2007 Power of Words Conference

The 2007 conference was held Sept. 28 – Oct 1 at Goddard College, gathering close to 120 people from around the world, including Australia and the Artic Circle. Keynoters were:

• David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous

• Allison Adele Hedge Coke, Native American poet, writer, storyteller, mentor and educator

• Nehassaiu deGannes, poet, playwright and actress, presenting her one-woman show, “Door of No Return”

• Artist-in-residence Devora Neumark, who presented film of her installation art around Montreal and the world, and then worked one-on-one with participants to create installations and ceremonies throughout the conference on the theme of finding home.

• Taina Asili, singer-songwriter singing from her show, “Bend with the Wind”

This conference featured a panel on spirituality, social action and the word, which featured Quakers Callid and Kristina Keefe-Perry, spiritual seeker Elizabeth Ann Hin, David Abram, Allison Hedge Coke, consciousness studies scholar Francis Charet, and minister and educator Bill Beardslee. The open mic brought together wonderful talent from among participants. Talking circles, held each morning for all participants, allowed participants to better integrate their conference experiences. A witnessing circle, led by Kristina Perry and Callid Keefe, gave everyone who participated a chance to sit in silence together and speak when moved. Pre- and post-conference workshops included the body and breathing earth with David Abram, writing about the horrendous and the beautiful with Allison Hedge Coke, sacred circle dance with Evelyn Torton Beck, narrative medicine with Lewis Mehl-Madrona, poetry therapy with Perie Longo, and breath and movement and writing with Janet Aalfs.

The conference workshops this year were very rich:

• Get it Out There: Tips and Strategies on Writing, Editing, Marketing & Promoting Your Book – Adele Nieves

• Narrative Strategies: Perspective Taking and Point of View – Margaret Blanchard and Sowbel

• His-Story, Her-Story, Our Story: Life Story Through Phototherapy – Leland J. Bryant

• Children at the Well: Peace-ing Together Diverse Groups Through Storytelling – Jyoti Swaminathan and Paula Weiss

• Cellshock: Prisoners Writing About Live – Dominique Robinson

• Writing the Cross-cultural Experience: an Embodied Approach — Marianela Medrona-Marra

• Emily Dickinson’s Power Book, or Why the Freedom Writers Read Homer – Barbara Mossberg

• Disability and Performing Arts: An Appeal to TLAers – Karen Campbell

• Voice Yoga: You Are Your Tone – Nanette Perrotte

• Grounded in Community: A Quaker View of the Creative Word – Callid  and Kristina Keefe- Perry

• Shadow Express: A Quick Trip from Me to You and It, and Back to Me – Reggie Marra

• I am Not a Juvenile Delinquent – Sharon Charde

• A Living Poetics – Elizabeth Anne Hin

• Dancing at the Crossroads: Mentoring Youth through Story and Metaphor – Lorna MacDonald Czarnota

• Integral Writing: Engaging the Wisdom of our Bodies – Jill Jepson

• Readers’ Theatre as Cancer Education in Alaska: Awakening Possibilities in a Living Spiral of Understanding – Melany Cueva

• “A Gift from the Unconscious”: The Common Processes of Poetry & Dreaming – Jan Hitchcock

• Nothing is Created in a Vacuum: Drawing on the Blues to Understand and Create Art and Community – Rochelle Pyne

The TLA Network also met at the council and continued to grow, and this conference also included a book release party for the TLA Network’s first publication, The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader.