Participating Writers

Women at the 2011 AROHO Retreat are a select, diverse group of accomplished women at various stages in their writing careers. AROHO women are accustomed to taking intellectual and artistic risks, and are eager for the company of peers who do the same.

Applications to the retreat are currently closed. Sign up for the AROHO newsletter to be the first to get the news about future retreats.

Jamie Amos Jamie Amos currently studies fiction at the University of New Orleans MFA program. She is the Associate Editor for Bayou Magazine, a regular columnist for NolaFemmes.com, and her work has received honorable mentions in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers and the Orlando Prize in fiction. LAM Fellow.	Martha Andrews Donovan Martha Andrews Donovan, educated at Williams College (B.A.) and the Bread Loaf School of English (M.A.), has been teaching for twenty-eight years. Her poetry chapbook Dress Her in Silk was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. A founding member of the Stone Bridge Poetry Project and a professor of writing at New England College, she is currently working on a mixed-genre memoir tentatively titled Dangerous Archaeology: A Daughter’s Search for her Mother (and Others). Mind Stretch Contributor.	Erin Bad Hand Poet Erin Bad Hand, Lakota and Eastern Cherokee, deals with issues of multi-cultural identity in her poetry. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May of 2006. Since then, she has worked with and for not-for-profit organizations in Taos, New Mexico and has taught  introductory creative writing courses at UNM-Taos. Erin’s published poems include “Could You Be The Perfect Wife?” Chokecherries, A Society of the Muse of the Southwest Anthology, 1997, “Mother Land,” The Sister Fund Newsletter, Sister Fund Foundation, 2001, and others, as well as a short essay, Much More Than Teepees or Totem Poles, Fnews Magazine, SAIC, 2005 and a chapbook published by the Hulbert Center Press of Colorado College titled And Then Everyone Can Rest…., 2002. She is also a Northern Traditional Dancer, a singer with Heartbeat Drum, and a self-proclaimed foodie. She is currently living in Napa, California.  Enchanted Land Fellow.
Lauren Baldwin Lauren Baldwin earned her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010.  She also completed a law degree at the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1992, worked as a Public Defender and in private practice as an attorney for nearly eighteen years, is now a Judicial Officer at the Second Judicial District Court, Family Court Division, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and also serves as a mediator and settlement facilitator both in the private sector and in other state courts in New Mexico.  Lauren writes fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry and is currently at work on a novel.  She lives with her two children in a magical house with a secret garden in Albuquerque and is an avid knitter.	Mary Beath Mary Beath works at the confluence of science, art, and nature. After earning degrees in zoology (Duke) and printmaking (Rhode Island School of Design), she lived for ten years in New York’s East Village before moving to Albuquerque in 1989. She is the proprietor of an award-winning illustration/design/writing studio focused on projects concerning the natural world. She began writing seriously in the early 1990s. Her poetry collection, Refuge of Whirling Light (University of New Mexico Press 2005) won the Wrangler Award and was a finalist for a WILLA Award and a Spur Award. Her book of personal essays, Hiking Alone: Trails Out, Trails Home (UNM Press 2008) won the Chair Award/Zia Award. She has also taught in UNM’s Honors Program. After four years of work, she recently finished a novel set in southwestern Colorado in 2007, at the beginning of a new uranium mining boom. Desert Delight Contributor	Anne Beaufort Anne Beaufort is a professor at University of Washington Tacoma, where she teaches creative nonfiction, among other courses, and professional development seminars for faculty who want to use writing effectively in their courses.  Following ten years working in corporate communications, Anne did doctoral research on the issue of writers developing expertise in multiple genres.  This led to two academic publications, Writing in the Real World and College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction.  Her current research interests include therapeutic and spiritually-based ways of using writing and the interconnections of visual and verbal arts as tools for probing our inner lives.  She has been part of a writing group for over ten years, which has led to a file drawer full of creative nonfiction shorts, lyric essays, and prose poems that she is now working on polishing and submitting to literary journals. Four of her shorts have been published in UWT's literary magazine, Tahoma West.  She also coaches writers and teaches writing workshops at Pendle Hill Conference Center and Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. writingforlife.com
Liz Bedell During the school year, Liz Bedell strives to balance writing and teaching English full-time, something of a juggling act. She has nearly completed a nonfiction manuscript about a course that integrates experiential service learning, literature and creative nonfiction writing. Currently at work on a novel set during and after World War I, she has taught writing to both adolescents and adults for nearly twenty years. AROHO Community Organizer.	Elana Bell Elana Bell was selected by Fanny Howe as the winner of the Walt Whitman Award for 2011. Her first collection of poetry, Eyes, Stones, will be published by Louisiana State University Press in 2012. Elana is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Drisha Institute. Her work has recently appeared in Harvard Review, CALYX Journal, Bellevue Literary Review, and Storyscape. Elana has led creative writing workshops for women in prison, for educators, and for underserved high school students in Israel, Palestine, and throughout the five boroughs of New York City. She currently serves as the writer-in-residence for the Bronx Academy of Letters and sings with the a cappella trio Saheli. Touching Lives Fellow, Desert Delight Contributor	Jayne Benjulian Jayne Benjulian is director of new play development at Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Before she began work in theater, Jayne was executive producer and creative leader at a number of Silicon Valley companies and chief speechwriter at Apple. She was Fulbright Lecturer in Language and Literature at the Université Lyon III in France and Danforth teaching fellow at Emory University, where she earned an M.A. in American and British Literature. She held teaching appointments in writing and literature at several independent schools and the University of San Francisco. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Jayne has published poetry; journalism for Money, Ms. and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution; and an essay in Howlround, the new play ‘zine. Consultation Contributor
Amy Berkower President of Writers House LLC, Amy Berkower began her career as a literary agent in 1979 after graduating from University of California at Santa Cruz. She founded the company's now thriving children's book department and has developed a diverse client list including bestselling authors Nora Roberts, Ken Follett, Erica Jong, Sharon Creech, Laurie Anderson, Barbara Delinsky, Ann Martin, and Andrew Clements.  AROHO Advisory Council Member.  Consultation Contributor.	Mary Rose Betten Mary Rose Betten—Poet, playwright, essaist, retired character actress of stage, screen, and television—three-time Clio award winner. Her plays are produced in New York, Hollywood and The National Theatre, London. Her  book of meditation drama: "People Of The Passion," Sheed & Ward, 1985 is still being performed throughout the US. and used in meditation sevices by our troops in Iraq.  . Her first chapbook, “Hanging Out With Loose Words,” was published by Foot Hills Publishing, New York. She is the winner of Writer Magazine’s Poetry Spotlight Award  and Women's Artistic Network, 2010  Carol E. Doering Prize.  Her recent chapbook: "The Prodigal Son's Mother," was voted book of the month by Finishing Line Press. “Finding Your Best Angle, (Give This To An Actor') Fithian Press was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her recent essays appear  in the Red Hen Press anthology: “Letters To The World,” and are currently featuared on NPR’s “This I Remember,” The Ink Byte Magazine For Writers,” and  “The Last Sunday Writers.” And the forthcoming anthology: “The Pepper Lane Review.”  Her TV interview with Santa Barbara’s poet Laureate won first place nationally in Entertainment Talk shows.  Mind Stretch; Desert Delight Contributor.	Bridget Birdsall Bridget Birdsall is a writer, teacher, and visual artist. She received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. In 2009, she was a finalist for AROHO's Gift of Freedom Award. Her YA novel "August Atlas" received an honorable mention in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writer's Institute First Page Contest and her recently published novel "Ordinary Angels" took first place. (To order: www.createspace.com/3487681) Her visual art and her prize-winning short story "Miracle on Monkey Mountain" can be viewed www.bridgetbirdsall.com.   Bridget currently teaches in the Young Playwrights Program at several Madison-area high schools. She has offered workshops and taught courses in creative writing, poetry, business writing and literature at Edgewood College and Madison College. In addition to teaching, Bridget is a practitioner of the intuitive arts and a member of Madison’s Soul Awareness Healing Collective. She resides in Madison, Wisconsin. Marg Chandler Memorial Fellow; AROHO Community Organizer; Consultation Contributor.
