editor & poet
transformational writing coach
Alexandra Barylski, M.A. (Yale University) is the Executive Editor of the Marginalia Review of Books, where she is the Director of Publications and Project Manager at the Institute for the Meanings of Science. She is currently managing the Institute’s Meanings of Life Project: The New Biology, which is supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. She founded The Writing College in 2020 with Yale-trained philosopher, writer, and applied ethicist Samuel Loncar, Ph.D, to create a solution for the crisis of human language in an AI age.
While at Yale, she studied with the poet, writer, and translator, Christian Wiman, who was the former Editor of POETRY. She has also been selected for workshops with poets Alicia Ostricker and Edward Hirsch, the current president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2018, she was the Kenyon College Peter Taylor Fellow for the poet, writer, and Guggenheim Fellow, Afaa Weaver.
At Marginalia, she works with the world’s leading scholars, writers, scientists, and artists, editing and curating their work for over 150,000 readers. . .
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At The Writing College, she teaches reading and writing as spiritual technologies to women. Her method is based on over two decades of experience teaching and researching in writing labs, middle and high schools, liberal arts universities, technical colleges, and writing programs for children and adults.
Alex holds two Master’s degrees in Literature and B.A. in English and Secondary Education, with an emphasis on writing as therapy. Her poetry has won competitions and awards, including the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize. She is also the host of the Becoming Human show, The Poetry Peddler. In 2016, she received her 200-hour YTT and her workshops and guided writing practices integrate the mind, spirit, and body.Writers who work with Alex have published in major academic presses, leading journals, and news outlets. Young women writers (under 18) who work with her have reached audiences of over 20K with their writing, have been awarded the Scholastic Silver Key for non-fiction, and been have selected for the The New York Times summer writing academy.
“Alex made me feel entirely at ease and had the perfect comments and questions to prompt me into a deeper and more powerful conversation with my own heart and mind. Alex listened to my narratives and guided me through my thought processes with her ‘verbal drafting and revision method,’ allowing me to real-time, reconsider, revise, and change deeply ingrained patterns of thought. The philosophical tools and techniques she used helped me access the truth, and express what felt unsayable...”
-Elizabeth C., Owner and Operator of Honeysuckle Nectary, NJ
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“I found myself unexpectedly pregnant in my late 30s. I was thrilled, but also terrified because I was about to become what I had never particularly envisioned for my life: a mother.
The very thing I feared and worried over was about to happen to me in nine months. I could do to stop the feelings of inadequacy and concern. I needed guidance to work throw overwhelming waves of doubt and fear. I felt like I was going to die because I knew subconsciously, the version of me I had known my whole life was approaching an end, and I felt desperate for help to navigate this transformation.
Our first session went so well, and Alex made me feel entirely at ease and had the perfect comments and questions to prompt me into a deeper and more powerful conversation with my own heart and mind. Alex listened to my narratives and guided me through my thought processes with her “verbal drafting and revision method,” allowing me to real-time, edit, revise, and change deeply ingrained patterns of thought. The philosophical tools and techniques she used helped me access the truth, and express what felt unsayable. Thoughts came out that I didn't even realize I had, and she gave me space to process and work through them.
By the time I reached my due date, I had had months to consciously transition from a state of fear and doubt into a state of hope and confidence. I was no longer afraid of the transition into motherhood. I would be better for it, and I was. Becoming a mom was a new beginning for me and the start of the most meaningful work of my life. Alex saw the beauty of this monumental transformation in my identity, and she gave me the insights and tools to flourish through it.”
“Within a few weeks, I experienced significant changes in the concerns that Alex helped me work through, and I feel more peace about the future. I love reading texts in sessions. She brings poetry selected just for me because she knows exactly what will resonate with me, and she helps me apply the insights I gain from reading in practical ways.”
- Sadie U., Full-time Nurse and Mom, CA
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I love how literature and poetry are taught at The Writing College, as methods and tools for self-discovery. Alex helped me understand reading and writing as powerful spiritual technologies. The "verbal drafting and revision" sessions have taken my healing and personal speaking abilities to an even higher level, and accessing philosopher Samuel Loncar’s Becoming Human Project live-classes through my long-term work with Alex has been key to my healing journey and personal transformation.
Within a few weeks, I experienced significant changes in the concerns that Alex helped me work through, and I feel more peace about the future. I love reading texts in sessions. She brings poetry selected just for me because she knows exactly what will resonate with me, and she helps me apply the insights I gain from reading in practical ways.
“Alex’s curiosity, impartial tone, and keen observations pushed me to articulate the story of my life. Her honesty provoked my honesty. In the writing assignments she coached me through, I returned to key childhood memories. I saw the truth about what had been going on around me and what had shaped me. I was no longer paralyzed like an overwhelmed child.”
- Elaina B., Executive Assistant, NYC
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I came to Alex wanting to understand why I have poor relationships in my family and wanting to write.
The bad relational tendencies I had in my family were patterning themselves across my life, but I didn’t understand them. I didn’t know where to start in trying to be an effective part of key relationships in my life and I didn’t feel comfortable being myself in them but I didn’t know why. Alex would tell me, “It’s hard to come to literal terms with ourselves and our lives."
