Speaking
Ideas are more powerful when we can step inside them.
I speak about imagination, story, creative practice, and the ways imagined experience can change how we see—and navigate—our real lives.
My talks combine storytelling, research, metaphor, and experiential moments that invite audiences to do more than consider an idea. They invite people to try it on, explore it from the inside, and carry something back with them.
Rehearsal for Becoming
What if imagination isn’t only a way to envision possible futures, but a way to practice becoming the people who might live them?
Rehearsal for Becoming explores the role imagined experience plays in real-world change. Drawing on story, creative practice, and the surprisingly practical ways humans use imagination, the talk asks what happens when we don’t simply picture a possibility, but step inside it long enough to experience ourselves differently.
Approximately 10 minutes
Talks that Invite Audiences In
I design talks for audiences navigating creativity, change, learning, leadership, and the increasingly important question of what humans uniquely bring to a changing world.
Depending on the audience and setting, talks may explore themes such as:
Imagination as a Practical Human Capacity
How imagination helps us shift perspective, navigate uncertainty, and explore possibilities before we know exactly where they will lead.
Rehearsal and Becoming
How stories, play, and imagined experience allow us to practice ways of thinking and being before we live them for real.
Creative Flexibility
Why having more than one way to think matters—and how we can become more intentional about moving between different modes of thought.
Story as a Tool for Illumination
How metaphor and narrative give us new vantage points on familiar questions and help make invisible patterns visible.
Talks can be shaped for conferences, organizations, schools, creative communities, professional development programs, and retreats.
From the Stage to the Room
A talk can open a question. A workshop gives people somewhere to take it.
Speaking engagements can be paired with an experiential workshop that gives participants the opportunity to explore the ideas for themselves.
Rehearsal for Becoming, for instance, pairs naturally with Think Otherwise, an experiential workshop in cognitive flexibility that invites participants to notice and experiment with the different modes of thought they bring to their work.
For teams interested in culture and collaboration, Creating Lift uses imaginative metaphor-mapping to make the “work beneath the work” visible and translate shared vision into practical choices.
What Audiences Say
I can’t stop talking about the sessions Naomi Kinsman did for our region. I had heard such wonderful things about her in-person workshops. What I wasn’t prepared for was how impactful her virtual sessions would be. Being able to go through her methods distraction-free in my own workspace was incredibly powerful and has made it even easier to re-visit her techniques now when I step into my space to explore my characters and their environments. Her methods have given me a direct route to creating more freely, joyfully, and effectively. Feedback from attendees has also been fantastic.
About Naomi
Naomi Kinsman is an author, creative strategist, facilitator, and founder of Society of Young Inklings and Creative Lift.
For more than twenty years, she has designed story-based experiences for writers, educators, leaders, teams, and organizations. Her work explores how imagination, story, and creative practice can help people see familiar questions differently and navigate possibility with greater flexibility and intention.
Naomi is the author of the From Sadie’s Sketchbook middle-grade series and Spilled Ink: A Writer’s Activity Book.
Invite Naomi to Speak
Planning a conference, retreat, professional development experience, or gathering where imagination, creativity, and change are part of the conversation?
Let’s explore what might serve your audience.
Interested in an experiential session instead? Explore Workshops →
Notes from the Field
Essays and observations about imagination, creative practice, story, and the work of becoming.