Nancy Aronie:
Nancy Slonim Aronie is best known for her book Writing From the Heart and her commentaries on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Nancy is the owner and facilitator of the Chilmark Writing Workshop on Martha's Vineyard where she offers weekly workshops each summer. She served as the keynote speaker for Story Circle Network's 2008 Stories from the Heart Conference. An inspiring speaker, commentator, writer, and workshop leader, Aronie shared some thoughts on what drives her with SCN's Lisa Shirah-Hiers, in an interview originally published in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 11, No. 4, December 2007).
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Christina Baldwin:
Christina Baldwin has taught journal writing seminars internationally for over 25 years. She has written several classic books about personal writing: One to One: Self-Understanding through Journal Writing (1977/1991), Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest (1991, revised edition 2007), and Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story (2005). In the early '90s, Baldwin began exploring ways to help people use the circle as a way to move from personal to social consciousness, to understand how we must all stand by our stories and make our presence count in the world. Her explorations led to Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture (1994/1998) and to The Seven Whispers, A Spiritual Practice for Times Like These (2002). She and her partner, author and educator Ann Linnea, have founded a company called PeerSpirit, in Langley WA. They offer Circle Practicums, wilderness adventures, and writing seminars. For an updated list of books and programs, visit the PeerSprit website. This interview was conducted by Susan Wittig Albert and published in the December, 2001, issue of The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 5, No. 4).
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Mary Beath: Illustrator, author, naturalist, Mary Beath celebrates her "zigzaggy" path from a childhood in Washington, DC to a year in Istanbul, a decade in New York's East Village, and now the home she has found in Albuquerque, New Mexico's rural South Valley. Fascinated with science in childhood, she earned a BA Zoology at Duke University, and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She leads a life in art and words that explores her love of what Aldo Leopold called "the community of the land." Her first book, Refuge of Whirling Light, received the Wrangler Award for Poetry from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and was a finalist for both the WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West and the Spur Literary Award from the Western Writers of America. She has taught in the Honors Program of the University of New Mexico. This interview was conducted by Susan Tweit.
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Heather Cariou: Heather Summerhayes Cariou was born and raised in Ontario, trained at the National Ballet School of Canada, and was a founding member of the Ontario Youtheatre and the Center for Actor's Study in Toronto. She enjoyed a professional acting career for twenty years across Canada and off-Broadway. She now lives on the Hudson River in New Jersey with a view of New York City and is working on a novel and co-producing the feature film "Make Believe" with her husband, stage and screen actor Len Cariou. She is a member of the Story Circle Network.
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Rosemary Daniell:
Rosemary Daniell is a novelist, memoirist, poet and teacher. More than 20 years ago, she established the Zona Rosa writing groups. In leading these ongoing groups and Zona Rosa workshops held across the United States and in Europe, she has helped many women find and share their writing voices. Daniell's writing credits include The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself: Living and Writing the Zona Rosa Way. She has also written a collection of poems called A Sexual Tour of the Deep South, the novel Hurricane Season, and two memoirs: Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex and Suicide in the Deep South, which is about growing up female in the South and her mother's life and death, and Sleeping with Soldiers: In Search of the Macho Man. Her most recent book is Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Changes the Lives of Smart Women. Daniell lives in Savannah, Georgia. In this interview (originally published in September, 2005, in The Story Circle Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3), Patricia Pando asked about her life and work.
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Barbara Drake:
Barbara Drake is the author of the memoir Peace at Heart: An Oregon Country Life and the popular textbook, Writing Poetry, as well as several volumes of poetry. She is a professor of English at Linfield College in McMinnville, OR. She and her husband William Beckman live at Lilac Hill Farm, in the Yamhill Valley of Oregon. Susan Wittig Albert conducted this interview in August, 2000. It was originally published in The Story Circle Journal.
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Susie Flatau:
Susie Kelly Flatau is a writer and speaker who spent over twenty years teaching English in high school and community college. In 1994, Flatau founded the Casa del Sol Writing Studio, offering workshops and consultation in women's studies, creative writing, legacy work, book reviews, bookbinding and more. The author of four books, she lives in Austin, TX. This interview, originally published in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 6, No. 1) was conducted by Susan Wittig Albert in March, 2002.
