All workshops and demonstrations are described below, in alphabetical order. Story circles and additional events are described at the end of the document.

Noa Baum, MA-
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning
Risking Peace
How can storytelling help build bridges for peace and dialogue in our community? How can we present controversial material that we're passionate about in a way that encourages people to listen and hear each other's stories? This workshop offers a storytelling model as an effective tool to give voice to controversial or politically charged issues and move us beyond argument and towards understanding and compassion. We will explore the risk and challenges involved in dealing with controversial issues, and learn specific techniques to shape the story so it can be told and heard.

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Noa Baum trained in theatre at Tel-Aviv University, studied acting with Uta Hagen and received an MA in Educational Theater from NYU. Since 1982, she's performed and led workshops in Israel and across the US. Highlights include: The Kennedy Center; Stanford University; Jewish Museum of NYC; Mariposa Storytelling Festival; University of Alabama; NSN conferences; The Neighborhood Playhouse, GA; Washington Storytellers Theater, Washington DC. Her audio-tape "Far Away and Close to Home" won a Parents' Choice Recommended Award and she's a recipient of a 2004 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award.

Allan Chinen, M.D.
Full-Day Friday Workshop
The Tao of Story: The Role of Stories in Spiritual Development
Folktales help us in two important ways with spiritual development, particularly after midlife. First, stories from around the world converge on a similar -- ecumenical -- picture of spiritual maturity. Second, the stories address fundamental problems our life scripts give us along the way, e.g. being stuck in a story, failing a chosen narrative, and perhaps most difficult all, being bored by everyday scripts. This workshop will use storytelling, discussion, visualization, writing, and enacting tales to explore what folktales say about the meaning of spiritual maturity, and how stories can help -- or hinder -- the journey.

Allan B. Chinen, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and the author of In the Ever After, Once Upon a Midlife, Beyond the Hero and Waking the World

Mary Louise Chown and Wilma Holland -
Half-day workshop presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Journeying Together: Every Story is a Healing Story
Through the use of stories and the steady beat of a drum, participants will experience a personal journey through the landscape of story and learn a technique called drum journeying. Each person's path will be unique, yet at the same time, we will all be together as we walk through the story landscape. Expect to visit a new place of awareness reflecting on the following themes:

• Learning compassion for others from one's own experience of grief.
• Remembering that all lives are touched by death.
• Knowing that there is a wisdom that transcends death and grief.

Mary Louise Chown, past national coordinator of Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada, is a storyteller, teacher, and artist who combines stories with music of drum and hammered dulcimer. She has performed at festivals across Canada for all ages. She offers courses on Celtic and Norse mythology, shamanic storytelling, mediation, and storytelling skills.

Wilma Holland uses storytelling in her profession as a recreational facilitator at a personal care home, and is an active member of Stone Soup Stories of Winnipeg and Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada.

Catherine Conant & James Arnone
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning
More than a Diagnosis: Transforming Illness into Experience with Stories
Upon completion of a cancer diagnosis and treatment, a patient must find a new personal identity that incorporates the reality of illness, but does not serve as its total definition. At the Harold Leever Regional Cancer Care Center (Waterbury, CT) people are guided in shaping original stories that transform their illness into a significant but not singular life experience. Telling and hearing stories allows individuals to honor their medical journeys as they redefine themselves and claim life with a balanced perspective.

Catherine Conant has been a member of the storytelling community for more than a decade. She produced and directed the Doggone Storytelling Festival, the only outdoor storytelling festival in Connecticut, guest lectures at Southern Connecticut State University and the Graduate Institute. She performs, teaches, coaches and delivers keynote speeches on the creative and adaptive quality of stories. Her storytelling venues include Elderhostels, schools, and corporate and non-profit organizations. Her CD "Exit 11 and Other Stories" received a Storytelling World Honor Prize and she is a board member of League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES). She lives in Middletown, CT.

James Arnone was a college senior within a few months of graduation when he was diagnosed with cancer. After undergoing treatment twice, he has completed his education and now works as a staff member at the Harold Leever Cancer Care Center in Waterbury, CT. He competes in marathon events and is continuing his studies in microbiology at Central Connecticut State University. He lives in Middlebury, CT.

Lorna Czarnota, M.Ed.
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday afternoon
Dancing at the Crossroads: Mentoring Youth through Story and Metaphor
Using story to reach at-risk youth requires an understanding of the various layers of story, how and why youth respond as they do, youth issues, and an amount of courage. This workshop will touch on the four principles for successful negotiation; Expectation, Judgment, Presentation and Trust/Respect. We will explore the various ways in which stories can be used for mentoring youth and look at a framework for story presentations. Participants will hear stories and receive ideas for activities to open and close a youth mentoring circle. Participants will design a curriculum to use in a six to eight week program.

Lorna Czarnota, M. Ed. is an award-winning author and storyteller and has been telling stories professionally since 1985. She is founder and president of Crossroads Story Center, a not-for-profit using story, music and art to reach at-risk youth.

