New things grow and blossom in the spring, so what more fitting time than this to share my latest news! My new book, The Sorcerer Queen, has just gone off to the printer and is scheduled for release on August 28, 2018.

The Sorcerer Queen is a magical, medieval verse fairy tale about a kingdom cursed for nearly a century for an ancient crime. Now its aging king is determined to undo the curse before he dies, but every time he tries, great harm comes. For wrongs must be righted and lessons learned, and the king must face a mysterious, hidden adversary, known as "The Sorcerer Queen."
A young adult fantasy with the feel of a play, The Sorcerer Queen is also a spiritual allegory for all ages, a tale of waking up and making amends, of redemption and the power of love. It’s a story many years in the making, one of several that I’m working on that I call medieval tapestries of verse. I’ve illustrated it with pen and ink drawings and I am so excited to finally share it with everyone! Find out more in the coming months!
I’m also so happy to share other great news. The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, which came out in June, 2017, has been selected as a Foreword-Indies Book of the Year award finalist in the Mind-Body-Spirit category! This is my only non-fiction book to-date, about the intuitive poetry process which I developed and teach. I begin all my days writing a poem as part of this process, before I go on to my latest book.

And what’s next? Perhaps a collection of long-lost Renaissance love poems? Stay tuned!
Very best wishes,
Xianna Michaels

The Sorcerer Queen is a magical, medieval verse fairy tale about a kingdom cursed for nearly a century for an ancient crime. Now its aging king is determined to undo the curse before he dies, but every time he tries, great harm comes. For wrongs must be righted and lessons learned, and the king must face a mysterious, hidden adversary, known as "The Sorcerer Queen."
A young adult fantasy with the feel of a play, The Sorcerer Queen is also a spiritual allegory for all ages, a tale of waking up and making amends, of redemption and the power of love. It’s a story many years in the making, one of several that I’m working on that I call medieval tapestries of verse. I’ve illustrated it with pen and ink drawings and I am so excited to finally share it with everyone! Find out more in the coming months!
I’m also so happy to share other great news. The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, which came out in June, 2017, has been selected as a Foreword-Indies Book of the Year award finalist in the Mind-Body-Spirit category! This is my only non-fiction book to-date, about the intuitive poetry process which I developed and teach. I begin all my days writing a poem as part of this process, before I go on to my latest book.

And what’s next? Perhaps a collection of long-lost Renaissance love poems? Stay tuned!
Very best wishes,
Xianna Michaels

Dear Reader,
As many of you know, I launched my newest book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold, this past June. As summer draws to a close, I wanted to thank everyone for the interest and

delightful reception the book has received.
This is my outlier book in that it's about the process I developed of drawing and writing poetry for self-awareness and spiritual connection. It's been so gratifying to hear from readers who work the process and find that it does, indeed, help them access their intuitive right brains and come up with surprising insights and answers to dilemmas not available through their everyday, left-brain consciousness. The same thing always happens when I teach workshops in the process. Participants experience AHA moments and say things like, "Wow! Is THAT what's going on here? I had no idea!" So thank you all, and I wish you happy reading, drawing, writing and continued unexpected insights!
I always start my day doing this poetry process as well, and then I go to my work-in-progress. So I'd like to tell you a bit about my next project: a medieval verse fairy tale about a kingdom cursed for almost 100 years and the aging king who wants to undo the curse before he dies. In this he is thwarted by a mysterious sorceress who seems to have her tentacles everywhere. I'm in the revising and polishing stage now, and I'm working on the illustrations for the decorative initial letters and the chapter headings.
This story came to me many years ago and it's so exciting for me finally to be bringing it into fruition! It's for readers perhaps age 10 through adult, and can be read as a magical tale as well as a spiritual allegory. I can't wait to share it with everyone—I'll keep you posted on the upcoming publication date!