Ginny Bitting Ginny Bitting writes and sails out of Mystic, Connecticut, having left the country early in her life for England and Austria. She is at work on a memoir, Through the Cut, that illuminates her discoveries about love and truth during a year long sailing trip to the Bahamas with her husband and daughter. She teaches Language Arts to Eight graders in Stonington, CT and is excited to return to the AROHO retreat for a second time. AROHO Community Organizer.	Sandra Jean Ceas Sandra Jean Ceas left a thirty year career in Fashion Design when she turned fifty years old to pursue her heart’s desire as a practicing fine artist. Within ten years she obtained a BFA in sculpture, an MFA in new genres, and is currently working on an MA in religious studies. Sandra is a person with dyslexia and finds writing extremely difficult yet her yearnings to communicate do not inhibit her expressing through the arts with many of her installations and public interventions involving text. Back in school as a life-learner, she is steadfastly developing her writing skills to seek publishing as a means to reach a broader audience along with her international art exhibitions and speaking engagements. Sandra is an Associate Professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design and curator for the Bridge Gallery at Denver Seminary.  www.sandrajeanceas.com  Mind Stretch Contributor.	Darlene Chandler Bassett Darlene Chandler Bassett spent two decades as a corporate executive with famed entrepreneur and arts patron, Eli Broad.  Concurrent with her corporate management positions, Bassett was also Board Chair of The California Abortion Rights Action League-South, from 1984 to 1991. Bringing her unique combination of corporate and non-profit management experience to the arts, Bassett now focuses her efforts on women writers and artists.  She is passionate about eradicating the isolation of creative women and ending the marketplace inequality of women in the arts. Bassett graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Classics, and was a guest lecturer at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Business. Founder and President of A Room Of Her Own.
Breena Clarke Breena Clarke is the author of two historical novels set in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Her debut novel, RIVER, CROSS MY HEART was an October 1999 Oprah Book Club selection. Clarke was the recipient of the 1999 New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association award for fiction and the Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association. Her critically reviewed second novel STAND THE STORM was chosen by the Washington Post Book Review as one of 100 best for 2008. A graduate of Howard University, Breena Clarke is also a dramatist and has produced, directed, written and performed as a founding member of The Owen Dodson Lyric Theater and The Narratives Performing Company. Breena’s short fiction and her recollections of Washington, D.C. have been widely anthologized. Breena has been published in Time Magazine, Black Masks, Women and Performance, Conditions, Attaché, Essence Magazine, Dog Fancy, The Chicago Tribune Book World and others. While administering the Editorial Diversity Program at Times Warner Inc. in New York City, Breena mentored a number of young journalists and writers. Since leaving Time to write fiction full time, Breena lives with her husband and dog in Jersey City, NJ. She is currently at work. http://breenaclarke.com/  Featured Writer; AROHO Advisory Council Member; Small Group Facilitator.	Jamie Clifford Photography to me is a form of poetry.  A way to express and share the beauty that I see around us.  Beauty within and shared between people.  In nature.  In color, shape and texture. I began playing with a camera at an early age, capturing moments and communicating what I felt through imagery.  This love flourished in a black and white darkroom, and has continued to deepen and evolve in the digital realm. My approach is a very natural one.  Looking through the lens, something pulls me, captivates me, aesthetically or emotionally and I release the shutter.   Currently, I am capturing Events & Portraits.  I am also developing multiple nature and abstract portfolios. Retreat Photographer.	Esther Cohen Esther Cohen collects good stories, teaches them, and tries to write them in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She published 5 books, and ran Bread and Roses, a cultural non-profit for working people. She lives in New York, where she is often a book doctor. http://www.esthercohen.com/ AROHO Advisory Council Member; Desert Delight Contributor.
Teri Crane Teri Crane, a retired educator and licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, recently earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She is revising her thesis, We Never Used the F Word, a memoir of growing up in her native Southern California and the impact of her father’s death when she was seven years old.  Her current writing project is a story about the travels of two women over the Oregon Trail by wagon train.	Tracey Cravens-Gras A life-long lover of the written word, I studied English at the University of Cincinnati, and graduated with honors from the Ohio State University in 1997.  After a miraculous decade raising two kids, and a family relocation to the desert southwest, I began working for A Room of Her Own as Darlene Chandler Bassett’s personal assistant in 2008.  Author of thousands of emails and the rare and wildly-scrawled thank you note, I savor the boundless creative opportunities and inspiration that working for AROHO offers:  dabbling in graphic and web design, problem-solving, collaborating, and most recently, working to make the 2011 Retreat unparalleled and uniquely AROHO.  Administrative Director of AROHO Retreats.	Jocelyn Cullity Jocelyn Cullity is the recipient of a Writers’ Reserve grant from the Ontario Arts Council for her novel-in-progress set in 1857 India. She has published short stories, creative nonfiction (which includes a documentary film), and feminist scholarship. Her most recent story, “Mutiny,” published by Blackbird, received a nomination for the 2012 Pushcart Prize. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Florida State University and teaches at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and in the low-residency BFA program at Goddard College in Vermont. New England Writer's Fellow.