Carolyn Campfield
River's Edge Playback Theatre
Experience Playback Theatre
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
Playback Theatre is an improvisational storytelling form in which audience or group members share stories from their lives and watch them played back on the spot by an ensemble of actors. Playback is 30 years old and is an international form and is preformed all over the world (see www. playbacknet.org). Playback Theatre aims to create a ritual space where every voice and any story - however ordinary, extraordinary, hidden or difficult - might be heard and told. It is a place where each person's uniqueness is honored while at the same time building and strengthening our connections to each other as a community of people.

Since 1975, Playback has spread all over the world and is now practiced in many different countries, languages and contexts. It thrived in a variety of settings, existing as community theatre as well as professional service to both the business and social sector.

Vivian Dubrovin
Helping Young Tellers Promote Peace
Story: "The Missing Peace Puzzle Piece."
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
Listen to "The Missing Peace Puzzle Piece" while watching Vivian demonstrate the concept on an overhead projector. Make a magnetic peace puzzle for your own small group telling. Adapt it for flannel board presentations. Adapt it for younger audiences. Use it as a pattern story to create additional peace tales.

Vivian Dubrovin, author of 18 children's books (including five award-winning storytelling titles), is editor of Junior Storyteller and The Kids' Storytelling Club website (http://www.storycraft.com). She pioneered a graduate online course, "Helping Children Become Storytellers," at University of Northern Colorado. While co-chairman of NSN Youth Storytelling SIG, she started Youth Tellabration.

Bill Friedman, M.D.-
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Hypnotherapist as Storyteller: Storyteller as Hypnotherapist
Storytelling and hypnotherapy share a common ground: spontaneous trance experience (time distortion, "day dreaming") being the easiest to recognize. We will cover creative storytelling skills and basic informal hypnotic tools. Using a combination of stories, lectures, and discussion, the workshop participants will learn the fundamentals of planting therapeutic metaphors and imbedding healing suggestions into a story.

The workshop will be aimed towards clinicians in mental health. A previous introduction to hypnosis, while helpful, is not necessary. If you have a "challenging" client/patient/family, bring it to this conference for fresh ideas, and perhaps a new story.

Growing up in Mobile, Bill Friedman's first story (age 4) was about how dogs grew up to be horses. That was the whole story. It wasn't much, but it got him through most of high school. After 17 Alabama summers, Bill went on to college, receiving his Bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis and then attended medical school at Tulane University. He became interested in both hypnosis and storytelling during his years as a Family Medicine Resident at Duke University in Durham, NC.

Bill practiced medicine for nine years in Woodstock, New York, before returning to Durham where he currently lives and works as a Family Physician and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Duke.

Although his day job in medicine challenges his mind and supports the family (four daughters, one wife and a good hearted dog), the mysterious world of stories nourishes his soul. Bill is a member of the North Carolina Guild of Storytellers and participated in the "Five Faiths Storytelling Project" at the Ackland Art Museum (UNC-Chapel Hill) for three years. In addition to the Five Faiths Project, Bill has told stories at the Eno River Folk Festival, Duke Hillel Foundation, NC Jewish Film Festival, MLK celebration, school, and local nursing home.

Joseph Galata, MA -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
I will hire you as a minstrel
Using Sufi, Asian, Eastern European and Middle Eastern stories with ethnic dance and music, lecture and audience participation, MINSTREL focuses on the long forgotten European tradition when musical storytelling minstrels were summoned to the death beds of community loved ones to provide artistic beauty to the dying and healing to the grieving caregivers. Funded by grants from the Rallying Points National Center for End of Life Care, National Endowment for the Arts, Hospice Education Institute, Nevada State Arts Council, UNR School of Medicine, Reno City Arts and Culture Commission.

At the completion of this session, participants will be able to design presentations, performances, and workshops on restoring storytelling as holistic narrative healing using personal and/or family ethnic traditions in the healing from grief, loss, and bereavement, and learning additional information on how to secure grant funding from arts, health, government, educational, for arts-in-education and healing projects.

Joseph Galata, MA is a Representative Retired Ambassador on the Soci-Economic Council of the United Nations, a retired faculty member in the University of Nevada SNJCC Medical Clinic, the Arts-in-Education Director for Circle of Life Hospice Foundation, the founder and director of the national awarding winning performing arts program CREATIVE COMBUSTION, and the founder and director of Lanakila Television Productions. His work is funded by national, state, local agencies for education, health, media, arts, and government. His full length musical storytelling theatre productions are performed throughout the United States, and his television programs including THE SHUFFLE OF SHOES LEFT BEHIND focusing on adult storytellers from Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Holland who were children in the WW11 concentration camps, have received 3 International Telly Awards for Outstanding Educational Television Programming. He has performed in international dance and theatre companies in Israel, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, England, Greece, and Canada. In 2004, Joseph Galata received grant funding from Rallying Points to produce a DVD on arts-in-healing from grief and mourning with filming throughout the United States and various countries with international distribution scheduled for mid-2005.

David Gordon-
Full-Day Friday Workshop
Igniting Personal Transformation through Story
Stories create a shared language and a shared world between a therapist and a client. Through the gentle touch of metaphor, these stories can provide a depth of association and a potential for insight that is often not available through more direct approaches; a simple story can ignite great personal transformation. In our day together we will explore how each of us can tap his or her own life experiences as an endless source of metaphors. In addition, we will learn the foundational structure that we can use to transform those metaphors into potentially therapeutic stories.

As one of the original developers of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, David has helped create and shape the field for over 25 years. In particular, his contributions have been in the use of therapeutic metaphors (inspired by his work with Milton Erickson) and in the pursuit of modeling. His books include, "Therapeutic Metaphors," "Phoenix: The Therapeutic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson," "The Emprint Method" and "Know How," and he is currently completing a book on modeling. David now lives in the Sonoran Desert with his friends the rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions, lizards and other such beautiful creatures.

Vered Hankin, MA -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
The Healing Shift: Understanding the Storytelling Journey
We will examine theory and practice of the healing power of storytelling. Participants will have the opportunity to listen, tell, and track their own healing as they experience a physical, emotional, and mental "healing shift." Group exercises will be given to enhance abilities to serve as healing listeners prior to, during, and after telling. Workshop participants will leave having truly experienced the healing power of storytelling; in addition, theoretical background and visual demonstrations will allow participants to ground this experience with usable skills as well as research references that they can bring back to their individual, community and performance settings.

Vered Hankin, published author and internationally acclaimed storyteller, has been a featured performer in theaters, schools, universities, radio, film and television. She has been named "the leading storyteller of her generation" (The Jewish Week). She is a past recipient of the National Education Project Grant to research ancient mythical folklore at the Israel Folktale Archives, as well as at University of California at Berkeley. She is a recipient of a Master's degree from City University of New York in Clinical Psychology. Currently, Vered Hankin is a PhD candidate at City University in exploring both the theory and practice of the healing power of storytelling.

Dr. Gail N. Herman
"Organic Storytelling": Stories that Nurture Confidence and Concern
Story: "Sylvester and the Grumps" & "How Weaving Came to Be"
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
Stories live deep within the mind. They guide without commanding. The stories to be shared are field-tested and allow teachers, counselors and children breathing room. "Organic Storytelling nurtures students' ideas and images and validates the feelings while allowing alternatives to arise in the natural flow of the story." "Your stories were just what my client needed."

Dr. Herman teaches and performs storytelling in schools and educational organizations. She teaches storytelling to teachers and counselors at Confratute, University of Connecticut and at Lesley University and Garrett College. As a former Head of Residence and counselor at the University of Massachusetts and teacher of primary and elementary students, Gail brings practical experience to the art of using story as a mental health technique.

Amy Hill, MA
Using Storytelling and Digital Media to Support Healing and Anti-violence
Half-Day Workshop presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Long-term healing from abuse is dependent upon creating opportunities for survivors of all ethnicities, sexual orientations, and cultural backgrounds to tell their stories. Awareness is growing in artistic, therapeutic, and activist contexts about the importance of personal narrative in supporting individual healing and collective action against violence in diverse communities. This workshop will employ a combination of interactive and didactic presentation methods to explore the ways in which arts and anti-violence groups are developing innovative strategies that blend storytelling, digital media production, group process, and organizing.

Amy L. Hill, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a video maker, public health consultant, and organizer with ten years of experience working in community and health settings to end abuse. Much of Amy's work has focused on how grassroots groups and agencies can more effectively use new and emerging digital technologies in their work to prevent violence. In 2000, she founded Silence Speaks: Digital Storytelling for Healing and Violence Prevention, which engages violence survivors, witnesses, and prevention advocates in short, personal digital videos of courage, resistance, and survival (see www.silencespeaks.org). Silence Speaks not only supports individual healing but also strives to encourage collective action, through community screenings and educational presentations. Amy has a BA in British & American Literature from Scripps College for Women, and an MA in Education, with an emphasis on Gender Studies, from Stanford University.

Barbara Horn, MA and Laura Simms -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Transforming Trauma with Story
Before the dust settled at the site where the World Trade Center stood, the stories began. The rescue and recovery efforts commenced immediately and the people of New York found themselves in extraordinary circumstances. As they sifted through the ashes, temporary morgues and emergency aid were set up. The living organized in order to bury the dead. Amazing things happened. Nearby, in the old Chapel of St. Paul's, where our country's first president prayed after he was sworn in, people began to share their experiences. A community of survivors gained solace through story.

This session discusses, and explores, how tales of resilience, recovery and hope in the midst of tragedy can become a penetrating teaching tool for strengthening community, particularly in the face of terror, fear or extreme circumstance.