But her curiosity, impartial tone, and keen observations pushed me to articulate the story of my life. Her honesty provoked my honesty. In the writing assignments she coached me through, I returned to key childhood memories and saw the truth about what had been going on around me and what had shaped me. I was no longer paralyzed like an overwhelmed child.
Once I could understand why I didn’t get along with my family, I was free to try getting along with them for the first time, if I wanted to. I was better equipped to engage in all relationships, and I discovered the key themes from my story that I can write about in every story I write from here.
Women build worlds: in their homes, careers, and communities. Woman manage the daily practicalities of life and infuse it with order and beauty, but everyone knows the woman herself is often the most overlooked and neglected part of everything she cultivates.
A woman’s strength and independence comes from a rich inner life, expressed in what the world has so often tried to silence: her voice. A woman's voice is the fingerprint of her experience.What a woman chooses to talk about and the manner of her language, whether in writing or speaking, reflects the depth and authenticity of her inner life, the place from which all true words arise
Yet so many women struggle to find the time, the space, or the right practices to cultivate their interior world. They have bought guided journals and have completed all the practices, but without feedback. They find themselves saying the same things and repeating the same patterns, stuck in the same place with no clear way forward.
That’s why professional writers have editors, a person they trust to provide the right direction for their thinking.
I have over two decades of teaching and editing experience, and I’ve compressed everything I’ve learned into a clear method where I teach reading and writing as spiritual technologies, a practice of deep literacy that is designed to put a woman in dialogue with her Self. We tend to focus on digital tech, but literacy is one of the oldest technologies, historically denied to women and other marginalized groups.
Deep literacy has two sides: On one side, you move into a deeper relationship with your Self through guided and meaningful engagement with texts. On the other, you move outward, speaking from a place of consciousness on behalf of what matters most to you. Most importantly, you receive meaningful feedback from your guide.
Whether you are speaking informally at a family dinner, sharing a social media post, or aiming at a journal publication, knowing how to dialogue with your Self in meaningful ways is the foundation for success.
Speaking is publishing. But it is less permanent than writing. Writing is your speaking, your mind made visible. You are always publishing who you are and what you stand for. Our values (or lack of them) are never hidden. Your speech reveals who you are, whether you know who you are or not. Cultivating presence and elegance in our clothes is important (I love style), but true power and beauty begin in a mind well-known, what we call self-knowledge.
Are you a woman ready to ready to develop your inner voice, deepen your self-knowledge, and engage the world with greater agency and presence? Then I look forward to meeting you.
Necessities of Mending takes place between the moment a woman knows that she is in sudden and dire need of being put back together and the dawning insight that what felt stagnant has been full of forward motion after all. This period is lonely and difficult, full of uncertainties, but ultimately it is a joyful space where one can finally say: I am on the mend.
Karen Swallow Prior, reader, writer, and speaker:
from, “An Academic in Exile”
Read The New Yorker’s profile on Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D.
Language as a Way of Life
“When language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem…all users and makers are accountable for its demise. We do language. That may be the measure of our lives."
-Toni Morrison
”Nobel Prize in Literature Speech,” 1993
Selected Publications
“When Truth Finds a Home: In The Shelter by Pádraig O Tuáma” Marginalia Review of Books
“Poetry and The Living Image” University of Arizona Poetry Center
“Poetry for Grownups: The Responsible Self in Molly Spencer’s If the House” Marginalia Review of Books
“What Speaks to Crisis: The Poetry of the Soul” University of Arizona Poetry Center
"Poetry, Bodies, & Stillness: A Conversation with Ocean Vuong" Marginalia Review of Books, featured in Poetry
"The Dove that Returns" University of Arizona Poetry Center
"Poetry Is A Body In Pain" University of Arizona Poetry Center
"Poems Are Places of Worship" University of Arizona Poetry Center
“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" Marginalia Review of Books
“Poetry is Incarnational” University of Arizona Poetry Center
“People of the Tomb” Ruminate Magazine
"After Years Without Speaking" Reflections
"Motherhoods" Letters Journal
"On Asking a Seven Year Old," The Windhover
"The Center Can Hold" Chariton Review
"Mystery & Magic of St. Peter" Ponder Review
“A Woman Desires an Origamist,” Ninth Letter
“A Woman Desires an Out of Practice Cellist,” Ninth Letter
“Conversations and Unbelief” & “Ode to Broken Men,” Minerva Rising
"Cycling Through South Jersey," The Mackinac
“How to Sort Tomatoes,” Ruminate Magazine
Finalist for the 2017 New South Poetry Prize, judge Mark Doty
Selected poet for Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project during 2017 National Poetry Month
Finalist for the 2017 Fairy Tale Review Poetry Prize
Finalist for the 2017 Yemassee Journal Poetry Prize, judge Jericho Brown
“Via Negativa” Phoebe 45.2 : Finalist for the 2016 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, judge Jericho Brown
“Of Women and Water” & “Years, I Waited” Ithaca Lit, Honorable Mention Difficult Fruit Poetry Prize
"A Letter" Phren-Z, Winner of Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, UC Santa Cruz reading with Al Young