Jenny Douglas Jenny Douglas is a Brooklyn-based writer, artist, mom, meditator and event curator who’s passionate about the sweet spot where ideas and spirit meet.  A former television and radio producer, she is the author of “Culture Clash: Notes on a Tokyo Prom,” (which appeared in the 2008 anthology The Time of My Life, published by Doubleday), a co-creator or Karmatube.org, and the founder and host of “Sit/Still,” monthly meditation evenings for anyone wishing to walk through the unlocked front door of her brownstone and share silence and a meal together.  Jenny’s “Surrender” photo series—in which she asked random passersby to photograph her in prostration poses all over the world—was on display at the Marin Open Studios this past May, and in March she journeyed to India to teach creating writing to students of a school serving the "Untouchables" caste.Jenny has written about her impending divorce for The Huffington Post and is at work on a memoir. A native Canadian, she was raised in Japan and lives peacefully with her her dog, cat, and two teenage daughters.	Kat Duff Kat Duff is the author of The Alchemy of Illness.  Her essays have appeared in Parabola Magazine, The Taos Review and Ink and Ashes.  She makes her living as a counselor and a child forensic interviewer in northern New Mexico. She is currently at work on a book about sleep and loves to hear from people about their experiences with sleep.	Liz Falvey Growing up on the water immersed me in nature, imagination and solitude-a barefoot loner cycling between autonomy and connection. Following, always following my heart led to a collage of careers exploring passion in its various guises. I began with coaching, then photojournalism. Exploring human being through interviews, research and reporting proved intriguing but far too remote. Fear and fascination eventually drew me to graduate school, subsequently to mental health practice as a counseling psychologist.  Home during recent decades has been as tenured faculty at a university, which enabled me to write, teach, and continue outpatient clinical practice, a satisfying career while raising my beautiful daughter. But time and yearning eventually lead us home. A recent sabbatical on the water rekindled my passion for writing. This latest sojourn-filled with transitions, graced by ancient voices in whispered dialects I am just now coming to embrace-brings me to the mesa.
Betsy Fogelman Tighe Betsy Fogelman Tighe has poems published in over a dozen literary magazines, including The Seneca Review, the Louisville Review, and TriQuarterly 74, for which she received a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.  She was the third place winner of the Oregon State Poetry Association New Poets Prize in 2010 and was the winner of the first Recoursos/Discovery Award, 1995.  She has received an NEH Institute Grant and Florida Humanities Countil Grant for summer studies.  Fogelman Tighe holds an M.A. in Secondary English Education and is a teacher-librarian in Portland, OR where she blissfully lives with her two outstanding teens.	Patricia Fowler My name is Patricia Fowler and I am a wife, mom and occupational therapist, living in southern New Hampshire. And there are days, here and there, when I truly believe that I may be a writer.  I still feel like a bit of a charlatan, though, when I say it aloud, my voice dropping and getting small at the end, as I say, “Oh. And I am also a …writer.” Upon reading the bios above, I nearly chickened out of the AROHO retreat. I have no formal training. No MFA . No trail guide who has walked with me through the woods of point of view, theme, character or plot. And the closest I have gotten to a push cart is at the grocery store. But when I strain to listen amidst the cacophony-the evil chorus of self doubt that chants little epithets at me all the day long- I know what it is that makes my very being tingle. And that is writing. The more I write, the more I believe in a louder voice within-my own. I hear it calling-up through my chest- urgently. My voice has gotten louder, like it has a little hand perched like a fan to one side, like when you really want someone’s attention and you yell.   “Hey! Stop that!” I say. “You ARE a writer! And you have a heart that sees things tender; and an ear that tries to hear and strip away all things trite! C’mon!” it continues.  I can see myself down there, way down there in my innards, shaking my head in frustration, getting really pissed off at me. “C’mon!” I say, again from deep inside. “You can make words sting!  Or sing! And you can be really funny if you’d just get that stick out of your ass! C’mon! You can do this! Stop standing on the shore, damn it! JUMP IN!” So watch me…full gainer. Or maybe a swan dive.  Might be a belly flop. But I am all in.	Kate Gale Kate Gale was the 2005-2006 President of PEN USA, and president of American Composers Forum/LA. Rather than mourn the lack of literary community in her adopted city of Los Angeles, Kate decided to create one in the form of Red Hen Press, Los Angeles' literary jewel, The Los Angeles Review, a literary magazine, the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Series, the Geffen reading series, and a Writers in the Schools program for underserved communities. Kate Gale's Rio de Sangre, an opera with Don Davis was performed in part at Disney Hall November of 2005 and her opera, Paradises Lost, was performed in part at the New York City Opera in May of 2006.  Kate blogs at http://kategale.wordpress.com/.  AROHO Board Member.
Renny Golden Renny Golden is a writer and activist and she teaches Peace Studies at the University of New Mexico. Golden’s poetry book Blood Desert: Witnesses 1820-1880 was published by the University of New Mexico Press in December 2010. Her book of poetry The Hour of the Furnaces, about the war years in El Salvador, was nominated for a National Book Award in 2000. Her book War on the Family: Imprisoned Mothers and the Families They Leave Behind, (NY: Routledge), 2005, was a Finalist for the C Wright Mills Award. Desert Delight Contributor.	Aine Greaney Irish-born writer Aine Greaney now lives on the Massachusetts seacoast. She has published two novels, "The Big House" (Simon & Schuster, U.K.) and "Dance Lessons" (Syracuse U.P), and a chapbook collection of short stories, "The Sheepbreeders Dance." Her how-to writing book, "Writer with a Day Job" has just been released from Writers Digest Books.  Her creative non-fiction essays have been placed in journals such as "Creative Nonfiction," "Under the Sun" and "Natural Bridge." Her short fiction has been shortlisted or won awards such as the Frank O'Connor award, Flume Press, the Fish Anthology and the Steinbeck Award. As well as writing, Aine has led creative and inspirational workshops and retreats for organizations such as the Cape Cod Writers Conference, the New Hampshire Writers Project , Ocean Park Writers Conference and for many public libraries and arts programs in New England and New York. She holds a teaching degree (B.Ed) from the National University of Ireland (studied under Seamus Heaney) and an M.A. in English. Aine is just beginning the muddled first draft of a third novel and a non-fiction book about the experiences and dual identities of long-term, seasoned immigrants to the U.S.A.	Cinny Green Cinny Green, Santa Fe writer and editor, is the author of the award-winning Trail Writer’s Guide (Western Edge Press 2010). She is an accomplished backpacker who completed a 100-mile hike from Santa Fe to Taos, a 200-mile walk through the Scottish Highlands and a 70-mile solo on the Colorado Trail. Cinny is also the second-place winner of the 2009 LAURA Award, a short story contest sponsored by Women Writing the West. Mind Stretch and Consultation Contributor.