I have several other medieval tales in various stages of development, but meanwhile people from other times and places have been whispering to me, demanding attention. I find myself pulling off the road while driving so I can write down the snippets of their stories as they reveal them. All of which means that my carefully laid plans for the order in which I will bring my stories into the world may have to change. Updates to follow!
With warmest regards,
Xianna Michaels

delightful reception the book has received.
This is my outlier book in that it's about the process I developed of drawing and writing poetry for self-awareness and spiritual connection. It's been so gratifying to hear from readers who work the process and find that it does, indeed, help them access their intuitive right brains and come up with surprising insights and answers to dilemmas not available through their everyday, left-brain consciousness. The same thing always happens when I teach workshops in the process. Participants experience AHA moments and say things like, "Wow! Is THAT what's going on here? I had no idea!" So thank you all, and I wish you happy reading, drawing, writing and continued unexpected insights!
I always start my day doing this poetry process as well, and then I go to my work-in-progress. So I'd like to tell you a bit about my next project: a medieval verse fairy tale about a kingdom cursed for almost 100 years and the aging king who wants to undo the curse before he dies. In this he is thwarted by a mysterious sorceress who seems to have her tentacles everywhere. I'm in the revising and polishing stage now, and I'm working on the illustrations for the decorative initial letters and the chapter headings.
This story came to me many years ago and it's so exciting for me finally to be bringing it into fruition! It's for readers perhaps age 10 through adult, and can be read as a magical tale as well as a spiritual allegory. I can't wait to share it with everyone—I'll keep you posted on the upcoming publication date!

I have several other medieval tales in various stages of development, but meanwhile people from other times and places have been whispering to me, demanding attention. I find myself pulling off the road while driving so I can write down the snippets of their stories as they reveal them. All of which means that my carefully laid plans for the order in which I will bring my stories into the world may have to change. Updates to follow!
With warmest regards,
Xianna Michaels

I'm so excited to announce the launch of my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold. This is my outlier book, the only non-fiction book I've ever written.

It's a kind of meditative manual that guides the reader through an intuitive process that I developed through years of writing poetry as part of my own inner work.
Actually, I didn't know that I was developing a "process" at all. I was simply doing what came most naturally to me—make sense of my life through writing poetry. I had been doing this all my life. From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry was my primary medium for expressing delight, dealing with difficulty, recording events. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, they became a way of healing and of connecting with God.
But some years ago I realized I needed to go deeper to find answers that I could not access in my usual way. I had always loved the unexpected surprises that came from writing within poetic constraints, and now I discovered the wonder of drawing with my non-dominant (left) hand. So I drew and I wrote, and together these two practices yielded up a kind of magic. The left-handed drawings elicited words, the words formed themselves into poems, and I received answers I never expected, not from my rational left brain but from my intuitive right brain. I began to see changes in my thoughts and my life as a result of what I called my poem-mandalas, and the process became a daily practice for me.
I realized that this process is a form of spiritual alchemy, a tool for self-awareness and transformation, and my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, encouraged me to teach it and eventually to write about it. The result is this book.
The book also introduces the reader to a new verse form that I developed, the Xoem®, a short, circular-shaped poem especially suited to intuitive work and the mandala drawings that are part of the process. I received registered trademark status for both the process of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® and the Xoem® verse form, and will be launching a new series of workshops this summer.
So now I invite you to pick up a pen and join me on a journey through these Seven Steps that will allow you to express yourself creatively while gaining insights that may not be available to you in your normal waking, thinking state. I assure you that no artistic training nor memory of anything you learned about poetry in school is necessary. The book guides you in setting an intention to understand a problem or physical ailment, to resolve a dilemma, or simply to see something in a whole new light. You will enter the realm of your intuitive mind and create a poem and accompanying piece of art that can lead you to unexpected answers, enhanced self-awareness and, if you wish, connection with your inner, Higher Self.
I feel a deep passion to share this work because I know, from my own experience and that of my students, that it really does work. We truly can become the alchemists of our own lives and turn whatever we identify as the lead in our lives into our Personal Gold. I hope you will join me and experience for yourself the magic of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®.

