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Bella Mahaya Carter was the recipient of the 2011 Lois Langland Alumna-in-Residence Award at Scripps College. Her program, “Body, Mind, Spirit: Transformational Creative Practices for Living Your Best Life,” combined creative writing and movement, guided meditations, and other activities designed to enhance self-awareness, heighten creativity, and inspire personal empowerment and growth. Her program was a unique synthesis of Bella’s lifelong passion for dance, literature, and psychology. Bella’s residency included classes, workshops, readings, talks, a panel discussion on creativity, consciousness, health, and healing, and much more. Photos and videos.
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Bella is the author of Secrets of My Sex, a collection of 71 narrative poems divided into four sections: Girl, Woman, Wife, & Mother. It is the accessibility, unflinching candor, and narrative style of these poems that resonate with a wide range of readers, from those who have never read (or liked) poetry before, to the most ardent lover of the form. Each poem stands alone, but is linked to the whole. The collection reads like a memoir or novel, and grapples with taboo topics. The poet articulates thoughts she was taught “good” girls do not express aloud, but has redefined the word “good” to mean, that which is truthful and authentic; that which inspires growth and heals. To listen to interviews, watch video clips, and view publication party photos, click here.
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Bella is currently working on The Raw Years: A Midlife Healing Memoir, which chronicles Bella’s five years living exclusively on raw, vegan food. While on this diet, Bella cured chronic stomach ailments, midlife existential angst, and other physical, emotional, and spiritual maladies. Read more.
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Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction appear in The Sun; Calyx; Two Review; Onthebus; Pearl; Literary Mama; Grandmothers’ Necklace; Writing Our Way Out of The Dark, An anthology of Literary Acts of Bravery; and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in Unconditional Love: An Anthology of Poems on Motherhood, and in the journal LILITH. Bella is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Los Angeles Poets & Writer’s Collective, and is listed in Poets & Writers National Directory.
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Her movement background includes ballet, modern, jazz, and flamenco dance training, as well as choreography and composition at The Juilliard School, The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, American Ballet Theater, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and elsewhere. She has practiced yoga over twenty years, and has studied Moving Theater with Camille Maurine; The Halprin Life/Art Process at the Tamalpa Institute; Jungle Gym at Continuum Studios; Medicine Dance with Fred Sugarman, and BodyFreedom with Tarnie Falloon.
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Born and raised in Long Island, New York, Bella moved to Southern California to attend Scripps College, in Claremont, California, where she majored in Dance and British and American Literature and was a Resident Advisor. She went on to earn an MFA in Film Production, with a Screenwriting emphasis, from The USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her screenplay, The Emerald Quartet, was a semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship competition. In 2008, Bella earned an MA in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.
A resident of Studio City, California, Bella lives with her husband, Jim Carter, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Helen.
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Bella works with clients around the country on diverse writing projects, and on life/creativity issues. She inspires her clients to connect with their life purpose and release whatever fears keep them from fulfilling heartfelt dreams. Irene Kendig, a recent client whose manuscript Bella coached and edited, has won six national book awards for her book, Conversations with Jerry and Other People I Thought Were Dead. Bella also offers raw and living foods lifestyle consultations and coaching.
In addition to her ongoing writing class, WRITE WHERE YOU ARE: The Art of Being Present on the Page, Bella teaches private workshops that encompass writing, movement, meditation, self-care, ritual, and raw food prep.
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