Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Howland.
Amanda, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am a novelist and a yoga teacher. I have been practicing yoga for over twenty-five years, and the practice is central to my heart and creative life. I believe we are called to reunite humanity with nature through love, and to grow a collaborative culture to combat ecocide and fascism. I believe yoga and art are healing, constructive practices that move people directly.
My novels are visions of the wholeness of life and the power of choice. I love the novel form because it has the potential to hold adventures both mundane and metaphysical, shame, suffering, humor, romance, animals, water, food: all the cool weirdness of life! I have been writing since I was eighteen. I earned an MFA in fiction from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program (NEOMFA) in 2013. I have published two novels, Beasts and Creature, and Mona Cost Returns to the Black House, through my independent press, Erie Oak Moon. I am working on a third novel, which is a follow-up to Mona Cost called The Black House and the Rosalie. My characters deal with addiction, both to substances and beliefs, and work hard on healing through love, art, challenging mainstream ideas, and learning from their many mistakes. I played experimental noise/punk music for a long time, and I bring those experiences into my fiction.
I’ve studied yoga independently for many years and formally through the wonderful Yoga Central in Canton, Ohio, primarily with Michael Curtis. I have been teaching for six years, and earned my 500-hour certification in 2024. I teach yoga that is slow, deep, comprehensive, inclusive, and joyful! I also practice Reiki and am returning to school to study massage therapy so I can expand my offerings. I am passionate about mutual aid, building community, and wildlife conservation. I live with my husband, unschooling daughter, and two cats. I am crazy about them.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have faced financial challenges, and healing from addiction, depression, and anxiety has been a focus of my life.
Our society undervalues caregiving and art, which can lead to material struggles for those committed to mothering, writing, and music. I have made some bad decisions, but never for a minute have I regretted my decision to be with my daughter and to homeschool her, as these last twelve years have been deeply meaningful. And so fun! I can’t imagine not being by her side for this amazing childhood. I also don’t regret studying fiction, but that has left me with a lot of student debt, despite earning an assistantship. Students, writers, mothers, and other caregivers are doing often invisible work that is not financially supported. I have learned so much I wish I’d known when I was young about what makes a good day job! I think artists make good therapists of all kinds, and so I wish I had become some kind of therapist when I was a young adult. Therapists use creative problem-solving and can often set their own hours and work part time. Perfect day job for a writer. I’m excited about returning to school for massage therapy, and I’d recommend that path to artists, or any kind of therapy work: talk therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, art therapy, music therapy, etc. I worked as a hairdresser through my twenties, but for me, it was not a good day job and should only be done by people who really love doing hair. It was too socially draining and not financially supportive, as at least for me, at that time, the work only paid slightly more than minimum wage. Adjunct teaching work is also, unfortunately, becoming a less viable option for writers, both financially and institutionally.
I grew up into a music culture in which heavy drinking was normal. I learned how sensitivity can draw people to performing arts, and how that same sensitivity can make performers vulnerable to alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with the intensity of performing and talking with people all night. I drank with the closest people in my life, and we had some wonderful times. For a long time the toll that drinking took and the problems it caused seemed worth it. I never thought I would quit drinking! But, as time went on, it seemed that drinking was creating an artificial, sticky, yucky, coating to my life and leaving me feeling weak and uninspired. As we all got older, I realized how serious the consequences of regular drinking can be, and I saw more pain, suffering, and mental distortions.
So, I cast it off, and re-emerged feeling more free and creative than ever before. I’m grateful and fortunate that my closest friends and family have also either quit drinking or moderated.
I went through a pretty serious depression as a young adult, and anxiety throughout my adult life. Yoga has been deeply healing for my mental health, sobriety, and creative soul.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My novels are about people here in the rust belt, mostly musicians, struggling with addiction, poverty, and toxic relationships. But my novels are optimistic! My characters muck around and learn how to be free through mystic experiences and close calls. They learn to love and build a better world, despite the oppression of the growing divide of rich and poor. They make their own way, and they learn to do it in community with each other. I love writing about the history of place, and about strange old houses and apartment buildings, and the weird things that happen at underground shows. My novels descend from the Romantic, Transcendentalist, Beat, and Punk art movements. I want to acknowledge my friend, David Russell Stempowski, for creating the amazing art for my books.
I teach yoga that is slow, deep, inclusive, and reflective. I believe in guiding students through a full body practice including long moments of silence and stillness. I bring in yogic techniques that are often left out of contemporary American yoga practice, such as mantra, mudra (hand gestures), and visualization. These are traditional tools in yoga. I don’t teach any dogma, only that we can play with these practices in order to cultivate a deeper sense of loving awareness. My teacher, Michael Curtis, says that yoga leads to greater awareness, which leads to more choices. This is liberating. I believe this liberation is spiritual. Unconditional love is spiritual, and love is at the heart of yoga.
Spirituality is a vague idea in our culture, and many people have experienced religious trauma. However, I believe on a physical level, regular yoga practice helps heal the nervous system by shifting a sympathetic-dominant nervous system to parasympathetic-dominant one. This is extremely powerful for both our physical health and mental health. In this way, our consciousness is liberated and can become more open to a state of loving awareness and clarity. This is how I understand the comprehensive body-mind spiritual power of yoga practice, no dogma required.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
You can find my novels, Beasts and Creature and Mona Cost Returns to the Black House, at local Cleveland-area shops: Mac’s Backs, Mistake by the Lake, Corner of the Sky, and My Mind’s Eye!
You can also email me directly to chat, order books, or ask to be added to my newsletter: arhowland108@gmail.com. (If you order from me directly, you might get a bonus CD!) I am working to divest from Amazon and find an alternative print-on-demand company, but for now, you can find my books there.
My website is amandarhowland.com. You can also sign up for my newsletter there! I am on Instagram at arhr108.
I teach group yoga classes at Firehouse Yoga in Lakewood and also offer private or small group sessions. For private or small group sessions, please email arhowland108@gmail.com. If you are not in the Cleveland area, I am happy to offer a free consultation through Zoom. I sometimes teach community classes with Food Strong, which is an amazing local nonprofit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amandarhowland.com
- Instagram: arhr108
- Other: https://firehouseyogalakewood.com
