Hello. I’m Dale Kushner, and grateful you’ve stopped by my virtual treehouse. It’s a pleasure to offer you a quiet refuge in digital space. Please stay a while and let your curiosity wander.

About me: Books saved my life. In a childhood brimming with strife, books provided safe and enthralling alternative worlds. Like many fiction writers, as a child, I hung out in books.

Books unlocked my imagination and led me to find my voice.

I was the kind of kid who, after driving past an abandoned house, would immediately conjure the family that had lived there and the tragic fate that befell them. My stuffed animals came alive at night. Writing for me is an act of empathy. To write a character the writer needs to put on that character’s clothes and march around in them and see the world through their eyes.

Contrary to stereotypes—and this is a shout-out to budding writers—I was no English teacher’s pet. I did not write my first play, novel, or poem at the age of eight. I was too introverted to flaunt my talents, but I was alive with the music and magic of language in my head.

What turned me toward taking myself seriously as a writer was an awareness that my stories and my feelings were universal and spoke to others. I think of myself as a translator; I translate silence; I translate what goes unsaid or unspoken in families, in friendships, in the culture into poetry, essays, and fiction.

Many forces have shaped my creative life: transgenerational trauma from ancestors I never knew. (Artists and seekers share with mystics a palpable sense of the invisible world.)

But also, I undertook post-graduate study to learn refinement of craft; I studied Jungian depth psychology and dreamwork; I have learned from my Buddhist and Nondualist teachers. Marriage, motherhood, sisterhood, daughterhood, and friendships continue to shape me. The time and place into which I was born influences everything I write.

My hope is that this treehouse/website will inspire you to wonder what is calling to you to be explored. Writing may not be your path, but Mary Oliver’s famous line applies to us all:

What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Short Bio / Intro

Dale M. Kushner is an award-winning American novelist, poet, and essayist. With an MFA in Creative Writing and training in Jungian depth psychology, she has a passion for exploring the intersection of dreams, creativity, transformation, and a deep interest in the divine feminine, mother/daughter relationships, and intergenerational trauma.

Dale's journey included time at the C.G. Jung Institute in Switzerland, where she immersed herself in the study of the unconscious, synchronicity, and archetypal patterns that shape our lives.

Dale’s work bridges art and science, offering readers a guide through the labyrinth of the unconscious with wisdom and empathy. She believes that individual growth and transformation can inspire broader societal healing and is honored to be considered a compelling voice in contemporary literature and psychological insight.

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