Robbie Harold Robbie Harold is working on her third novel, a re-imagining of the life of a Civil War widow. Her first two books, Heron Island and Mortal Knowledge, mysteries set in the early 1900s and published under her pen name of R.A. Harold, feature security agent and sometime Shakespearean actor Dade Wyatt. A 2001 graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, she studied fiction writing with novelist Jonathan Strong and poetry with Paul Muldoon, winning the 1999 Poetry Competition there. She was a 2009 finalist for the AROHO Orlando Award in Short Fiction. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and of Grub Street, Boston's creative writing center. A native of Scotland who emigrated to the U.S. at the age of twelve, she was among the first women graduates of Princeton University in 1973. She lives with her husband in Vermont and in Brooklyn, New York.	Regina Hastings Early in life, Regina Hastings discovered that the written word helped to deal with difficult emotions. Throughout the school year, she uses pen and paper to teach 7th grade the same power of writing by sharing vignettes taken from her own life story. As life continues to provide a multitude of unique experience, she writes, weaving together these stories in a personal narrative. The memoir's name is yet to be found.	Jane Hertenstein Jane Hertenstein lives in Chicago where she cooks, writes, and facilitates several creative writing groups at a local homeless shelter and Friendly Towers retirement community.  A number of years ago Jane visited Ghost Ranch in December (her sister worked there under the ranch manager), where they snowshoed back in the canyons. Her published work includes a YA novel, Beyond Paradise, and a memoir about a Chicago bag lady called Orphan Girl. In addition she has had a number of shorter work taken by literary magazines and on-line publications. Her latest piece, “Google Earth” came out this spring in Fiction Fix, www.fictionfix.net.  You can find her at her blog www.memoirouswrite.blogspot.com.
Sandra Hunter When Sandra Hunter isn’t teaching or running the poetry and workshop series at Moorpark College, California, she likes to dance on the beach with her daughter, double the garlic in most non-dessert recipes, and toil up hills in Malibu where it is still possible to fly-by-bike above the clouds. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of literary magazines. She is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee. Mind Stretch Contributor.	Lindsay Jaeger Lindsay Jaeger is Jonathan Demme’s producing partner at Clinica Estetico. She is currently producing a television pilot, Vital Signs, for CBS (directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Susannah Grant). Lindsay recently produced a portrait documentary (directed by Jonathan Demme), entitled I’m Carolyn Parker, which traced five years in the life of a woman who returned to rebuild her home in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Lindsay also produced a special, Been In The Storm Too Long (2010), for Tavis Smiley Reports (directed by Jonathan Demme), which revisited the conditions in New Orleans five years after Hurricane Katrina. Lindsay previously worked with directors Wayne Wang on Maid in Manhattan (2002), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and Last Holiday (2006), James Foley on Perfect Stranger (2007), and Akiva Schaffer on Hot Rod (2007). Lindsay is currently directing a documentary about artist Everett Ruess, entitled Way of the West.  Video Artist in Residence.	Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is a writing instructor and spiritual director living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  She is the author of Swinging on the Garden Gate:  A Spiritual Memoir (Skinner House Books), Writing the Sacred Journey:  The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir (Skinner House Books), and On the Threshold:  Home, Hardwood, and Holiness (Westview Press).  Her essays and short memoirs have been published in The Christian Century, Fourth Genre, The Florida Review, and other literary and religious journals, as well as in the anthologies, Riding Shotgun:  Women Write about Their Mothers, Blessed Bi Spirit, and My Red Couch and Other Stories on Seeking a Feminist Faith.  She teaches at The Loft Literary Center, Hamline University, and United Theological Seminary.  Her website is www.spiritualmemoir.com. Mind Stretch Contributor.
Barb Johnson Barb Johnson's fiction has appeared in such magazines as Glimmer Train; Washington Square; The Greensboro Review; 52 Stories; Guernica; and Oxford American. Her nonfiction can be found in a number of anthologies, most recently in Voices Rising II: Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project; 2011 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market; and the soon-to-be released, Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Jobs They Quit. Her debut collection of short stories, More of This World or Maybe Another (HarperPerennial, 2009) was an IndieNext pick and was voted second place at the 2010 Barnes & Noble Discover Awards. http://www.harpercollins.com/BarbJohnson. 5th Gift of Freedom Recipient; AROHO Community Organizer.	Mary Johnson Mary Johnson is the author of the upcoming memoir An Unquenchable Thirst, about her twenty years as a nun in the congregation founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  Her need for support while writing was the catalyst for the founding of A Room of Her Own Foundation.  Johnson is AROHO’s Creative Director of Retreats, and is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony.  Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Pulse, Texas Review, and NPR.  www.maryjohnson.co  AROHO Board Member; Creative Director of AROHO Retreats.	Joy Jones Joy Jones is a native of Washington, DC, and a playwright, actress and instructor. As a playwright, Joy has been mentored by Mark Perry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Gary Garrison and Gregg Henry (Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive). As an actress, Joy has performed in theaters across the United States and in Great Britain, including The Royal Shakespeare Company, PlayMakers Repertory Company and many others. Her most recent role was Josephine in the Denver Center Theatre April 2011 production of Lynn Nottage's drama Ruined. As an instructor, Joy has used the theater arts to teach drama, Shakespeare, career preparation, environmental science and math for over seven years. Joy has degrees in drama from the University of Virginia (BA) and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (MFA). Her notable commendations include the Samuel Selden Award for Playwriting (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and a grant from the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts for a hip-hop and Shakespeare education project. Shakespeare's Sister Fellow.
Deonne Kahler Deonne Kahler received her MFA in creative writing from Queens College, City University of New York, where she also taught creative writing and was editor-in-chief of literary journal Ozone Park. Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and online, and most recently in WSQ. Before she turned to prose she was a singer-songwriter, with songs featured in movies and television. She loves to hit the road with Sadie, her Scamp trailer, and Sam, her pup, but when she’s not on the road, Deonne lives in Taos, New Mexico, and plots her next adventure over margaritas and green chile stew.	Mary Kancewick Mary Kancewick has degrees in journalism (Medill) and law (University of Chicago) and has written about and worked on Alaska Native issues for thirty years, as well as teaching as an adjunct for the University of Alaska at its Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Dillingham campuses, and raising two sons and a daughter.  She has co-authored two still-cited law review articles on Alaska Native sovereignty and subsistence, and has published poetry and non-fiction in various venues, including Canada's Saturday Night magazine and the Sitka Symposium anthology From The Island's Edge, published by Graywollf Press.  Mary lives in Alaska's Chugach Mountains with her husband, fourteen year old daughter, and the exchange students who keep her sons' rooms filled while the boys are off pursuing degrees in physics and philosophy.  She is currently working on an opera set in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on an issue-based Middle East travel memoir.	Bhanu Kapil Bhanu Kapil is a British writer of Indian origin who lives in Colorado. She writes at the intersection of poetry, prose, and non-fiction. As a teacher, Bhanu focuses on generative, experimental writing practice: making a space where the writing can evolve from deep images, watermarks of all kinds, to become a completely alive, connective, reaching thing. Bhanu has written The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (Kelsey Street Press, 2001), Incubation: A Space for Monsters (Leon Works, 2006), humanimal [a project for future children] (Kelsey Street, 2009), and Schizophrene (forthcoming, Nightboat Books, 2011). Currently, she is writing a novel about delinquent chimpanzees, and teaches writing in The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and Goddard College. Featured Writer.