It's a kind of meditative manual that guides the reader through an intuitive process that I developed through years of writing poetry as part of my own inner work.
Actually, I didn't know that I was developing a "process" at all. I was simply doing what came most naturally to me—make sense of my life through writing poetry. I had been doing this all my life. From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry was my primary medium for expressing delight, dealing with difficulty, recording events. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, they became a way of healing and of connecting with God.
But some years ago I realized I needed to go deeper to find answers that I could not access in my usual way. I had always loved the unexpected surprises that came from writing within poetic constraints, and now I discovered the wonder of drawing with my non-dominant (left) hand. So I drew and I wrote, and together these two practices yielded up a kind of magic. The left-handed drawings elicited words, the words formed themselves into poems, and I received answers I never expected, not from my rational left brain but from my intuitive right brain. I began to see changes in my thoughts and my life as a result of what I called my poem-mandalas, and the process became a daily practice for me.
I realized that this process is a form of spiritual alchemy, a tool for self-awareness and transformation, and my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, encouraged me to teach it and eventually to write about it. The result is this book.
The book also introduces the reader to a new verse form that I developed, the Xoem®, a short, circular-shaped poem especially suited to intuitive work and the mandala drawings that are part of the process. I received registered trademark status for both the process of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® and the Xoem® verse form, and will be launching a new series of workshops this summer.
So now I invite you to pick up a pen and join me on a journey through these Seven Steps that will allow you to express yourself creatively while gaining insights that may not be available to you in your normal waking, thinking state. I assure you that no artistic training nor memory of anything you learned about poetry in school is necessary. The book guides you in setting an intention to understand a problem or physical ailment, to resolve a dilemma, or simply to see something in a whole new light. You will enter the realm of your intuitive mind and create a poem and accompanying piece of art that can lead you to unexpected answers, enhanced self-awareness and, if you wish, connection with your inner, Higher Self.
I feel a deep passion to share this work because I know, from my own experience and that of my students, that it really does work. We truly can become the alchemists of our own lives and turn whatever we identify as the lead in our lives into our Personal Gold. I hope you will join me and experience for yourself the magic of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®.

Rhythm of the Rain

A handbook that aims to help readers discover spiritual truth through unconventional poetry composition.

This beautifully produced work from Michaels (Lily of the Valley, 2016, etc.) encourages one to embark on a modern-day, metaphorical version of the medieval alchemists’ quest to turn base metals into gold. One may refine oneself, the author says, to “attain one’s Personal Gold.” She breaks down the mechanics of this “mystical, magical, meditative process” into seven steps, which she says that a reader may unlock with an unexpected method: writing poetry with his or her non-dominant hand. Michaels claims that such untutored writing forces one to draw on the intuitive, emotional right side of the brain, using what she refers to as the “Prima Materia” of one’s creativity. In this way, she says, one may achieve a deeper understanding of self and, ultimately, a closer connection to God. In brisk, evocative prose, Michaels systematically lays out the details of each of the steps, such as “Self-Purification,” “Preparation,” and “Distillation,” even down to specifics of location and time of day. She knows that readers will be initially skeptical, especially considering how little success most people have in doing finely controlled work with their non-dominant hand: “how can anything of value come from what must surely be indecipherable squiggles?” she imagines such readers asking, but she assures them to trust in the process. Whether or not readers achieve any success with its method, the book’s romantically charged language about poetry and personal investment is extremely contagious and oddly encouraging. Overall, it’s an effective invitation to write and explore one’s creativity: “You are the alchemist of your life,” she writes in a typically upbeat passage, “and your laboratory awaits.” The consistent messages of self-discovery and patience will appeal to many readers, regardless of their alchemical disposition.
A colorfully written guide to entering the “Inner Sanctum” of one’s creativity.
Read the full review here at Kirkus Reviews.

This beautifully produced work from Michaels (Lily of the Valley, 2016, etc.) encourages one to embark on a modern-day, metaphorical version of the medieval alchemists’ quest to turn base metals into gold. One may refine oneself, the author says, to “attain one’s Personal Gold.” She breaks down the mechanics of this “mystical, magical, meditative process” into seven steps, which she says that a reader may unlock with an unexpected method: writing poetry with his or her non-dominant hand. Michaels claims that such untutored writing forces one to draw on the intuitive, emotional right side of the brain, using what she refers to as the “Prima Materia” of one’s creativity. In this way, she says, one may achieve a deeper understanding of self and, ultimately, a closer connection to God. In brisk, evocative prose, Michaels systematically lays out the details of each of the steps, such as “Self-Purification,” “Preparation,” and “Distillation,” even down to specifics of location and time of day. She knows that readers will be initially skeptical, especially considering how little success most people have in doing finely controlled work with their non-dominant hand: “how can anything of value come from what must surely be indecipherable squiggles?” she imagines such readers asking, but she assures them to trust in the process. Whether or not readers achieve any success with its method, the book’s romantically charged language about poetry and personal investment is extremely contagious and oddly encouraging. Overall, it’s an effective invitation to write and explore one’s creativity: “You are the alchemist of your life,” she writes in a typically upbeat passage, “and your laboratory awaits.” The consistent messages of self-discovery and patience will appeal to many readers, regardless of their alchemical disposition.
A colorfully written guide to entering the “Inner Sanctum” of one’s creativity.
Read the full review here at Kirkus Reviews.

