Dr. Mindy Nettifee is a poet, professional teaching artist, and somatic therapist specializing in trauma healing and expression. She is the author of three full-length collections of poems: Sleepyhead Assassins (Moon Tide Press), Rise of the Trust Fall (Write Bloody Press), and Open Your Mouth Like a Bell (Write Bloody Press) as well as a collection of essays on writing Glitter In The Blood – A Poet’s Manifesto for Better, Braver Writing (Write Bloody Press). She is a three time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, a Powell’s Books Indie Press Best Seller, and she co-edited the anthology Courage – Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls (Write Bloody Press). Her latest work is her doctoral dissertation Voice as Embodied Sense: Rethinking Voice and Language in Trauma Healing (ProQuest), which investigates the sensory capacities of the voice and the role they play in trauma healing and integration.
Mindy is currently the director of the Center for Artist Resilience, where she leads a team of artist educators and somatic practitioners providing education, therapeutic services, and process facilitation to individuals and organizations at the intersection of trauma healing and the expressive arts. She holds a doctorate in Depth Psychology with a specialization Somatic Studies, and is a registered Somatic Experiencing practitioner, the trauma resolution method developed by Peter Levine. Through the center and in private practice, Mindy teaches courses and offers depth somatic therapy to those recovering from trauma, specializing in the recovery and further development of compromised expression and creativity.
Mindy served for 6 years as the principal at the creative services firm Free Delivery, launched in 2016, and for 8 years as executive director of the nonprofit poetry organization Write Now Poetry Society, which she co-founded with actress and author Amber Tamblyn in 2007. With Write Now, she curated poetry events for The Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and others. She has also performed and taught in hundreds of venues, colleges and universities across America and Europe, competed in five National Poetry Slams, opened for indie rock act the Cold War Kids, headlined national poetry tours The Last Nerve, The Whirlwind Company and The Poetry Revival, and was featured in the critically acclaimed poetry concert documentary The Drums Inside Your Chest. Her stories have been featured on The Moth podcast. She currently collaborates with BackFence PDX, The Moth, and Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon.
What others have to say about Mindy's writing:
“Mindy Nettifee’s poetry is the linguistic orgasm we’ve all been waiting for.” – BUST Magazine
“With detail to craft combined with her already brutal, and important, revelations, Nettifee’s writing and Write Bloody Press books are a welcome, important vehicle in poetry for some time to come.” – Chicago Sun Times
“When… Mindy Nettifee speaks…you’re powerless—you have no choice but to raise your wine glass high over your osmosis head and join her pledge of allegiance to graphic truth. Her poems have the grace of cursive letters and the guts of a truck driver.” – District Weekly