Susan Kelly Susan Kelly currently teaches English in Asia and writes fiction and screenplays focusing on the ups and downs cross-cultural living. She has lived and taught in California, Texas, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China. She's honed her writing at the Breadloaf Writers' Workshop, Clothesline Workshop and Act One Writing for Hollywood. She's currently working on a series of Young Adult fiction entitled Maiden Voyages and polishing a script called Japanese Lessons.	Elizabeth Kenneday Elizabeth Kenneday, an internationally collected and exhibited artist, is an Emeritá Professor of Art at the California State University in Long Beach, with a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Photography and a Doctor of Philosophy in Art Educational Theory from The Claremont Graduate University.  Her activities in international education led to a Traditional Fulbright Scholar award in Iceland and lectures across the globe. Desert Delight Contributor.	Susan E. King Susan E. King is an artist and writer who is known for her artist's books. She was part of the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building, and studio director of the Women's Graphic Center there. She teaches workshops around the country and publishes through her Paradise Press imprint. She recently moved from Los Angeles to rural Kentucky, to be closer to her roots. Her work can be seen online at www.susanking.info. Visual Artist in Residence; Desert Delight Contributor.
Jan La Roche Jan LaRoche is a poet and artist whose recent book 25 Years, Poems & Drawings, (Tide Mill Press 2007), was co-authored with her husband as a tribute to their enduring, collaborative marriage. It contains twenty-five of Jan’s poems mixed with twenty-five of his gestural drawings. Jan has also been published in Oberon (2005), Mobius (2008), and in the anthology, Paumanok: Poems and Pictures of Long Island (2009) where several of her poems and photographs appear. Desert Delight Contributor.	Caroline LeBlanc Caroline LeBlanc left a thirty year career in psychotherapy in 2006 to create art and write. In 2011 she received her MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University.  Her poetry and essays have been published in the US and abroad.  Smokey Ink and a Touch of Honeysuckle, her first chapbook, was published in 2010.  She is currently working on a poem series about the Acadian Deportation Saga and the 19th - 20th century immigration experience of French Canadians who came to work in New England mills, as well as writing about her experiences as an Army Nurse and spouse.	Nikki Loftin Nikki Loftin writes in the Texas Hill Country, surrounded by dogs, chickens, and small boys. She studied fiction writing at the University of Texas at Austin (MA, '98), and her work has been included in Front Range Review, Boy’s Life, and Skirt magazine. She also writes humorous/dark middle-grade novels which are represented by Suzie Townsend at Fineprint Literary. www.nikkiloftin.com. Desert Delight Contributor.
Christina Lovin Christina Lovin is the author of What We Burned for Warmth and Little Fires. A two-time Pushcart nominee and multi-award winner, her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Southern Women Writers named Lovin 2007 Emerging Poet. Having served as Writer-in-Residence at Devil’s Tower National Monument and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Central Oregon, in 2010, she served as inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Connemara, the NC home of the late poet Carl Sandburg. Lovin has been a resident fellow at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Prairie Center of the Arts, Orcas Island Artsmith Residency at Kangaroo House, and Footpaths House to Creativity in the Azores. Her work has been supported with grants from Elizabeth George Foundation, Kentucky Foundation for Women, and Kentucky Arts Council. She resides with four dogs in a rural central Kentucky, where she is currently a lecturer at Eastern Kentucky University. www.christinalovin.com Small Group Contributor.	Lisa Lutwyche Lisa Lutwyche has been a lover of words for as long as she can remember.  As a child, Lisa used the words in her books as a way to escape and a way to find company.  As a teenager, she learned that she had words of her own to share.  Lisa has been a published poet since she was seventeen, publishing in Ohio, New Jersey, Delaware, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and in the United Kingdom.  She has taught creative writing and watercolor since 1992 at night, at a community art center (CCArts in Yorklyn, Delaware).  She has taught special needs fine and performing arts, as adjunct faculty, at Cecil College in Maryland since early 2008.  After attending AROHO in 2009 (and thanks forever to Ellen McLaughlin), Lisa started writing plays and had her first one-act play produced in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.  Lisa has a BFA in painting, a BA in Art History, and spent 28 years in corporate architecture and design.  A published poet and produced playwright, Lisa is working on her MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College in Vermont. Desert Delight Contributor.	Maura MacNeil Maura MacNeil is the author of A History of Water (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She holds a MFA from Vermont College, and her poetry and prose has appeared in numerous publications and anthologized in The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices from the Frost Place, Volume II. Maura is co-founder and editor of Entelechy International: A Journal of Contemporary Ideas and co-founder of the Stone Bridge Poetry Project in Henniker, NH. An Associate Professor of Writing at New England College, she is currently at work on a memoir titled Sugar exploring the complex dynamics between siblings when one is chronically ill. Mind Stretch Contributor.
Dora McQuaid Dora E. McQuaid is an award-winning poet, activist, speaker, and teacher, whose blend of art, emotion and service has earned her multiple awards, including the PA Governor’s Pathfinder Award, recognition by the PA Senate and a Vagina Warrior Honor. Dora performs, speaks and teachers internationally, in venues as varied as men’s and women’s prisons, justice and outreach programs, churches, universities and professional and academic conferences. Dora serves as Board Member of The Sage Institute for Environment, Creativity and Consciousness in Taos, NM. She continues her family tradition of using the personal story to explore memory and conjecture, culture and community, and the intersections between the private and the political in the pursuit of social justice. Dora’s work is published in anthologies, plays, films, and required college course readings. She is the author of the scorched earth and its compact disc companion, the scorched earth: spoken.  Dora’s next book is SEVEN: Poems of The Interim. WWW.DORAMCQUAID.COM.  New Mexico Writer's Fellow; Desert Delight Contributor.	Marianela Medrano-Marra Marianela Medrano-Marra  is a Dominican writer and professional counselor with a PhD in psychology. She offers workshops and readings in various venues in Connecticut and other parts of the country. In her workshops, she combines literature, psychology, and her research on the Sacred Feminine to help others find new ways of knowing the wholeness of  being human. She has published the following poetry books: Oficio de Vivir (1986), Los Alegres Ojos de la Tristeza (1987), Regando Esencias/The Scent of Waiting (1998) and Curada de Espantos (2002).  Her work also appears in literary magazines such as Brooklyn Review (1995), Punto 7 Review (1996) Sisters of Caliban (1996) Callaloo (2000), The Afro-Latin@ Reader (2010), among many others.	Marcia Meier Marcia Meier is an author, award-winning journalist, writing coach and developmental manuscript editor. Her book, Navigating the Rough Waters of Today's Publishing World: Critical Advice for Writers from Industry Insiders (Quill Driver Books, 2010), was recently named one of “10 Great Books on Writing from 2010” by The Writer magazine. She writes for numerous publications, including The Writer, Miller-McCune Magazine online, and the Los Angeles Times. www.marciameier.com. Consultation Contributor.