This is a master class experience on the art and science of illustrated poetry.

Xianna Michaels’s The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® is a surprising and successful hybrid of poetry and prose that serves as a meditative experience. A deeply personal yet universal outline, the book is unconventional in the best sense of the word.
As explained here, illuminated poetry is the term for illustrated poetry, and alchemy “simply means the art of transformation.” Through seven different steps, Michaels presents a guide to what she calls “poem-mandalas,” drawings and poetry that she makes with her left, non-dominant hand. The process is like “spiritual alchemy,” which she says “is above all about inner transformation.”
The lessons begin with the presentation of “Prima Materia,” or a personal moment or concept that has meaning to the practitioner and also serves as the foundational core of the work. Michaels suggests writing down a prima materia each day and working to simply observe as the poetry “spills out of you.”
Michaels jumps into the process by instructing with the universal “we” and “us,” bridging the gap between teacher and students. This creates seasoned, easy-to-understand language to help guide newcomers through the complex topics covered in the book.
Throughout the seven steps, amid a game plan for transcendent and visionary poetry, Michaels shares a series of “Facets.” The facets are small historical or logistical anecdotes that provide the collection of lessons with a loose narrative presence.
Whether through a mini-biography of Maria Prophetissa or a brief contemplation of the limitations of time, the facets are another testament to the book’s intention to educate and enlighten, more than anything else.
Michaels provides samples of personal poems and mandalas and even builds up to an innovative verse of her own creation, “Xoem.” This blend between the personal and professional provides the ultimate teaching experience and helps connect each step that is needed to create illuminated poetry.
In the seventh and final step, “Personal Gold,” Michaels draws on a popular alchemy ideal: “The alchemists’ quest to turn lead into gold, though certainly pursued by many, was also a metaphor for refinement of the self to attain one’s Personal Gold.”
As the book constantly reinforces, this lead-to-gold transformation is the product of continuous practice and an eternal curiosity.
With The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, Xianna Michaels has created a master class experience on the art and science of illustrated poetry. The intricate brown-and-gold packaging is reason enough to pick up the book, but the written and illustrated artwork within is what makes this such an intriguing read.
Read the full review here at Foreword Reviews.

Xianna Michaels’s The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® is a surprising and successful hybrid of poetry and prose that serves as a meditative experience. A deeply personal yet universal outline, the book is unconventional in the best sense of the word.
As explained here, illuminated poetry is the term for illustrated poetry, and alchemy “simply means the art of transformation.” Through seven different steps, Michaels presents a guide to what she calls “poem-mandalas,” drawings and poetry that she makes with her left, non-dominant hand. The process is like “spiritual alchemy,” which she says “is above all about inner transformation.”
The lessons begin with the presentation of “Prima Materia,” or a personal moment or concept that has meaning to the practitioner and also serves as the foundational core of the work. Michaels suggests writing down a prima materia each day and working to simply observe as the poetry “spills out of you.”
Michaels jumps into the process by instructing with the universal “we” and “us,” bridging the gap between teacher and students. This creates seasoned, easy-to-understand language to help guide newcomers through the complex topics covered in the book.
Throughout the seven steps, amid a game plan for transcendent and visionary poetry, Michaels shares a series of “Facets.” The facets are small historical or logistical anecdotes that provide the collection of lessons with a loose narrative presence.
Whether through a mini-biography of Maria Prophetissa or a brief contemplation of the limitations of time, the facets are another testament to the book’s intention to educate and enlighten, more than anything else.
Michaels provides samples of personal poems and mandalas and even builds up to an innovative verse of her own creation, “Xoem.” This blend between the personal and professional provides the ultimate teaching experience and helps connect each step that is needed to create illuminated poetry.
In the seventh and final step, “Personal Gold,” Michaels draws on a popular alchemy ideal: “The alchemists’ quest to turn lead into gold, though certainly pursued by many, was also a metaphor for refinement of the self to attain one’s Personal Gold.”
As the book constantly reinforces, this lead-to-gold transformation is the product of continuous practice and an eternal curiosity.
With The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, Xianna Michaels has created a master class experience on the art and science of illustrated poetry. The intricate brown-and-gold packaging is reason enough to pick up the book, but the written and illustrated artwork within is what makes this such an intriguing read.
Read the full review here at Foreword Reviews.

