​Founded as a 501c3 in 2017, Ridgelines Language Arts provides community arts education for those who are impacted by stigma and injustice in the rural ridges and valleys of central Pennsylvania. Our programs–from poetry and storytelling to songwriting and journaling—take place in settings outside of academic institutions, including our area’s domestic violence shelter, low-income nursing home, youth detention center, state women’s prison, community youth centers, queer & trans youth groups, & more.
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Our programs make space for participants to explore their voices and their stories, exercise their creative agency, and advocate for personal wellbeing and social change. We do this work because we believe that healthy individuals and just social conditions are sustained by the reflection, honesty, pleasure, and intimacy fostered by the study of language arts.
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Through in-depth language arts workshops led by professional Teaching Artists, participants gain ways to explore their voices and their stories, exercise creative agency, and advocate forp ersonal wellbeing and social change.
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Such advocacy continues beyond our teaching spaces, as we lift up participants’ voices through traveling exhibitions, publications, and events.
"As they become known and accepted to ourselves, our feelings, and the honest exploration of them, become sanctuaries and fortresses and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas, the house of difference so necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action."
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--Audre Lorde, "Poetry is Not a Luxury"
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Accessibility Information & Resources:
If there are technologies or services that would make any of our events more accessible for you or someone you know—for example large print materials, audio descriptions, or sign language interpretation—please let us know! You can submit accommodation requests at any time to RidgelinesLanguageArts@gmail.com. We are more than happy to provide these and other services upon request.