Carolyn Mikulencak Carolyn Mikulencak is still working on her MFA in fiction at the University of New Orleans. She has three young sons and story forthcoming in the fall issue of Yemassee.	Sarah Nichols Sarah Nichols is new to writing outside of academia- still in the early stages of wandering around with a fistful of wildflowers and a half eaten box of chocolates trying to find and woo her muse. With gratitude to the teachers who praised her truly unfortunate rhymes in middle school, Sarah writes poetry and creative non-fiction. She won the Jeanne McFarland prize as an undergraduate at Smith College, where she studied Gender Studies and History. While working in the field of reproductive health, Sarah co-authored “Breaking the Barriers to Emergency Contraception Access in the USA: The Time Has Come” (Published in Expert Review of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and “Adolescent Comprehension of Emergency Contraception in New York City” (Published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology). Since graduating from Smith in 2010, Sarah has had the pleasure of working as a counselor at Tapestry Health- a Queer/LGBT friendly health clinic. Orlando Fellow.	Mil Norman-Risch Mil Norman-Risch was a 2009 Pushcart nominee, and recipient of the American Poetry Journal’s 2007 American Poet’s Prize.  Most recently, her poetry has appeared or will appear in Willow Springs, Dogwood, Opium, White Pelican Review, Valparaiso Review, New York Quarterly, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She has co-authored several textbooks, led workshops for teachers, and designed art/English classes. Her current project is a novel set in Doha, Qatar.
Peggy O'Boyle Peggy O'Boyle:  For the past twenty years I have written children's books as Peggy Christian and traveled the country doing "writer in the schools" workshops.  I have also taught writing, journaling and creativity classes and for many years I taught ESL to foreign students at the University of Montana, focusing particularly on Muslim cultures.  In addition I have worked in local adult literacy programs, the First Book Program and the Writing Coaches program which provides community volunteers to work one on one with area high school students.  For the past couple of years however, I have been exploring new directions in my writing career, taking an extended break from teaching and working on a memoir entitled Memento Mori, spurred by the question my mother asked in her final days--"What do you think happens when you die?"	Lucia Orth Lucia Orth’s first novel, Baby Jesus Pawn Shop (The Permanent Press, 2008) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Kirkus called it “a graceful . . . elegant debut.” NPR said, “What first-time novelist Lucia Orth has pulled off is really impressive:  a haunting, suspenseful, beautifully written love story. . . Think Dr. Zhivago in Southeast Asia.” An excerpt from her second novel appeared in the Asia Literary Review, Hong Kong. Her essay, The Body Remembers, is included in Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond, 2009. In 2010 she received a writer’s grant via the Kansas Arts Commission and the NEA. A graduate of Notre Dame Law, she has lived in London, Beijing, Washington, D.C., Manila, and Trento, Italy. Now she lives on 90 acres near Lawrence, Kansas and teaches in the Indigenous and American Indian Studies Department at Haskell Indian Nations University.	Kumkum Pareek Malik Kumkum Pareek Malik is a clinical psychologist who takes a Mind Body approach to her work, believing that motherhood is an immersion experience that affects a woman’s mind, body and soul. Presently Kumkum is immersed in writing, and designing and offering workshops for mothers who wish to mother from their strengths. Presently, Kumkum is working on a piece about Marriage and Motherhood.  Kumkum grew up in India, and came to the United States for Graduate study.  In addition to her doctoral degree, she has two Master’s Degrees (Delhi University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education).  Her most valued credential is the humility she experiences when sitting with women as they make meaning of their complex lives.  Kumkum will be one of the keynote speakers at the 14th annual conference of the Women's International Network in Rome in October 2011.  AROHO Community Organizer; Mind Stretch Contributor.
Tania Pryputniewicz Tania Pryputniewicz’ recent poetry has appeared on-line at Autumn Sky, The Blood Orange Review, Connotation Press, and Linebreak. Her debut photo/poem montage “She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di” (set to the music of Scriabin) was hosted by The Mom Egg this spring. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the poetry editor at The Fertile Source and documents the process of mothering while writing at Feral Mom, Feral Writer. She teaches in the English Department at the Santa Rosa Junior College. Mind Stretch, Small Group, and Consultation Contributor.	Florencia Ramirez Florencia Ramirez holds a master’s in public policy from the University of Chicago and is owner of Azul Conservation Products, a water conservation business. She currently writes a book entitled “Eat Less Water,” and maintains a blog www.Eatlesswater.com which brings water conservation to the kitchen table. She writes for award- winning Edible Communities Magazine. Current articles include "Pasta and Water", "Tequila and Water" and "Chicken and Water." She lives in Oxnard, California with her three young children and husband.	Ramona Reeves Ramona Reeves has received a writer's residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Art, has been a finalist in the Austin Chronicle Short Story contest, and recently completed her M.F.A. in fiction at New Mexico State University. She has presented at AWP conferences, led workshops as a writer in residence for Writers in the Schools (WITS) and acted as an assistant editor for Puerto del Sol. Her publications include non-fiction, poetry, and a recent interview with poet Roberto Tejada. She calls Austin, Texas home and currently works as an editor for the Institute for Public School Initiatives/University of Texas and also teaches online English courses for Western New Mexico University. AROHO Community Builder Fellow; AROHO Community Organizer.
Kate Reuther Kate Reuther's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Madison Review, Brain Child, Salamander, and The Ledge.  She is a graduate of Yale and the Vermont College MFA in Fiction program.  A life-long New Yorker, she lives in Washington Heights with her husband and two boys.	Kristen Ringman Kristen L. Ringman is a deaf writer from Rhode Island. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have been published in Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology, The Poet’s Place: A Collection of Works, eyes of desire 2: a deaf glbt reader, and Pitkin Review. She graduated from Goddard College with an MFA in Creative Writing in 2008. In addition to creative writing classes, Kristen teaches kids yoga, runs ultra-marathons nearly barefoot, and has painted murals in many of the countries she had lived, such as, India, Ireland, Kenya, and the US. She is currently working on a memoir of her time helping stray dogs in India and traveling as a deaf woman titled, Swallowing Red: a memoir of dogs, Deafness, and India. Kristen has been living aboard her trimaran sailboat with her husband and hearing dog, Willow, in various places from Block Island to Key West to NYC.  Kenny Fries Fellow; Mind Stretch Contributor.	Lisa Rizzo Lisa Rizzo is a poet and middle school language arts teacher who manages to combine her love of words and poetry with her day job. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Lucid Stone, 13th Moon, Writing for Our Lives, Earth’s Daughters, Bellowing Ark and Calyx Journal.  Her chapbook titled In the Poem an Ocean has just been published by Big Table Publishing Co.