Laura Simms, an International and award winning storyteller, worked with Mercy Corps after 9/11 to establish Comfort for Kids which successfully trained nearly 7,000 people, including many New York City caregivers, to recognize and respond more effectively to trauma experienced by the children in their care. She spearheaded the publication of Stories to Nourish the Hearts of Children in a Time of Crisis, and in the fall of 2003, worked with Chocolate Sauce to create A Key to the Heart and Other Afghan Tales to benefit the education of women in Afghanistan. This project involved art drawn by schoolchildren in both New York & Afghanistan, with stories printed in both English & Darsi. Along with Mercy Corps, Ms. Simms has published Becoming The World, a multicultural storytelling workbook for facilitators working with youth in crisis. Ms. Simms is developing a storytelling website for the Seed Project that works in communities and schools throughout the world.

Barbara Horn regularly walked the streets of lower Manhattan as an outreach counselor for PROJECT NYCope, named by Project Liberty NYC as one of the ten most successful outreach programs in the largest mental health service mobilization effort ever for one year. She volunteered at St. Paul's Chapel Respite Ministry for WTC workers after the tragic events of 9/11, serving as food captain, massage therapist and overnight coordinator, and recipient of countless stories.

Barry Kitterman MFA and Teddy Jones Ph.D
After Giving Up God, Rediscovering Prayer
Story: Agnostics Who Pray and Mystics Who Play
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
Many of us grew up in a spiritual tradition that long ago failed to meet our needs. In some cases, we have turned our back on the notion of a higher power altogether, and reluctantly perhaps, have given up on the possibility of prayer. This story, told in words and in meditative harp music, explores two personal attempts to reclaim prayer as we stay true to our individual spiritual journeys.

Barry Kitterman and Teddy Jones teach at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Barry teaches creative writing (Fiction and nonfiction)and has published in a variety of literary magazines. He received the Tennessee Arts Commision's Individual Artist Grant for literary arts in 2001, and has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. In April of 2004, he spent a week at the Living Center Program at Onsite, in Cumberland Furnance, TN. Teddy teaches communication and theatre and has an extensive background as actor and musician. In 2001 he began to use the Celtic harp for meditation and healing. In 2003 he produced "Crystal Reflections," an album of meditative harp music. Barry and Teddy are frequent speakers at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clarksville, Tennessee, as well as other venues in Middle Tennessee.

Denise Malis The Story of a Lifetime Project Community Storytelling with Elders, Using Visual Storyboards and Oral Telling Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15 Personal life-based storytelling is an adaptive modality, which allows participants to access memories and builds connectedness and community through the "Story of a Lifetime" grant. Elders in an institutional setting experience group process through oral storytelling, which includes the use of the visual arts as reflective and active agents in group identity.

Denise Malis is a licensed expressive therapist with 14 years of mental health experience. She has worked with autistic adults, adults with significant mental illness and elders. Currently she is adjunct facility at Lesley University and is the consultant for the "Story of Life" project, a 3-year grant working within a nursing home. She actively facilitates the creative process and views storytelling as an inclusive integrative modality.

Jim May
Bringing God to the Village: Telling Stories of Grief
Story: My Sister Diane
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
Jim will tell his story, a story of his sister's life and death. Jim believes that the telling of stories of grief deepens the folk art experience and can be a rich and necessary part of life. The telling of these stories keeps any community vital and cohesive. Approximately one-half of the session will be open for question and answer and small group work, in response to the story. This story has been told at the National Storytelling Festival and as part of a keynote presentation at the annual conference of New England Storytellers at MIT.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, Ph.D.-
Full Day Friday Workshop
Narrative Medicine: Inspiring Physical Healing through Story
The focus of this workshop is on how we create stories about health and disease and how the stories that we live influence our health, either in the direction of healing, or toward disease progression. We will explore the stories healers tell their clients and their families that inspire belief in alternative outcomes and in building faith in healing and in transformation. We will investigate the ways in which Indigenous storytellers use the wealth of their oral skill and traditions to produce culturally appropriate stories that inspire healing.

Dr. Mehl-Madrona (author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom) is affiliated with the Center for Biofield Science at the University of Arizona, where he is studying the effects of ceremonial prayer upon EEG as well as the effects of prayer and spiritual healing upon recovery from cardiac surgery. Dr. Mehl-Madrona is a board-certified family physician, psychiatrist, and geriatrician. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Systems Medicine and Psychiatry, a private research and teaching entity.

Nancy Mellon, MA -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday afternoon
Building Resilience Through Story Dynamics: The Physiology of Storytelling
At the completion of this session, participants will be able to recognize, create and tell stories that strengthen immune response, and better understand when such stories are called for in personal and professional life. Through observation and storytelling exercises, discover how story dynamics can enliven healthier immune responses. Learn how the immune system works within our bodies and in social organisms. Stories and story-making exercises will illustrate dysfunction and high function and show how portraying a variety of immune responses through story can strengthen storytellers and listeners alike, stimulating bodily health, and building character in the whole soul and personality.

