closed Eye Open, Canary: a Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis, THE POET, and The Good Life Review. Jack was the keynote speaker and featured poet for the 56th annual Neihardt Day at the John G. Neihardt Center. However, the potency of a poem is found in the act of composing; many of his poems are returned to the earth or given to the campfire.
JACK PHILLIPS >
CAMERON EVANS
Cameron Evans, Ph. D., delights in the spaces between worlds. His research has focused on the intersections of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology to better understand matters of social injustice.
We may not have as much control over our bad habits, false beliefs, and implicit biases as we would like. Our environments play a crucial role in sustaining our inner lives: in particular, the people we trust and the media we consume. Human connections can help people out of extreme situations: radicalized echo chambers. Interaction with people they’ve been told to hate and distrust combats dehumanization, and exposure to ideas that seem absurd can help them deconstruct their own views. If we are morally obligated to address our implicit biases, we may actually be obligated to connect.
Cameron has been through a few life cycles: an aspiring physician, a lab scientist, and a university teacher. He has also used his research background to bolster the missions of nonprofits focused on social equity. These projects have included youth education and support, community development, and small business incubation.
He finds it difficult to separate “life” from work that he is passionate about; nonetheless, you might catch him hiking in deep woods, dancing to a live jazz band, learning new martial arts, or exploring new hobbies.
CAMILA QUINTERO
Camila Quintero is a multidisciplinary artist and architectural engineer, splitting her time between the Midwest's urban center of Chicago and her birthplace in the Peruvian Andes, where she enjoys minimal cell service. A graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago, she has worked nationally and internationally in places like San Francisco and Buenos Aires. As an engineer, she became fascinated by spaces and the hows and whys of our persistent need to fill them and with what we choose to fill them. This curiosity led her to art and art making, which felt like a natural way to investigate such intricacies.
She constructed her first diorama at the age of thirty from items she found discarded in Chicago transit systems. She has since expanded her exploration into other mediums like sculpture, installations, and performance art. Her work has been exhibited and performed in various Midwest cities. She is currently working on a 200-foot Viva la Mujer piece for the Santa Fe Arts District in Denver.
the howler project TEAM
DAN'L NEWELL
Dan’l Newell is an attorney who writes poems in the Ozarks. For the last decade, he’s served the community Italian cuisine at Nonna’s Cafe in Springfield, Mo. In the past, he’s done some teaching: poetry workshops, Theatre 101 at Missouri State University, and substitute yoga instructor at the YMCA. Dan’l is excited about The Howler and grateful to be a part of it.
MICHELLE QUICK
Michelle is a Midwest creative, dedicated dreamer-schemer, and the architect of The Howler Project. She has led a kaleidoscope life, from a classically trained chef to an outdoor guide. Michelle earned an MFA from the University of Nebraska Omaha, where she is currently an instructor, advisor, and graduate student (again) in social work and human rights. She also studies integrative medicine at the University of Arizona. Michelle's training focuses on releasing trauma through expressive arts, and her research explores the complexities of human connection.
She believes creating helps the soul grow and is open to making stuff in whatever form emerges. Her writing appears (or will soon) in Jabberwock Review, Camas, Blood Orange, and Booth, among other places. Her prose and poetry have been nominated for Best of the Net and awarded an Academy of American Poets prize. She has designed and photographed for national magazines and organizations like Wine Enthusiast, Food & Wine, and Convoy of Hope. Michelle has a soft spot for tiny art and enjoys hiding it around the city. She trusts in synchronicity, '90s girl bands, and the healing power of spaghetti. She is so looking forward to sharing your work.
