Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg is the author of fifteen books, including Writing Down the Bones (Shambhala, 1986), which has sold over one million copies, has been translated into fourteen languages, and started a revolution in the way we practice writing in this country. Her work explores writing as a practice, grounded in her study of zen.

For more than forty years she has practiced zen and taught seminars in writing as a practice. Her memoir Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America is about her zen teacher Katagiri Roshi. More recently she co-edited The Truth of This Life, a collection of talks by zen teacher Katherine Thanas (Shambhala, 2018). In Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home (Shambhala, 2018), she shares her experience with cancer, grounded in her practice of zen and writing. Other books include The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and This Zigzag Life and the novel Banana Rose.

Natalie is also a prolific painter. Her book Living Color: Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing (Abrams, 2014) describes painting as her second art form, and Top of My Lungs gathers forty poems, twenty of her paintings and an essay, "How Poetry Saved My Life."

People from around the world attend her workshops, and she has earned a reputation as a great teacher. The Oprah Winfrey Show sent a film crew to spend a day with her for a segment on spirituality that covered her writing, teaching, painting and walking meditation. She lives in Northern New Mexico.