Nancy Mellon's new book is about how stories resonate on a bodily level. She is a psychotherapist and author of Storytelling and the Art of Imagination and Storytelling with Children. She has taught storytelling as a healing art for many years in the US and UK. This workshop pioneers a new frontier for storytelling as a healing art, connecting oral storytelling with exact physiological processes throughout the body.

Ann Morrison
Creating Your Personal Mythology
Story: Listen
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
This demonstration is a segment from a one-woman show currently in workshop in New York, based on Celtic Mythology and storytelling. The segment is a present myth about using emotional release techniques with a terminally ill man and the Grail quest the man put the healer on. Ann Morrison is a professional actress and storyteller. She's created theatre for the National Dyslexia Research Foundation and the Very Special Arts. She is co-founder and director of Kaleidoscope theatre for persons with developmental disabilities and is an emotional release healer with the terminally ill, using sound and story for release.

Loren Niemi, Ricardo Provencio, Antonio Sacre, Dovie Thomason Sickles-
Full-Day Friday Workshop
Truth-telling and Forgiveness: Storytelling,Culture and Change
How do we move from fear to forgiveness? From racism, classism, and sexism to true reconciliation? If this was easily done, we wouldn't be here inviting your participation in a painful but necessary healing process. But we welcome you to help shape and experientially test how we can speak our truth, hear the hard stories, commit ourselves to a change of heart and deed, and embrace the evolutionary process of forgiveness and reconciliation. We also ask anyone who has successfully used techniques or done projects to write them up for inclusion in a collection of "best practices".

Loren Niemi is a storyteller, eclectic performer, and director. He is also a public policy advocate and community organizer who has spent 35 years working with individuals and groups to articulate their dreams and transform their fears. The co-author of "Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories" (August House Publishers) Loren teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metro State University.

Ricardo Provencio is a storyteller and Counseling and Storytelling Faculty member at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona and one of the founding members of the SMCC Storytelling Institute. Ricardo works regularly with the WHEEL Program, an inner city elementary school program that uses storytelling to combat the negative effects of poverty, racism, and drugs. Ricardo's professional and community work has focused on serving ethnic minority communities, especially minority youth education programs, and advocacy of multiculturalism and diversity.

Antonio Sacre is an internationally touring storyteller, writer, and solo performance artist based in Los Angeles. He has performed at the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, the National Storytelling Festival, and museums, schools, libraries, and festivals worldwide. He is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio. He is a member of the Redmoon Theater company in Chicago, a mask and puppet troupe that creates community-based ritual celebrations. Since 1994, he has taught drama, storytelling, and writing to teachers and students nationwide, and worked as artist in residence with youth in four inner city High Schools of New York, Chicago, and South Central Los Angeles.

Dovie Thomason Sickles, is an award-winning storyteller, published author and cultural educator. Dovie Thomason brings to her work the richness of her Lakota and Kiowa Apache heritage. Dovie has traveled throughout North America and abroad for more than 20 years, sharing the wisdom and humor of her heritage through traditional and original stories.

Sharon Norling M.D.
Pain........a story of hope and healing through self-care
Story: A physician patient story
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
As a physician patient story, this demonstration will inspire and touch the participants both personally and professionally. The story describes a path of pain and disability that results in a dramatic journey of healing. The story will share perspectives and insights while identifying healing therapies and documenting the effectiveness of Medical Acupuncture. The story will provide learning that will inspire, motivate and encourage caregivers to listen to the stories our patients are sharing with us.

Dr. Norling is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota. As an educator in OB/GYN she often teaches students and patients using story. She has had the opportunity to travel the world studying and experiencing a wide range of healing therapies. Dr. Norling is trained and educated in the field of Integrated Medicine and is currently in Medical Acupuncture program at UCLA. She is a national speaker, author, clinician and administrator.

Vivian G. Painter
How One Heals
Story:From Theory to Practice
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15 PM
Recently, I experienced the 21-month terminal illness of my husband. Over those many months I grieved using story. Through the narrative that unfolded in a series of letters, I told and retold my story of grief and bereavement, each chapter and rendition like a salve healing my wounded heart. Intuition, theory and my research experience had told of the unrecognized power of narrative; my personal experience demonstrated the intuition and theory in practice as my story helped me find my feet and rejoin the world. This demonstration consists of sharing the story of my experience and identifying the critical points that have informed me that story is in everyone and has the potential of being a powerful healing tool for patients and their families.

