About

Photo by Jamie Clifford

TANIA’S PASSION

I rise daily eager to face the blank page and follow the compass of my heart.

POETRY: My second full-length poetry collection, The Fool in the Corn, was published by Saddle Road Press on winter Equinox 2022 (December 21). In this memoir-in-poems, I write about my experience on an Illinois commune, what it was like to leave that commune for “Normal” culture at age 11, and the way tarot fired my imagination as a safer way to enter the parallel magical universe of the imagination (after leaving the commune, leader voted out).

In The Fool in the Corn, you’ll also find a section titled, Berkeley Postcard, which features poems I wrote about the love we exchanged (myself, my brother, my sister, my mother’s extended family and friends) with my mother as we cared for her in her final days. A tarot reading cast the week before she passed wove itself into the series. The title comes from a mysterious postcard that appeared on a bench in the rain several days before our mother passed. Berkeley Postcard was a finalist for the Comstock Writers Group Chapbook Contest in 2018 and in 2019, the poem, “Two Gardens,” won Rockvale Review’s time-themed poetry contest and won me a beautiful residency in Tennessee at the Rockvale Writers’ Colony. The title poem, “Berkeley Postcard,” was published here at Juked.

You can read more about the writing of The Fool in the Corn and creation of the cover art in this interview online at Shoutout SoCal about risk-taking and writing.

Artwork by Tania Pryputniewicz

Here’s more about my first poetry collection, November Butterfly.

TAROT MUSE:  As a cross-pollinator and lover of hybrid forms, I first became attracted to the Tarot in my early twenties. I love to study the pictorial representations of life’s gifts and challenges depicted in the Tarot decks of history and especially of our times. Five years ago I started to make my own deck with my students and took the idea of facing adversity into my Ace of Swords concept. I chose the Windmill instead of the Sword to represent the gift of the mind.

The Ace of Windmills represents the willingness to use the winds of adversity to power positive creative projects and personal growth which is a guiding focus for my own writing and the way I approach teaching. I love witnessing other writers, artists, and seekers find confidence in their voices and arrive at a deeper sense of self-love and awareness with which to shape their lives. This journey of teaching lead to the writing and publishing of my tarot workbook: Heart’s Compass Tarot.

TAROT WORKBOOK: Heart’s Compass Tarot: Discover Tarot Journaling and Create New Cards (Two Fine Crows Books, February 14, 2021) is based on my years of tarot and writing teaching. It expresses my core belief that we can follow our hearts and tap into our inner symbol world to create a path towards our life dreams. If you wish to stay in touch about my tarot related adventures, sign up for my monthly newsletter in order to check out what I’m teaching online, such as my tarot writing courses offered through Antioch University’s Continuing Education Program (next series starts January 2023). I am also on Facebook at  Hearts Compass Tarot and Writing. Visit my consults page if you are interested in a reading

TANIA’S CREDENTIALS

Tania Pryputniewicz is the author of the poetry collection, November Butterfly, published by Saddle Road Press in 2014. Her workshop, Writing through Fear: Free your Butterfly is based on November Butterfly and accompanying prompts, Thirteen Writing Prompts Based on the Power and Creativity of Iconic Women Designed to Help You Write New Work From Multiple Points of View. 

Photo by Robyn Beattie

Tania’s collaborative micro movies   feature poetry from November Butterfly paired with the photography of Robyn Beattie and the music of Stephen Pryputniewicz; She Dressed in a Hurry (for Lady Diana), Amelia, and Nefertiti Among Us were awarded Juror’s Best of Show at the 2012 2D/3D visual poetry show held at the LH Horton Jr Gallery at San Joaquin Delta College.

In 2011, Tania began to attend A Room of Her Own Foundation retreats where she presented, consulted and taught; most recently in 2015, she attended as a recipient of the Marg Chandler Memorial Fellowship. She was formerly the poetry editor for the Fertile Source and a co-founding blogger for Mother Writer Mentor, sites that supported mothers on their path to realizing their potential as writers.

Recent poems from Tania’s second poetry collection, based on an Illinois commune she lived on as a child, The Fool in the Corn, appeared in Chiron Review, Nimrod International, Prime Number Magazine, Silver Birch Press, Journal of Applied Poetics, and Whale Road Review.

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Tania teaches poetry at San Diego Writers, Ink as well as online writing classes. In the spring of 2020, she joined the adjunct faculty at Antioch University as an online instructor in the Continuing Education program to teach tarot-inspired writing classes.  She and writer Mary Allen co-blog at Tarot for Two. Tania lives in Coronado, California with her husband, three children, blue-eyed Siberian Husky and one formerly feral housecat named Luna.