About Us

Where Lingwell Began

Lingwell began with poetry and listening.

In 2009, founder and poet Matthew Leavitt Brown moved to Nashville and began hosting writing groups for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Those gatherings revealed something powerful. When people are given space to speak about what they have lived through, especially in their own words and on their own terms, something begins to shift. Pain becomes shareable. Language becomes a tool for healing.

As the work grew, so did the places it reached. Writing groups expanded into shelters, clinics, prisons, and hospitals, where survivors of trauma used language not simply to recount what had happened, but to reclaim a voice for what came next.

Research Meets Purpose

Wanting to better understand why this process worked and how it could reach more people, Brown pursued a PhD in language studies focused on therapeutic expression and trauma.

That research, combined with years of fieldwork, led to a partnership with Vanderbilt University's Center for Innovation and support from the National Science Foundation.

The vision became clear: build a tool that could extend everything learned in those rooms to people everywhere.

That tool became Lingwell.

Lingwell Today

Today, Lingwell is built by a small team with backgrounds in healthcare, education, linguistics, user experience, and community advocacy, united by a shared belief that language can change lives.

Our goal isn't to replace therapy, counseling, or clinical care.

It's to extend it.

To make thoughtful, evidence-informed support available to more people, more often, exactly when they need it.