Vivian G. Painter is a Registered Nurse with 16 years of clinical and administrative experience. Currently, she is the Provincial Director of Patient Services at Cancer Care Manitoba and the Oncology Program Director for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (University of Winnipeg, 1981), a Diploma of Nursing (Health Sciences Centre, 1988) and a Master of Nursing (University of Manitoba, 1999). She has given several poster and paper presentations at national conferences and meetings, including the 2001 Helen Hudson Memorial Lectureship. She has been published in several journals including the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology Journal (CONJ). In 1999, she completed a qualitative thesis titled Therapeutic Intimacy that sought to identify the oncology nurse's unique use of self as instrument in healing relationships between nurse and patient. Each participant was asked to share a story that described and explained an intimate experience with a patient. In the telling of these stories the participants experienced an unanticipated healing and rejuvenation. As a result, one of the findings of this research indicated that the narrative form could be a powerful and valuable tool in of clinical supervision.

Lani Peterson, Psy.D.
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Wounded Healers and Flawed Heroes: Growing through our Stories of Imperfection
The power of stories lies in their ability to convey our humanness; our foibles, our failures, our fears and our mishaps, and come out the other side still alive, if not thriving! Entertaining or painful as they may be, stories of imperfection and misfortune also contain the seeds for healing and growth. Through sharing one's own vulnerability and survival, storytellers create a framework that draws in an audience, creates trust and intimacy, and lays the foundation for sharing some of life's hard earned lessons and resulting values. Utilizing lecture, discussion, demonstration and audience participation, this workshop leads participants through the theory and practice of using storytelling to gain perspective as they learn and grow through sharing stories of mishap, misfortune and imperfection.

As a psychologist and performing artist, Lani Peterson Psy. D. blends psychology, literature and personal experience into stories that encourage personal reflection and instill the inspiration to fulfill one's potential. With a specialty of dramatically telling personal stories, her mission is to guide listeners on their own journey of self-discovery and transformation through story. Lani Peterson has been lecturing and storytelling on the topics of leadership, personal growth and positive discipline since 1995. Prior to that time she practiced psychology in mental health settings (New England Memorial Hospital, Parents and Children's Services, Simmons College Counseling Service, Somerville Mental Health) specializing in women and children's issues.

Julie Rappaport
A Family Doesn't Have to End Because a Marriage Does
Our Personal Hurricane: Navigating Divorce to Create a Better Family
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
How does a family survive adultery, broken promises, divorce, re-marriage, death of a spouse, disease, new households, finances, routines and images? How can a better family be the result of divorce? The story will intertwine actual sufferings with Yogic techniques and philosophies to ameliorate the sufferings and challenges divorce provides. Julie Rappaport is a divorced, widowed mother. She has studied many philosophies and practices for 30 years. She and Lee Liberman, her first husband of 17 years, are co-authoring a book aimed at those willing to ameliorate suffering in divorce through self-awareness, compassion and growth.

Maureen Redl, MA -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday afternoon
In the Crisis Hides the Opportunity
In this experiential workshop, Maureen Redl, a transpersonal therapist, will take us through the paradoxical process of transforming the challenging experiences of life and illness into opportunities for becoming our potential Selves. Each person's own Inner Healer and Inner Storyteller will bring wisdom, healing stories and myths to help us in the process. As a fourteen year survivor of metastatic ovarian cancer, and founder of Voices of Healing, Maureen Redl listens and pays homage daily to these aspects of unfolding consciousness in her own life.

Maureen Redl grew up in Minnesota. She lived in Europe with her five young children, observing both the similarities and differences between health care there and here. She returned to Minneapolis, worked as a Patient Educator in local hospitals, and taught classes in Health Care Psychology and Cross Cultural Approaches to Medicine and Healing at the University. In 1980 she moved to San Francisco, and became licensed as a transpersonal psychotherapist. In 1989 she was diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer, and had the opportunity to use the many healing experiences and modalities with which she'd been working for 20 years. Cancer free since 1990, she is President of Voices of Healing, a non-profit organization for "sharing healing, hope and possibilities" through Story Circles as well as videos and written material.

Gail Rosen, MA-
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning
Darkness and Dawn: Storytelling in Support of Grieving
Storytelling is an ideal vehicle for engaging and integrating cognitive and affective modalities in death education and bereavement. Stories affirm the grief process by serving as models for integration, healing and growth, and can teach listening skills that are vital in grief work. We will discuss and experience the use of both personal and traditional stories, and how stories have the power to help us journey through grief by validating and honoring the experience, clarifying beliefs, and nourishing ongoing relationships with those who have died. Bring your personal and professional experiences, your intellect and compassion, and your own stories.

Gail Rosen is a professional storyteller, a writer and a bereavement facilitator. She has presented at a variety of venues including annual conferences for the Maryland Hospice Network, the Nebraska Storytelling Festival on the Healing Arts, the National Conference on Loss and Transition, the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the National Storytelling Network. She is the founder of the Healing Story Alliance, a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network. Gail Rosen believes in and has seen the power of stories to sustain, to nourish and to heal.