April is National Poetry Month, which to me is wonderful because it brings the joys of poetry into more people's awareness and experience. For me reading as well as writing poetry has been a daily lifelong practice.

From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry has been my primary medium for recording and processing my life. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, it became a way of healing and connecting with G-d.
And somewhere along the way, without even realizing I was doing it, I created a seven-step process that uses poetic constraints and the technique of drawing with the non-dominant hand to create poem-mandalas that yield unexpected insights and spiritual connection. I began teaching the process and wrote my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold, to share it with a wider audience.
I use it as a daily meditative practice and try to write a poem a day. As the title implies, the process is based on an alchemical model. It is metaphorical, spiritual alchemy. It's about transformation. Writing these poems has, indeed, proved transformational for me as well as for many of my students. But there is also the element of sheer delight. And that is what I think National Poetry Month is about: the sheer delight of writing and reading poetry.
We can write our own poems and smile broadly when one finally clicks into place. All the words fit; some unexpected insight emerges, a deeper layer of meaning, a new way of looking at something. In the same way we can read favorite poems over and over and find that each time there is some new image to be found, some new metaphor to ponder. Or we can discover new poets and poems we have never encountered before. Each one has nuggets of gold to be mined. And of course, in The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process, we create our own Personal Gold, allowing it to emerge out of whatever we define as the lead in our lives.
Reading and writing poetry can be an adventure, a spiritual journey, a delightful respite from our otherwise hectic, demanding lives. Happy National Poetry Month!

From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry has been my primary medium for recording and processing my life. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, it became a way of healing and connecting with G-d.
And somewhere along the way, without even realizing I was doing it, I created a seven-step process that uses poetic constraints and the technique of drawing with the non-dominant hand to create poem-mandalas that yield unexpected insights and spiritual connection. I began teaching the process and wrote my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold, to share it with a wider audience.
I use it as a daily meditative practice and try to write a poem a day. As the title implies, the process is based on an alchemical model. It is metaphorical, spiritual alchemy. It's about transformation. Writing these poems has, indeed, proved transformational for me as well as for many of my students. But there is also the element of sheer delight. And that is what I think National Poetry Month is about: the sheer delight of writing and reading poetry.
We can write our own poems and smile broadly when one finally clicks into place. All the words fit; some unexpected insight emerges, a deeper layer of meaning, a new way of looking at something. In the same way we can read favorite poems over and over and find that each time there is some new image to be found, some new metaphor to ponder. Or we can discover new poets and poems we have never encountered before. Each one has nuggets of gold to be mined. And of course, in The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process, we create our own Personal Gold, allowing it to emerge out of whatever we define as the lead in our lives.
Reading and writing poetry can be an adventure, a spiritual journey, a delightful respite from our otherwise hectic, demanding lives. Happy National Poetry Month!

The author of The Cat in the Hat and so many other beloved children's books was born on March 2nd, 1904 and died on September 24th, 1991. His full name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, but he adopted Dr.