Marilynne Robinson Marilynne Robinson is the author of Gilead, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Home, a companion to Gilead, won the 2008 L.A. Times Book Prize for fiction and the 2009 Orange Prize for fiction.  Robinson is also the author of the modern classic Housekeeping (available in paperback from Picador), which won the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award for First Fiction  and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from the Academy of American Arts and Letters, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Robinson received a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award in 1990 and the prestigious Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts in 1998. She is also the author of two books of nonfiction, Mother Country and The Death of Adam (which was reissued by Picador in November 2005.) She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Keynote Speaker.	Barbara Rockman Barbara Rockman teaches poetry at Santa Fe Community College and in private workshops in Santa Fe, NM Her poems appear in Bellingham Review, Calyx, Cimarron Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. She is editor of the anthology, Women Becoming Poems and founder of “Community of Voices,” a reading and music series for emerging artists. She has received the Southwest Writers Prize, The MacGuffin Poetry Award and Baskerville Publishers’ Prize. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is the author of the poetry collection, Sting and Nest, 2011.  Volunteer Coordinator, 2011 AROHO Retreat; AROHO Community Organizer.	Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus spent thirty-four years teaching public high school in Philadelphia. Her students won national recognition along with off-Broadway productions for their original plays and her teaching was the subject of an award winning documentary, I Used to Teach English.  Her writing about education has appeared in several anthologies including Going Public with Our Teaching. Most recently, she won an award for Community Blogging from the Education Writers Association for posts to the Public School Notebook. Retired from teaching since 2008, she is in the process of reclaiming the artist she left behind - through photography, mosaics and of course, writing.  She is working on a memoir about teaching, a collection of essays and any other project that wonders into her imagination. Finding it hard to tend to herself after a lifetime of nurturing her students, Marsha seeks community with other women and is grateful to AROHO for this opportunity. AROHO Community Organizer.
Marlene Samuels Marlene Samuels earned her Ph.D. and M.A., from the University of Chicago in the Social Sciences, and a B.S. in Clinical Psychology at Northern Illinois University. Now a research sociologist and writer, she writes creative non-fiction and memoir, and teaches research methodology. Co-author, editor, and publisher of her mother’s Holocaust memoir, The Seamstress, she has published several non-fiction short stories, and an academic book about institutional prestige and career attainment.	Andrea Scarpino Andrea Scarpino is the author of the chapbook The Grove Behind (Finishing Line Press). She received an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and teaches with Union Institute and University's Cohort Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies. She is a weekly contributor for the blog Planet of the Blind. Desert Delight Contributor.	Jane Schulman Jane Schulman is a poet and short story writer and teaches senior citizens to write about their lives in poetry, fiction, and memoir.  She lives in Jamaica, Queens, and is the mother of four amazing sons and two new daughters-in-law.  Finally, more female energy in the family!  Jane works as a speech pathologist in a Brooklyn, New York public school, helping autistic and emotionally-disturbed students find and hone their voices.  She teaches students to write, retell, and perform stories and organizes Storytelling Festivals in her school and district.  Jane’s current passions include writing, sketching, painting, Bible study, gardening, and sailing.  She’ll be teaching a “Desert Delight” on the painter, Georgia O’Keeffe, whose life and work was inspired and energized by Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, and the northern New Mexican desert. Desert Delight Contributor.
Debra Schultz Dr. Debra Schultz is a historian and the author of "Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement" (New York University Press).  She is a founder of the Soros Foundation’s International Women’s Program and served for ten years as its Director of Programs.  She has taught history and women’s studies at the New School, Rutgers University, and Laguardia Community College, and was a CUNY Graduate Center Writing Fellow this past academic year.  With the support of her wacky Brooklyn writer's group, she is working on memoir and creative nonfiction related to her international work. Desert Delight Contributor.	Ruth L. Schwartz Ruth L. Schwartz has published four award-winning books of poems, including Dear Good Naked Morning, selected by Alicia Ostriker for the 2004 Autumn House Poetry Prize, and Edgewater,  a 2001 National Poetry Series winner chosen by Jane Hirshfield.  Ruth is also the author of a memoir, Death in Reverse: A Love Story (Michigan State University Press, 2004).  Recipient of over a dozen national writing awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Astraea Foundation, Ruth is also a lifelong explorer of consciousness and healing; she holds both an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology.  In addition to being a  core faculty member in the low-residency M.F.A. program at Ashland University, Ruth is an independent teacher and practitioner of shamanic and energetic healing.  She  has a private practice in psychospiritual healing, and leads retreats nationwide on the theme The Writer As Shaman.   Her websites are www.RuthSchwartz.com, www.HeartMindIntegration.com, and www.TheWriterAsShaman.com. Small Group and Consultation Contributor.	Joy Shayne Laughter Joy Shayne Laughter is a graduate of Indiana University.  She has lived in Seattle and New York City, as a journalist, editor, screenwriter, performance artist, office worker and house cleaner.  She wrote her first novel, Yu: A Ross Lamos Mystery, while housesitting in elegant homelessness.  Yu went on to win second place in a 2006 national literary contest, and was published in 2010 by Open Books Press.  Her short story “The Stronger" will be published in the Bacopa Literary Review in Spring 2011.  She has also developed and co-produced documentary films, including the feature film Kumbh Mela: Songs of the River (Samsara Films, 2006). Joy resides in Bloomington, IN, writes for a non-profit, and is active in community radio as a news anchor and DJ.  She is working on the second Ross Lamos Mystery and more stories set in the Indiana of “The Stronger.”
Catherine Shubert Catherine Shubert is currently a high school teacher of Spanish in Philadelphia as part of Teach For America.  She has, according to her students, “got swagger.” She graduated this spring from the University of Pennsylvania with a Master’s degree in Urban Education and graduated in 2009 from the University of Michigan with a B.A. with honors in English.  She has attended Oxford University as a study abroad student (an experience which left her a complete anglophile).  She has won the University of Michigan's prestigious Hopwood Award for undergraduate non-fiction and the Helen J. Daniels prize for first place in non-fiction.  Her current writing passions include poetry and creative non-fiction.  She also loves camping, hiking, cooking, yoga, running, drawing, and painting.  Her preferred meals include anything with carbs and/or cheese.  She is, in addition and according to her housemates, an excellent insect squasher and fixer of sinks. Desert Delight Contributor.	Susa Silvermarie Susa Silvermarie is the author of Tales From My Teachers on the Alzheimer’s Unit, three chapbooks of poetry, and hundreds of poems published in periodicals over the last forty years, as well as recent children’s stories. She has edited six anthologies of poetry composed in her nursing home workshops, and her freelance credits include features, columns and essays. She recently taught storytelling to kindergarteners in public school and poetry to teenagers at writing camp. She’s currently writing young adult fiction and she blogs at susasilvermarie.com. This winter she lives more simply than she ever has, as she writes and blogs in Yelapa Mexico, a village on the Bay of Banderas without automobiles and reachable only by boat. Earned MSW at age 42 and MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at age 63.  Wise Woman Fellow; Mind Stretch Contributor.	Jennifer Simpson Jennifer Simpson is in the final stretch of the MFA program at the University of New Mexico-- working on her dissertation, "Reconstructing My Mother," a memoir. She is the founder and co-host of Duke City DimeStories, a monthy open mic for prose, and serves as managing editor for Blue Mesa Review.  Her work has been published in Bartleby Snopes, Creative Human, and welding industry trade magazines like Practical Welding Today. Jennifer has worked as editor and written for several corporate blogs and specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) friendly web writing, creating and managing online presence, as well as blog design and planning. Small Group and Consultation Contributor.