Mary Schmidt
The Black Dress: One Woman's Journey with Mental Illness
Story: The Black Dress
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
A performance of "The Black Dress" will be followed by a discussion of the performer's crafting and use of the story. Also discussed will be the concerns of the family/audience when telling a personal story and information on NAMI. This story was developed from her Mother's experience with manic-depression (bipolar disorder) in late 1940.

Mary Schmidt has been an instructor of Communication for 15 years. She performed this story at the National Storytelling Conference in 2003. This story is part of a reader's theatre presentation that she has performed for Mental Health Awareness activities sponsored by NAMI in Winona MN.

Joseph Sobol, Ph.D. & Forrest Lang, MD-
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Storytelling as a Vehicle to Enhance Cancer Patient-Physician Communication
This workshop will demonstrate a proposed five-year medical education initiative, under development through the East Tennessee State University School of Medicine, the ETSU Storytelling Program, and the National Institutes of Health. Through lecture-discussion, power point, storytelling, and group exercises we will explore storytelling methodologies being developed as key elements in reframing medical communication. Using the models of traditional tales and rites of passage, these methodologies aim to shift the role of the patient from victim to hero of their own evolving life narrative, and to shift the role of the physician from hero to that of helper/guide.

Joseph Sobol, Ph.D. is the director of the Graduate Program in Storytelling at East Tennessee State University. A storyteller, musician, folklorist, and author of The Storytellers' Journey: An American Revival, he is a co-Principal Investigator for a proposed five-year medical education initiative which will develop storytelling methodologies to bring together the best scholarship and practice on patient-centered cancer communication and care.

Forrest Lang, MD, the Principal Investigator on the "Storytelling as a Vehicle to Enhance Cancer Patient-Physician Communication" project, is a Professor and Vice-Chair of the Dept. of Family Medicine in the ETSU Medical School. He is an internationally-known researcher and educator in the field of patient-centered medical communications.

Sydney Solis
Mythic Yoga for Children
Story: The Peddler's Dream
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
In this demonstration, observers will get a look at how story and yoga are used to help children from 4-11 learn valuable tools in stress reduction, self confidence and physical and spiritual well-being.

Sydney Solis is a yoga therapist and storyteller. She incorporates storytelling into yoga classes for adults and children and conducts storytelling workshops to teach yoga philosophy for spiritual and mental well-being. In this demonstration, she will offer examples from her children's yoga sessions, which feature a theme-setting, multicultural wisdom story. Children reenact the story through yoga postures. Games, meditation and relaxation exercises reinforce the story's theme. Sidney Solis's performances include: Pitkin County Library, Aspen Colorado; Boulder Festival of Stories: Rocky Mountain Storytellers Conference.

Barbara Spring, Ph.D. & Judy Wright -
Full-Day Friday Workshop
Stories Help Us Die Well and Grieve Well: Nurturing Storytelling at the End-of-Life
Experience techniques and stories that are used to die well and grieve well as part of the Life's End Institute: Missoula Demonstration Project. Sharing and listening to life stories is essential to quality of life's end. StoryKeepers, an outgrowth of the Missoula Demonstration Project, leads the community in skill-building and providing opportunity to share stories, especially at the end-of-life. Many techniques are used to accomplish these goals. StoryCircles, Listening to Patients, Story Gathers, Stories and Stones and workshops are ongoing services.

Barbara Spring is Life's End Institute's original executive director and co-founder. She holds a doctorate in gerontology. Her passion for community caring in end-of-life issues is dynamic.

Judy Wright is a published author, teacher, business woman, professional public speaker and personal historian. Judy has personally experienced death in the loss of a child, siblings, nephew, parents, friends and many associates. Aside from serving on the board of directors of Hospice, she also works closely with the Missoula Demonstration Project: Quality at Life's End and the Chalice of Repose Program.

Joan Stockbridge
Overcoming Fear: Nana Miriam and the Empowering Possibility of Story
Story: Nana Miriam
Demonstration Presented Saturday at 4:15
Nana Miriam is a traditional story of the Songai tribe in Nigeria, and is a useful vehicle when encouragement, empowerment, and resolution to overcome hardship are desirable themes for group work. After hearing the story, participants will take part in a brief exercise, followed by an overview of the use of story in therapeutic groups. Extensive handouts will be distributed.

A storyteller for 20 years, Joan presents ongoing healing story sessions at a woman's shelter, a group home for women in substance abuse recovery, a hospital and Placer County mental health department. She has presented workshops and demonstrations at the National Storytelling Festival, Healing Story Alliance Pre-Conference, National Storytelling Conference & ArtsReach.

Daniel Taylor, Ph.D. -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
Leaving a Spiritual Legacy: Telling the Master Stories of Your Life
This workshop will focus on the concept of spiritual legacies and on story as their natural vehicle. It will discuss key terms and concepts, start you on creating an ethical will, help you generate a list of your life-defining stories, articulate your core values and connect them to your master stories-the stories that tell you who you are, why you are here, and how you should live. It will also give direction in how you can help others do the same.

