Elizabeth Perlman
Hello fellow creative humans!
Thank you for stopping by. In case you were wondering, my name is Elizabeth and I am the founder and executive director of The Intuitive Writing Project, a writing-based empowerment program for girls and gender-expansive youth. (More on that, below.) I am also a writer, a designer, a teacher, a mentor, a speaker, a podcaster, a passionate advocate for teenage girls, and the fairy godmother of encouragement, which is another word for "oomph!" (Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!) For as long as I live, I am dedicated to elevating the wisdom and power of young women, supporting them to find their voice as the authors, leaders and change-makers our world needs most.
I love writing. Writing is how I think, how I learn, how I breathe. Again and again, writing has saved my life. It's still saving me.
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I completed my first story, "Bloody Merder," (why is spelling so hard?!) when I was eight. At ten, I started keeping a nightly journal. By the time I was in high school, I was writing every night for hours. In the space between those thin blue lines, I found my own voice. But my story isn’t that different from anyone else’s. Every girl is on the same quest, the same “heroine’s journey” to learn and grow and live her truth.
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I believe that human beings are both deeply wise and profoundly heroic, but that we usually can’t see it. Usually, we need some kind of evidence. I believe our stories are the evidence. I believe our stories contain our Magic. And I believe that storytelling is how we heal, uplift and redesign our lives.
In Case You Want To Know About My Education & Previous Work
I earned a BA in Media Arts from The University of South Carolina, after which I completed a two year program in Art Direction & Design for Advertising at The Portfolio Center which is now Miami Ad School Atlanta. I also studied for two years at One Spirit Learning Alliance in New York City, where I was ordained at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine as an Interfaith Minister. (Yes, I can also officiate weddings!) For over ten years, I worked as a designer and art director, telling the "visual stories of the brand" for companies like BBDO SF, Nike, and West Elm. Then, with the recession of 2008, I got the chance to start over, to go back to school and study the thing I'd always been most passionate about—the power of writing to heal and transform.
At John F. Kennedy University, I completed my Master's in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression as a tool for personal inquiry and growth. It was during this time that I was certified as a Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method, the beautiful writing philosophy that would become the foundation of my own transformative writing program, The Intuitive Writing Project.
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In Case You Want To Know About The Intuitive Writing Project
The Intuitive Writing Project is a writing-based empowerment program for teenage girls and gender-expansive youth. I created this organization because it was what I wanted and needed when I was young. Although I first hatched the idea at 19, it took me another twenty years to actually step forward and (true to my own tagline) “declare what I know to be true.” Today, our programs are the synthesis of everything I've learned as a woman—but wished I had learned in high school.
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In Case You Want To Know Why I Often Roll Down Hills, Which May Be the Only Important Thing To Know About Me
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Not unlike the chicken who loves to cross the road, I roll down hills to feel the earth spin. I just think it’s really weird that, most of the time, we can’t feel the earth spin, especially when you consider that we’re whirling through space at a thousand miles per hour! (AAAAA!!!) Rolling down hills reminds me of the bigger truth, that we're all just little sparks of light, flying together through the infinite cosmos on a tiny blue marble.