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Barbara Gates:
Barbara Gates's book, Already Home: A Topography of Spirit and Place (Shambhala Publications, June 2003) comes out of years of writing, editorial projects, Buddhist practice, and research into the ecology and history of the author's home place in the San Francisco Bay Area. Gates's writing is informed by three decades of Buddhist mindfulness practice. Her published works include Changing Learning, Changing Lives: A High School Women's Curriculum from the Group School (Feminist Press, 1979) and articles in several anthologies of American Buddhist writings. This interview, conducted via email by Jane Ross, was originally published in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 9, No. 1, March 2005).
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Barbara Becker Holstein:
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein is a therapist in Ocean, New Jersey. Her first book, The Enchanted Self: A Positive Therapy, was based on her premise that many people are unhappy not just because of past hurts and present disappointments, but because they simply cannot remember being happy. What we need, Holstein suggests, is to return to the enchanted moments in our lives, those times when we are in touch with a self that is whole, happy, and creative—the enchanted self. Holstein has just self-published her second book, Recipes for Enchantment, a collection of stories and vignettes that she has collected from clients and from her newsletter. She is also the author of Delight and The Truth. Susan Wittig Albert interviewed her via email for The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 5, No. 1, February 2001).
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Roberta Isleib: New Jersey born clinical psychologist and golfer Roberta Isleib says that she began writing golf mysteries to justify the time she spent on the links. Her first series, featuring a neurotic professional golfer and a sports psychologist, was nominated for both Agatha and Anthony awards. Her new series, starring a Connecticut psychologist and advice columnist, debuted in 2007 with Deadly Advice. Roberta is the president of Sisters in Crime and the past president of the New England chapter. She lives with her family in Connecticut.
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Ann Linnea:
Ann Linnea has been a naturalist and teacher of outdoor skills for three decades. As a high school student, she led grade school children on canoe trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In her twenties she took high school biology students and Youth Conservation Corps students into the mountains of Utah, for environmental education. In her thirties she developed Sense of Wonder Workshops which led teachers and families outdoors in a spirit of curiosity, exploration and discovery. In her forties and fifties, she has continued to lead people into the wilderness on foot, in canoe, by kayak, and via dogsled. Author of a hiking and skiing guide during her years as US. Forest Service naturalist in the 1970's, Ann also co-authored the award-winning Teaching Kids to Love the Earth (1991 Pfeifer-Hamilton). In the early 1990's, she began co-leading workshops with Christina Baldwin (author of the popular journaling guide, Life's Companion) that focus on creating community, gentle exploration of the natural world, rites of passage, and returning gifts to the planet. This work led her to design her own mid-life rite of passage—circumnavigating Lake Superior by sea kayak. Deep Water Passage: A Spiritual Journey at Mid-Life, (Little, Brown, 1995, Pocketbooks 1997) portrays her courage and willingness to honestly review and change her life. Together, Ann and Christina founded PeerSpirit, an educational company that offers Circle Practicums, Wilderness Adventures, and Writing Seminars. Ann lives in the state of Washington. This interview was conducted via email by Susan Wittig Albert and originally published in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 5, No. 2, June, 2001).
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Kathleen Dean Moore:
Kathleen Dean Moore is the author of three books of nature essays. Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water (1995) won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World (1999) took the 2000 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and The Pine Island Paradox (2004) won the 2005 Oregon Book Award. She also wrote the introduction to What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest, a publication of the Story Circle Network. Dr. Moore is University Writer Laureate and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University in Portland, Oregon, where she serves as the founding director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word. Lisa Shirah-Hiers conducted this email interview for The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2007).