Seuss as his pen name because it was his mother's maiden name and apparently she had wanted him to become a doctor!
I feel an especial affinity for Dr. Seuss not only because I read him as a child—Yertle the Turtle was my favorite—and read him to my children and now read him to my grandchildren; and not only because he loved rhyme so much, as do I. No, in addition to all this, I feel a connection to him because of the story behind his most iconic book, The Cat in the Hat, and what it has to do with my upcoming new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to your Personal Gold.
As you might infer from the above title, my new book is neither fiction nor a children's book. It is, in fact, a non-fiction book about the mystical, magical poetry process which I invented and which I teach. So what on earth, you might well ask, does that have to do with Thing One and Thing Two?
The story, as I recount in my book, goes back to 1955, when an article called, "Why Johnny Can't Read" by John Hershey, was published. It talked about how boring the early Dick and Jane readers—that all those of us of a certain age had to slog through—actually were. So Dr. Seuss's publisher gave him a list of a little over 200 words considered at first grade level and asked him to write and illustrate a book using only those words. The result was The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957. It was an instant success and spawned the entire "I Can Read" book genre. Reviewers at the time commented that the limited vocabulary made him a more disciplined and successful poet, using phrases like "wild restraint" and "extravagant unity" to describe his work.
Today this concept of constraint actually stimulating, rather than limiting, creativity is being written about more and more. And although structured, rhymed, metered poetry has been out of vogue in the literary world for a very long time, it is central to The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process. It is through constraint, both in writing and drawing, that the process yields up its magic.
More about my new book in the coming months, but for now, suffice it to say that I am one Baby Boomer raised on Dr. Seuss who ranks him as one of her poetic inspirations. Robert Frost and Ogden Nash are two of my favorite 20th Century poets. Both were masters of structured poetry. But truly, only one genius could have written:

Socks on Knox
And Knox in box.
Fox in socks
On box on Knox....

and have it actually make sense!

Seuss as his pen name because it was his mother's maiden name and apparently she had wanted him to become a doctor!
I feel an especial affinity for Dr. Seuss not only because I read him as a child—Yertle the Turtle was my favorite—and read him to my children and now read him to my grandchildren; and not only because he loved rhyme so much, as do I. No, in addition to all this, I feel a connection to him because of the story behind his most iconic book, The Cat in the Hat, and what it has to do with my upcoming new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to your Personal Gold.
As you might infer from the above title, my new book is neither fiction nor a children's book. It is, in fact, a non-fiction book about the mystical, magical poetry process which I invented and which I teach. So what on earth, you might well ask, does that have to do with Thing One and Thing Two?
The story, as I recount in my book, goes back to 1955, when an article called, "Why Johnny Can't Read" by John Hershey, was published. It talked about how boring the early Dick and Jane readers—that all those of us of a certain age had to slog through—actually were. So Dr. Seuss's publisher gave him a list of a little over 200 words considered at first grade level and asked him to write and illustrate a book using only those words. The result was The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957. It was an instant success and spawned the entire "I Can Read" book genre. Reviewers at the time commented that the limited vocabulary made him a more disciplined and successful poet, using phrases like "wild restraint" and "extravagant unity" to describe his work.
Today this concept of constraint actually stimulating, rather than limiting, creativity is being written about more and more. And although structured, rhymed, metered poetry has been out of vogue in the literary world for a very long time, it is central to The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process. It is through constraint, both in writing and drawing, that the process yields up its magic.
More about my new book in the coming months, but for now, suffice it to say that I am one Baby Boomer raised on Dr. Seuss who ranks him as one of her poetic inspirations. Robert Frost and Ogden Nash are two of my favorite 20th Century poets. Both were masters of structured poetry. But truly, only one genius could have written:

Socks on Knox
And Knox in box.
Fox in socks
On box on Knox....

and have it actually make sense!

Dear Reader,
Many of you have been asking what I've been up to lately and I'm thrilled that as 2017 gets underway, I do have exciting news to share!

I've just sent my newest book off to the printer! It's called The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold and will be published in June 2017.
I created The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process as part of my own inner work and had been doing it as a daily practice for years, without realizing that others might want to learn it and do it as well. It was my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh, who encouraged me to teach it and write a book about it. Now I can't wait to share this with everyone! It's a mystical, magical process for self-transformation and healing. It's nothing like your English teacher's poetry—which I can promise even if I happened to have been your English teacher way back when! Alchemy is all about transformation, and this book walks you through this process for whatever insights, personal growth and change you seek. You will draw in ways you never imagined, write words you didn't know you were thinking, elicit answers to dilemmas you have not found before, and if you wish, connect with your inner, Higher Self.
Right now, for just a preview of what this is all about, here's a drawing I did with my left (non-dominant) hand one day when I was trying to understand the origin of a toothache for which the dentist could find no organic cause. My left hand started drawing teeth in the center of the circle, or mandala, but the teeth turned into eyes. Hmmm... what could my intuitive brain be trying to tell me?

