Keynote Speakers

Dr. James W. Pennebaker, PhD

Dr. Pennebaker's research has earned honors from the American Psychological Association and research grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health. An internationally recognized leader in this field, he is the author of several books, including Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions and Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma & Emotional Upheaval. Since 1980, he has published over 150 journal articles and research studies on the connections between writing and health.

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John Fox, CPT

Author of Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity through Poem-Making and Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making, Fox formed the Institute for Poetic Medicine, committed to awakening the creative and healing voice in the human spirit. He teaches at the collegiate and post graduate level at the California Institute of Integral Studies, John F. Kennedy University, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, the University of California, Santa Cruz and Holy Names University. Fox presents across the United States and in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Israel and South Korea.

Break-Out Speakers

Jeffrey Berman, PhD, is a Professor of English at SUNY-Albany. Primary teaching and research interests are in literature and psychoanalysis, the twentieth century novel, trauma theory, suicide, self-disclosing writing, and pedagogy. Professor Berman was recently featured in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (v53.36 p.A2) titled "A Professor's Own Grief Informs a Course on Mourning in Literature" by Erik Vance.

Cathie Borrie, MPH, LLB, has a background in health and law, and most recently a certificate in creative writing from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. She has completed her first manuscript, a lyrical memoir, excerpts of which were short listed in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) National Literary Competition in 2006 and 2007. She is currently adapting her memoir, based on seven years of caring for her mother through Alzheimer's Disease, for the stage.

Karen Chase, MFA, is an accomplished poet.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker and The New Republic, and have been anthologized in The Norton Introduction to Literature, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, and Billy Collins’ Poetry 180. She is the author of the non-fiction book Land of Stone: Breaking Silence Through Poetry, Kazimierz Square: Poems and the forthcoming book of poems Bear.

Kathlyn Conway, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is on the faculty of the Women's Therapy Centre Institute and is also a clinical supervisor. She is the author of Ordinary Life: A Memoir of Illness and Illness as Catastrophe: The Representation of Self In Illness and Disability.

Janet Gilsdorf, MD, is Director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI. Her research interests and projects include: molecular and functional studies of H. influenzae pili, changes in upper respiratory bacterial flora among children who attend day care centers, evolution of H. influenzae during asymptomatic carriage, identification of virulence factors associated with otitis media caused by Haemophilus influenzae. She is the author of Inside/Outside: A Physician's Journey with Breast Cancer.      

Judith Harris, PhD, is author of the poetry collections, The Bad Secret, Atonement, and the critical work Signifying Pain: Constructing and Healing the Self through Writing. Her poems have been published in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, The Antioch Review, The American Scholar, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review and Poetry Northwest. She teaches creative writing, literature and psychoanalytic theory at Catholic University and George Mason University.

Jeffrey Harrison, MFA, is author of three previous books of poetry, The Singing Underneath, selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series, Signs of Arrival, and Feeding the Fire, as well as the chapbook, An Undertaking. In spring 2006, The Waywiser Press published The Names of Things: New and Selected Poems in the United Kingdom. He is currently on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.

Ann Lynn, MSW, began her work life as a therapist with adolescents and families.  She is now a poet and teaches writing workshops in schools and in the community, including a workshop (along with Dr. Anita Salamon) for female veterans at the Atlanta Vet Center.  Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was awarded an International Merit Award by Atlanta Review.  In 2005, she was chosen as a finalist in the Southern Women Writers Conference Emerging Writers Contest.

Mike McColl, MFA, teaches writing at several colleges in the Philadelphia area.  He is a doctoral candidate at Temple University in Philadelphia, with concentrations in  American literature and critical theory. He writes poetry and personal essays.

Terry Ratner, RN, MFA, is a freelance writer and registered nurse in Phoenix, Arizona. Terry teaches creative writing in a variety of settings, from community colleges to a school for homeless children (Thomas J. Pappas) to wellness communities throughout the Valley of the Sun. In 2004, Terry launched an Arts and Healing program for children undergoing dialysis at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center. She has published numerous personal essays, cover stories, interviews, and book reviews for a variety of national and regional publications.

Marjorie Ryerson, MFA, is a professor, author, photographer and poet. For the past four years, she has directed the non-profit Water Music, Inc. (www.water-music.org), which evolved from her 2003 book, Water Music. She is also the author of the 2005 book, Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying. As a college professor, Ryerson has frequently taught classes in writing about illness, death and grief. She was chosen as the 2005 recipient of the international Harry E. Schlenz Medal for public education and the 2003 Paul Keough Environmental Award.

Anita L. Salamon, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who began working with military combat veterans suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in 1987 at the Gainesville, Florida, V.A. Medical Center. She helped to establish the Women Veteran's Trauma Program at the Atlanta V.A. Medical Center in 2000. She currently works with women veterans at the Atlanta Vet Center, where she and Ann Lynn, MSW, conduct therapeutic writing workshops. Dr. Salamon is a clinical supervisor, and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Atlanta, GA.

W. A. Sessions, PhD, is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Georgia State University. A personal friend and correspondent of Flannery O'Connor, he is finishing the only authorized biography of her life. He has published six books and written over 60 book chapters, essays, and articles. His poetry and essays have been published in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, and other national and international journals (his book of poems was a finalist at the Wesleyan University Press awards). His play A Shattering of Glass won the Theater of the South award and was given full production at the University of Mississippi, and his other plays have been produced in theaters in Atlanta and elsewhere.

Janel D. Sexton, PhD, MA, is program leader of the Josie King Foundation, a social and health psychologist, and assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University. She received graduate training in Counseling from San Diego State University and completed her doctoral work in psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on how people cope with upheavals, and the role that expressive writing can play in helping caregivers move beyond traumatic and stressful events.