Amy Siskind Amy Siskind is the President and Co-Founder of The New Agenda, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls.Ms. Siskind has appeared as an expert on women's issues and teen dating violence on CNN, FOX News, CNBC, PBS, NPR and Marketplace Radio; and has been quoted in The LA Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO, U.S. News & World Report, Guardian UK, The Boston Globe, Forbes and The Hill. Ms. Siskind writes for The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post and The Daily Caller.Previously, Ms. Siskind was a Wall Street executive, specializing in sales and trading. While working on Wall Street, the extent of Ms. Siskind writing experience consisted of: 'what's your bid?,' 'what's your offer?', and 'same to you.'Ms. Siskind is a graduate of Cornell University and the NYU Stern School of Business.  Ms. Siskind lives in Westchester County, NY with her two children and their two very spoiled dogs.	Christy Stevens Christy Lea Stevens is a public relations professional who co-owns her own public relations firm with husband Al Stevens.  She holds a B.A. in English literature and a M.Ed. in English.  In her early career, she worked as a journalist and has taught English and creative writing.  A short story writer, she is moving out of her comfort zone to work on a novel inspired by her experiences teaching high school.	Lisa Sukenic Lisa Sukenic has been a progressive educator for the last 25 years having taught kindergarten through college. She currently teaches at The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools working with 3rd and 4th graders.  As a writing teacher, she supports students with the writing process as well as an annual poetry publication.  She has had extensive training in Conflict Resolution and integrates Social Justice and Thematic Arts into her teaching.  She is actively involved in working with the Fair Trade Organization Maya Works, which provides microloans to artisans and education for girls in Guatemala.  In 2009, she began to formalize her poetry writing and obtained a poetry certificate from The University of Chicago Graham School of Studies and attended AROHO that same summer.  She is currently working on her poetry manuscript. Desert Delight Contributor.
Ruth Thompson I grew up near Berkeley, California; went to Stanford and then to Indiana University for a PhD in American literature. I was a university professor, librarian, editor, yoga teacher, and college dean in Los Angeles. After a long hiatus I began writing poetry again in 2001. Today I write and teach yoga and meditation near Buffalo, New York and in Hilo, Hawaii, where I live with writer-anthropologist Don MItchell. My book manuscript, Woman with Crows, was among the finalists for the AROHO To the Lighthouse Prize. In January 2011 I started Saddle Road Press, to publish my own work and that of other writers I admire. My first chapbook, Here Along Cazenovia Creek, will be published by Saddle Road in May. Desert Delight Contributor.	Leslie Ullman Leslie Ullman is the author of three poetry collections, and her awards include The Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, The Iowa Poetry Prize, and two NEA Fellowships. She has taught in the low-residency MFA Program at Vermont College of the Fine Arts since 1981, and for 27 years she also taught in and directed the Creative Writing Program at University of Texas-El Paso. Now, in addition to her Vermont teaching, she works as a freelance manuscript consultant and is a ski instructor at Taos Ski Valley, where she is learning to "read" skiers as intuitively as she reads manuscripts. Her craft essays and reviews  have appeared in The Writers Chronicle, Poetry Magazine, the Kenyon Review, and other journals. Desert Delight and Consultation Contributor.	Bethany Vaccaro A Rhode Island native, Bethany Vaccaro spends her days juggling roles as a philosophy instructor at the University of Rhode Island, a residential counselor at a women's homeless shelter, and a potter crafting ceramic flower pots and vases to sell at local farmers markets.  With a wide pool of inspiration to draw from, Bethany writes primarily creative nonfiction essays and short magazine pieces.  Her publications run an unusual gamut from The American Scholar to Glamour magazine. Mind Stretch Contributor.
Susie Verkamp I am a 63 year old lesbian grandmother who has lived in Northern New Mexico for 22 years. I was born and raised on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, a circumstance that has marked me for life. I have a BA in English Literature and another in Environmental Science. I have done many things to earn my living, but music and writing have keep me alive. I have written a journal for much of my life, and have participated in writing workshops whenever time, finances and circumstances have allowed. It is my intention for this stage of life to make writing my highest priority. I am not published. I am currently part of a poetry workshop with Sawnie Morris, and have been nudged and nurtured along the way by her and other New Mexico writer-teachers Joan Logghe and Summer Wood. Desert Delight Contributor.	Carolyne Whelan Carolyne Whelan received her MFA in cross-genre at Chatham University, where she won first finalist for Best Thesis. She was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Sacramento Poetry Center Prize for a Single Poem, and a partial scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center. Her first chapbook, The Glossary of Tania Aebi, will be published by Finishing Line Press in August, 2011. Her work has appeared or is forth-coming in Eclectica, Poetry Now, and Chapter & Verse, among others, as well as in a collaborative chapbook, Are You Free? (Glass Key Press, 2009).  She lives in Pittsburgh, PA as a part-time legal secretary, writing instructor and freelance writer, and spent all her savings to come back to New Mexico, where she once lived.	Michelle Wing Michelle Wing is a poet and fiction writer, who brings in a paycheck working as a journalist at a small town weekly newspaper, the Calistoga Tribune. She also writes a blog on life from a Zen perspective, found at www.rrzbeginnersmind.blogspot.com. She lives with her partner Sabrina in Sonoma County, California, on an acre and a half, with three dogs and eight cats. Her home office is painted lime green and citrus yellow, and the walls are covered with art.
Summer Wood Summer Wood, 4th Gift of Freedom recipient, is the author of the novels Arroyo (Chronicle Books) and the forthcoming Wrecker (Bloomsbury, 2011). Her non-fiction work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler and other venues. Wood teaches for the University of New Mexico at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, and offers workshops, in Taos and elsewhere, on the craft of narrative.www.summerwoodwrites.com. 4th Gift of Freedom Recipient; AROHO Community Organizer.	Barbara Yoder Barbara Yoder writes and edits fiction and nonfiction and leads writing groups for women. Currently she is writing a book of healing stories and exercises to help women writers connect with their personal imagery and midwife their creative pieces. Her fiction has appeared in Natural Bridge and The Worcester Review, and she is the author of The Recovery Resource Book (Simon and Schuster, 1990). Barbara has served as executive director of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and was a senior editor at National Writing Project. She earned her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and has taught writing in California and New Hampshire. Mind Stretch Contributor.

Women Writers, Accept our invitation •  Let's shake our writing lives upside down • Together • Ghost Ranch 2011