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Deborah Morgan:
Deborah Morgan, the author of Writing Out Loud, is a very special person. She has devoted her life to working with people—mostly women—who live with a secret handicap: they are illiterate. Deborah has a handicap too: she lives with multiple sclerosis. But like the women whose lives she has helped to shape, she has is a survivor who has learned to celebrate life in joy and in service. A Canadian who lives in Camrose, Alberta, Deborah says that writing about life is not just something to do—it's a way to live, and a way to change lives. This interview, conducted by Susan Wittig Albert, originally appeared in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 6, No. 2, June, 2002).
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Linda Joy Myers:
Linda Joy Myers has many strings to her bow. With a Ph.D. in psychology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, she is a therapist, a published author, and a teacher of life-writing. She has written her own memoir, titled Don't Call Me Mother, and has published Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story, a book aimed at helping other life writers to approach the often emotional process of memoir writing and to allow the writing to heal their emotional wounds. She was interviewed by Jane Ross for The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 7, No. 2, June, 2003).
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PJ Pierce:
Story Circle Network member PJ Pierce is a freelance writer based in Austin TX. Her book, Let Me Tell You What I've Learned: Texas Wisewomen Speak, was published in 2002 by the University of Texas Press. For the book, PJ interviewed 25 well-known Texas women and the result is a distillation of the wisdom of these inspiring women. PJ began her career in journalism at age 10, when she and her friend Candace O'Keefe edited a neighborhood newspaper for three successful years. PJ earned a B.A. in German and journalism and an M.A. in German. Her professional career includes stints in public relations and nearly ten years' teaching in high-school journalism and German. A wife and mother of three adult children, she is an avid long-distance bicyclist, a master swimmer, and has hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim. She is currently at work on two biographies. This interview was conducted by Jane Ross for The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 7, No. 1, March, 2003).
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Jeannie Ralston:
For more than 23 years, Jeannie Ralston has been writing for magazines, both on-staff and as a freelancer. She has been a contributing editor for Parenting magazine for the past 8 years. She now lives with her husband and their two sons in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
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Donna Van Straten Remmert:
Donna Van Straten Remmert is the author of two memoirs: The Littlest Big Kid and Jitterbug Girl. She is a long-time member of the Story Circle Network and past president of the Austin chapter. Her professional background includes teaching high school English and working as a journalist. For more than twenty years, she has pursued an informal study of Jungian psychology, especially as it relates to dreams. She and her husband live in Boulder, CO. This essay about her work was originally published in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 4, No. 4, December, 2000).
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Sharman Apt Russell:
Sharman Apt Russell is the author of several books, including Hunger and Songs of the Fluteplayer, which won the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award. She has written for publications including Discover and Nature Conservancy, and currently contributes to OnEarth, the magazine for the National Resource Defense Council. Russell teaches creative writing at Western New Mexico University and at Antioch University in Los Angeles, California. She lives in Silver City, New Mexico.
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Jan Epton Seale:
Jan Seale writes poems, short fiction, and essays. Her work is published nationally in such venues as The Yale Review, Texas Monthly, and Newsday. Her short stories, seven of which were chosen for the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project, are collected in Airlift (TCU Press). She also has six books of poetry, a book of essays, and a writing textbook. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing. Seale teaches memoir and creative writing workshops both in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where she lives, and nationally for writing groups and learning centers. This interview, conducted via email by Susan Wittig Albert, originally appeared in The Story Circle Journal (Vol. 6, No. 4, December, 2002).
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Linda Wisniewski: Several years ago, Story Circle Book Reviews Assistant Editor Linda Wisniewski of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, wrote an essay called "My Body, My Self" about her battle with scoliosis. That essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. When noted author Maureen Murdock read the piece, she advised Linda, "You should expand this into a book." In April 2008, Pearlsong Press will debut Linda's memoir, Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage.
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Paula Stallings Yost:
Paula Stallings Yost is a memoirist and publisher with a background in journalism and public relations. After several years of juggling her freelance writing with a corporate public relations/employee motivation career in Dallas, she rebelled against the urban life and migrated to the piney woods of East Texas. Free to focus on her writing, Yost became lifestyles editor and feature reporter for a daily newspaper.
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