In the coming months I'll be sharing some of the poems and drawings I've done using this process. Stay tuned...
Very best wishes,
Xianna Michaels

I've just sent my newest book off to the printer! It's called The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold and will be published in June 2017.
I created The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process as part of my own inner work and had been doing it as a daily practice for years, without realizing that others might want to learn it and do it as well. It was my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh, who encouraged me to teach it and write a book about it. Now I can't wait to share this with everyone! It's a mystical, magical process for self-transformation and healing. It's nothing like your English teacher's poetry—which I can promise even if I happened to have been your English teacher way back when! Alchemy is all about transformation, and this book walks you through this process for whatever insights, personal growth and change you seek. You will draw in ways you never imagined, write words you didn't know you were thinking, elicit answers to dilemmas you have not found before, and if you wish, connect with your inner, Higher Self.
Right now, for just a preview of what this is all about, here's a drawing I did with my left (non-dominant) hand one day when I was trying to understand the origin of a toothache for which the dentist could find no organic cause. My left hand started drawing teeth in the center of the circle, or mandala, but the teeth turned into eyes. Hmmm... what could my intuitive brain be trying to tell me?

In the coming months I'll be sharing some of the poems and drawings I've done using this process. Stay tuned...
Very best wishes,
Xianna Michaels

"For the land beyond the Lower East Side
And New York's endless stone and steel,
Where the other shore was three months' ride—
California, where the gold was real.
The north was booming, but the southern part
Was the place that captured Lily's heart.

A place they called Los Angeles where
It never rained, was never cold,
Where the scent of orange filled the air
And palm trees lined the streets of gold.
Not for Lily's family, no.
But a grandchild, maybe, one day would go."
(From Part 1- Lily)
People ask me all the time why I choose to write my stories in verse. It's a very interesting question, especially since I don't feel that I really do the choosing. My new book, Lily of the Valley—An American Jewish Journey, is a verse novella because it came to me in verse form. What do I mean by that? I certainly do not mean to imply that it just appeared before me fully formed as a poem. Far from it—I'm certainly not Mozart taking dictation! As with most poets and writers, whatever I am working on requires working, and re-working, over and over.
However, a big part of my creative process, and something I have always taught my creative writing students, is learning to be receptive. When I am receptive, open and wiling to listen, stories come to me. Characters talk to me, just as Lily began whispering to me on my morning walk many years ago. She began telling me her story, and I felt compelled to start taking notes.
But something else happens to me when a story starts coming. It tells me the form in which it needs to be told. Sometimes my stories come as prose, but more often that not they come as poems. Even the particular verse form comes; I do not choose it. My children's book, Mindel and the Misfit Dragons, for instance, came in the four-line ballad stanza, while Lily of the Valley, a book for adults, is in sestets of iambic tetrameter. I may start to feel the lines flow through me, almost pump through, in which case I have to stop whatever I'm doing and grab a pen. Or else they may come in spurts at unexpected times of the day.  A whole story certainly does not come at once, nor even a whole chapter. But enough lines and stanzas will come—and feel right for this story, feel right for these characters and their narrative voice—that I know I have my template. I know I have the structure, or more accurately perhaps the vessel, for telling the rest of the story.
Then the real work begins. The active listening, the drawing out, the shaping and paring, the writing and revising. It can take weeks, months or years, but there is a special joy in writing poetry—the musicality of it, the unique satisfaction of having the sound and sense of a stanza click, that is absolutely exhilarating.
Though I did not consciously choose to write Lily of the Valley as a verse novella, I do believe the verse form enhances the story in several ways. One is that it plays into the allegorical nature of the story. That is, Lily can be read as a narrative but also as symbolic of the whole American immigrant story. Since poetry at its core deals with essence, this comes through more clearly than if this were, say, a 600 page family saga. I once read an interesting analogy that the difference between a novel and a poem is like the difference between an oil painting and a piece of sculpture. The oil painting is rich in detail and many-layered, but the sculpture captures essence. There cannot be an extraneous bit of clay. So, too, a novel is rich in detail and vast in scope, but a poem captures essence; there cannot be an extraneous line. Another way I believe the verse form enhances this story is that poetry by its nature is lyrical. And for me there is something lyrical and haunting about Lily, which tells me that it could not have been written any other way.
I'm well aware that modern readers are not so accustomed to reading stories as poems. But once upon a time, before the invention of the printing press, almost all stories were told as poems. They were sung in castle halls, told before the fire in great manor houses, in forests and on desert sands. The rhyme and rhythm of poetry made the narratives easier for the bards and troubadours to remember. Literature began as an oral medium, and the earliest written stories continued the poetic tradition.
For me there is a certain pleasure that poetry provides the eye and ear. One reviewer captured this when she said that the experience of reading Lily was more like watching a musical than just seeing a movie. I've always loved musicals, and I love the way the musicality of poetry can propel a story. But mostly, I just let a story tell itself. And so Lily of the Valley is a verse novella. I sincerely hope that everyone will experience in reading this book the same delight that I felt in writing it.

