Write Yourself Home

“The first step to telling the truth—in your life, on the page—is letting yourself hear the truth. Johanna’s practice of embodied writing offers a way to access the truth that lives in the body, beneath other ways of knowing. You won’t find a wiser, more compassionate teacher.”
—Megan Devine, best-selling author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK

“For anyone whose body has rewritten their life without permission, Write Yourself Home offers a different way forward. Grounded in somatic awareness and radical permission, this book offers accessible practices for those navigating illness, trauma, grief, or burnout—without pushing, fixing, or bypassing. Designed to be done from bed, from rest, from wherever you are, Franzel helps readers reclaim their own language, agency, and sense of wholeness—without denying pain or demanding recovery. This is not writing to improve yourself, but writing to come home to yourself. Highly recommend.”
—Sarah Ramey, musician and author of The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness

“This spectacular and deeply resonant book shows us an entirely new way to pay attention to our bodies. Write Yourself Home is an enthralling, luminous, deeply moving account of a descent into illness and a path back to the body and to allegiance to that body, through language. In her deeply innovative and beautifully curated exercises, Johanna Franzel shows us a way to open up again to life and to hope and joy and full embodiment. Find a cozy chair, because you won’t be able to put this book down.”
—Susan Conley, author of Landslide

“An essential guide for every body. Write Yourself Home invites you to fully inhabit the life that’s yours, and it does so with creativity, warmth, and clear steps. I highly recommend this book to every single person out there who happens to have a body!”
—Stephen Cope, author of The Great Work of Your Life

“In Write Yourself Home, Johanna Franzel reframes the basic act of writing. This is a writing process that pays a different kind of attention and provokes new form and meaning from the knowledge you carry around with you everywhere. What is truly revelatory is watching Franzel demonstrate, through her own experience, how to use writing to follow the instructions of the body. Then she shows you how! This book is deeply generous, practical, and accessible. You will walk away knowing just what to do.”
—Chana Joffe-Walt, radio journalist and producer at This American Life

Johanna Franzel holds a Master of Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and trained in documentary writing and radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

A bodyworker since 2013, her certifications include neuromuscular therapy from the Namaste Institute for Massage and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy with Dr. Kate Klemer. Johanna’s ongoing studies include Zero Balancing, anatomy, and somatics. Her most rigorous learning comes from two decades of living with chronic illness.

A long-time educator, Johanna has worked for the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and spent nearly a decade as the director of Generation PRX, a national youth radio network for the Public Radio Exchange. She maintains a private somatics practice that supports individuals and groups to come home to their bodies through writing and gentle movement practices.

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