SUSAN WELLS
BIO
The short version
Susan Wells, MA, is a writer, educator, and brainstormer with a diverse background in communications. The connective tissue in her professional life is personal and collective narrative. She holds degrees in literature and anthropology from Columbia University and Middlebury College, and studied theatre at Northwestern. After 10 years in the arts and 25 years in healthcare communications (neurology and oncology), she’s now the director of Evolution Basecamp and a founder of the soon-to-launch Albero Institute for Research and Practice of Inner Works.
The longer version
A philosophy professor first fired me up. He claimed that everything created by humans begins in “creative silence.” (He was a Jesuit who spent a lot of time on mountain tops.)
Then I discovered the holistic depth psychologist Ira Progoff. Here’s what he taught me:
We don’t just create the world. We create ourselves and our very lives.
To a young woman rebuilding her life after family trauma, the ideas of "creative silence" and creative world building were riveting. They were seeds of hope, a vision even. And I needed that because my task was to re-create my world, and then re-create myself within that world.
After the first day of a Progoff workshop in deep-process writing, I knew I’d eventually lead these workshops myself. And years later, I did. I led them across the US for all sorts of groups, including Franciscan postulates and imprisoned felons.
Now, I lead Evolution Basecamp, which reorients and evolves my experience of Ira Progoff for 21st-century dwellers. In the holistic and organic way he taught me, I'm developing new possibilities for transformative inner work.
A consuming interest in evolution
I’m fascinated by the evolutions of human lives and projects, and the ways we navigate and draw meaning from them. This interest drove my study of literature, anthropology, and theatre. It also led me into multiple areas of experience:
- Poetry writing (with an award from the Academy of American Poets)
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Crisis intervention counseling (for every trauma you can imagine--suicide, rape, drug overdose, teen runaway issues, domestic violence, etc)
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Studio photography (public relations, events, school yearbooks)
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Radio producing/directing (a monthly program in NYC, including Portrait of Dora by Hélène Cixous about one of Freud’s famous case studies
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Script development (companies including Circle Repertory Company, 20th-Century Fox, and United Artists)
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Biographical and historical research (including a documentary about Margaret Mead, An Observer Observed, which debuted at the annual Margaret Mead Festival in NYC), and the official biography of art collector Peggy Guggenheim (Peggy, the Wayward Guggenheim)
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Writing/producing ducational and promotional videos (American Federation of Teachers, NYC Board of Education, and social-issue organizations)
- Teaching (secondary-school English)
(Bonus for reading this far: After arriving in New York City, I worked for three weeks at a domestic personnel agency and actually hired a butler for Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Oh, the things we do for money when we’re young and in the arts!)
After years exploring so many facets of communications, I was recruited to work in the field of healthcare. I eventually became a vice president in a big corporation with a focus on neurology and oncology. For 25 years, I studied and wrote about doctors and patients grappling with life-modifying and life-threatening diseases. I talked to researchers and heads of medical facilities. I interviewed nurses serving as mediators between data-focused treating physicians and frightened patients. I wrote about diseases and learned the stories of the body and its experience of illness and recovery.
I still feel these stories. At the Maryland University of Integrative Health, I developed post-graduate courses in narrative and its relevance to physical health. Narratives are lived in our hearts, minds, spirits, and, yes, our bodies.
After all these years, I still ponder the virtues of silence and creation. And after many evolutions of my own, I’ve emerged with a commitment to the following vision:
Together we will re-create ourselves and the new world that is surely coming.
Please join me in achieving the vision.
Immerse yourself in evolution
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