A place they called Los Angeles where
It never rained, was never cold,
Where the scent of orange filled the air
And palm trees lined the streets of gold.
Not for Lily's family, no.
But a grandchild, maybe, one day would go."
(From Part 1- Lily)
People ask me all the time why I choose to write my stories in verse. It's a very interesting question, especially since I don't feel that I really do the choosing. My new book, Lily of the Valley—An American Jewish Journey, is a verse novella because it came to me in verse form. What do I mean by that? I certainly do not mean to imply that it just appeared before me fully formed as a poem. Far from it—I'm certainly not Mozart taking dictation! As with most poets and writers, whatever I am working on requires working, and re-working, over and over.
However, a big part of my creative process, and something I have always taught my creative writing students, is learning to be receptive. When I am receptive, open and wiling to listen, stories come to me. Characters talk to me, just as Lily began whispering to me on my morning walk many years ago. She began telling me her story, and I felt compelled to start taking notes.
But something else happens to me when a story starts coming. It tells me the form in which it needs to be told. Sometimes my stories come as prose, but more often that not they come as poems. Even the particular verse form comes; I do not choose it. My children's book, Mindel and the Misfit Dragons, for instance, came in the four-line ballad stanza, while Lily of the Valley, a book for adults, is in sestets of iambic tetrameter. I may start to feel the lines flow through me, almost pump through, in which case I have to stop whatever I'm doing and grab a pen. Or else they may come in spurts at unexpected times of the day.  A whole story certainly does not come at once, nor even a whole chapter. But enough lines and stanzas will come—and feel right for this story, feel right for these characters and their narrative voice—that I know I have my template. I know I have the structure, or more accurately perhaps the vessel, for telling the rest of the story.
Then the real work begins. The active listening, the drawing out, the shaping and paring, the writing and revising. It can take weeks, months or years, but there is a special joy in writing poetry—the musicality of it, the unique satisfaction of having the sound and sense of a stanza click, that is absolutely exhilarating.
Though I did not consciously choose to write Lily of the Valley as a verse novella, I do believe the verse form enhances the story in several ways. One is that it plays into the allegorical nature of the story. That is, Lily can be read as a narrative but also as symbolic of the whole American immigrant story. Since poetry at its core deals with essence, this comes through more clearly than if this were, say, a 600 page family saga. I once read an interesting analogy that the difference between a novel and a poem is like the difference between an oil painting and a piece of sculpture. The oil painting is rich in detail and many-layered, but the sculpture captures essence. There cannot be an extraneous bit of clay. So, too, a novel is rich in detail and vast in scope, but a poem captures essence; there cannot be an extraneous line. Another way I believe the verse form enhances this story is that poetry by its nature is lyrical. And for me there is something lyrical and haunting about Lily, which tells me that it could not have been written any other way.
I'm well aware that modern readers are not so accustomed to reading stories as poems. But once upon a time, before the invention of the printing press, almost all stories were told as poems. They were sung in castle halls, told before the fire in great manor houses, in forests and on desert sands. The rhyme and rhythm of poetry made the narratives easier for the bards and troubadours to remember. Literature began as an oral medium, and the earliest written stories continued the poetic tradition.
For me there is a certain pleasure that poetry provides the eye and ear. One reviewer captured this when she said that the experience of reading Lily was more like watching a musical than just seeing a movie. I've always loved musicals, and I love the way the musicality of poetry can propel a story. But mostly, I just let a story tell itself. And so Lily of the Valley is a verse novella. I sincerely hope that everyone will experience in reading this book the same delight that I felt in writing it.