Tracy Rittmuller—Poet/Writer & Teaching Artist
Studies in liberal arts, creative process, spirituality, embodiment, and an apprenticeship in “trauma-sensitive scope of practice for teaching artists” with Dr. Shannon Michael Pater (M.A.R., M.Div., Psy.D.) have prepared me to be with pain and suffering when it arises.
In my decades of experience, I have found that when people interact with poetry, literature, and the arts in ways that allow them to connect to their inner wisdom and share their creations with others, they find nourishment and resilience, equipping them to metabolize their grief and pain. I do not offer therapy, counseling, or spiritual direction. I do, however have connections and relationships with a diverse roster of trauma-informed providers and will facilitate a referral for professional care, when needed.
Britt Frank, author of The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward writes, “Emotional healing is a much an artistic/creative process as it is a factual/scientific process.” In my own life, and in my decades of facilitation artistic/creative process for others, I have witnessed this.
My name is Tracy Rittmueller. In my writings, mentoring, and facilitation I offer to others the very things my own heart is always seeking—beauty and hope. I find those in poetry and literature, music, dance, art and craft, in nature, and in the diversity of global cultures and unique individuals.
I love the landscape of the place where I live, work, and play as a 5th-generation descendent of ancestors who came from North-Central and Eastern Europe, who built farms on the unceded traditional territory of the Dakota people. The original inhabitants called this place MniSota Makoce—Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds. It is presently known as Minnesota, in the United States.
I am a multi-genre writer, a married, professed associate (oblate) of Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN, and a care partner to a spouse who lives with neurocognitive disorder (non-Alzheimer’s dementia). I work to empower people, facilitating connection to inner wisdom to self-determine what matters, while holding gentle, brave space for our individual experiences, including unhealed hurts, to be witnessed and met with compassion.
Honors
Minnesota State Arts Board FY2024 Creative Support for Individuals Award to deliver creative writing courses based to older adults who live in assisted living or memory care institutions. Minnesota State Arts Board FY2023 Creative Support for Individuals Award to develop workshops to engage older adults living with dementia in creative writing processes. McKnight Foundation Award for publication expenses, promotion and marketing of Still Life, Broken and Repaired through an Artist's Career Development Grant from Central Minnesota Arts Board, December 2021. McKnight Foundation 2022 Individual Artist Award for Poetry through Central Minnesota Arts Board. Project Grant from Central Minnesota Arts Board, with funds appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature from its general fund, to produce, script and direct a literary performance and discussion called: “There's a Poem In This Place (in memory of Charles Wm. Preble, 1936-2021). June 23, 2022. McKnight Foundation Award for developmental editing of a memoir-essay manuscript, Duties of the Spirit, (now known as “Slippery Joy”) with mentor Richard Gilbert, through an Artist's Learning Grant from Central Minnesota Arts Board, December 2021. McKnight Foundation Award to increase print and social media presence while researching and writing a book proposal, through Artist Career Development Grant from Central Minnesota Arts Board, October 2020. 1st Place, American Benedictine Academy Monastic Essay Contest 2020, for “Therefore Create Silence.” McKnight Foundation Award to complete a book-length creative nonfiction manuscript, through Artist Career Development Grant from Central Minnesota Arts Board, November 2018. Pushcart Prize Nomination in Poetry for Sonnet to Negotiate Peace with Your Dementia, November 2017. The Loft/Jerome Foundation Emerging Writers’ Award: Honorable Mention, August 2017.
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