Daniel Taylor, Ph.D. is a professor of literature and writing at Bethel University (Minnesota) and the author of various books, including The Myth of Certainty, Letters to My Children, and Tell Me A Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories, and In Search of Sacred Places. He speaks frequently at conferences, colleges, retreats, and churches on topics related to story, values, spiritual legacy, and character. Dr. Taylor is also co-founder of The Legacy Center, an organization devoted to helping individuals and organizations identify and preserve the values and stories that have shaped their lives. He is a contributing editor of Books and Culture. Dr. Taylor is married and the father of four children.

Joel Wish, Ph.D.; Nancy Klein, MA; Terri Pellino, RN, Ph.D.; Stephanie Farrell, Ph.D. -
Half-Day Workshop Presented Saturday morning and afternoon
The Healing Images Program: Stories and Tools for Helping Medically Ill Children
Children learn when they are able to make pictures in their minds. They are storytellers and operate easily in a world rich with fantasy. Cancer or chronic illness involves frightening, sometimes uncomfortable experiences and a loss of control for the child. Healing Images is a program about: helping the ill child and his parent/caregiver gain a sense of strength and control over the child's disease/treatment protocols; bolstering the child's sense of courage and safety; and encouraging the child to use relaxation strategies in the midst of frightening and painful situations.

Healing Images provides stories and tools aimed at promoting the child's courage, peace of mind, and confidence. The stories use analogies from background experiences common to most children and provide a starting point for helping the child create his own personalized healing images. With each story an adult coaches the child through an exercise that teaches the child to achieve mastery and relaxation. Each story has both a theme that addresses an aspect of diagnosis, treatment, side effects or emotional responses and a positive phrase to reinforce or anchor the healing image.

At the completion of this session, participants will be able to use the Healing Images materials to help children and their parents/caregivers cope with anxiety, fear and pain associated medical illness.

Joel Wish, Ph. D. is the Director of Health Psychology, a Pediatric Psychologist and Clinical Associate Professor in the Departments of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. He works with chronically ill children including those who have cancer and those who suffer traumatic injuries and other serious illnesses. Dr. Wish and co-presenters have introduced the Healing Images materials to Children's Hospital where the materials have proven a real asset to help children, caregivers and families cope with discomfort/pain and anxiety associated with hospitalization and treatment. Dr. Wish and co-presenters have adapted the Healing Images materials for several clinical research studies.

Nancy Klein, MA combines twenty years of teaching with the lessons learned from her own experiences with cancer in developing a set of integrated, multi-sensory resources designed for families and health care professionals who are helping children cope with the medical and emotional difficulties associated with childhood illness. Nancy Klein is the author of Healing Images for Children: Teaching Relaxation and Guided Imagery to Children Facing Cancer and Other Serious Illnesses. The Healing Images materials include an Activity Book, Relaxation Kit, Relax and Imagine CD, and the booklet Comforting Your Child During Medical Care: Keys to Calmness and Courage.

Stephanie Farrell, PhD. is a Pediatric Psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. Dr. Farrell works with chronically ill children. Along with presenter 1 and presenter 2, Dr. Farrell introduced the Healing Images materials to the University of Wisconsin Children's Hospital and, with the other presenters, she spearheaded the use of those materials for clinical and research purposes.

Terri Pellino, RN, Ph.D. is the Clinical Nurse Specialist for Research in the Department of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. She works with nurses and interdisciplinary teams in developing and conducting research in multiple patient populations, including pediatrics. Dr. Pellino has been involved in the evaluation of the Healing Images materials for patients in the University of Wisconsin Children's Hospital.

Fran Yardley
Seeing From the Other Side: Using Story to Understand Illness
Story: Finding a Place of Her Own; Liz's Journey
Demonstration Presented Friday at 4:15
With her story of a woman who has cancer and moves from isolation to empowerment, Fran will demonstrate the various uses of story: including for people dealing with serious illness - to gain perspective and affirmation; for health professionals - to see the "other side," and for healing retreat organizers- to fully imagine the positive side of a retreat.

Fran has over twenty-five years of experience using storytelling in a healing capacity. She is a well-respected workshop leader; newsletter editor of HSA; founder of an Adirondack Retreat for women with cancer and chronic illness and of a community bereavement group. She has three recordings of her stories.

Additional Discussions and Events on Friday, February 25, 2005

7:30-9 PM Community Discussion and the Sharing of Our Stories
In this evening session, the Friday workshop presenters will explore through story and discussion the way storytelling helps to create the conditions necessary for healing and health.

9:30-11 PM Story Circles This is an opportunity for informal socializing and participation in several stories circles focused on different aspects of healing. In the story circles, participants have the opportunity to share their experiences and stories of healing. Rooms will be set up throughout the hotel for this time.

Additional Discussions and Events on Saturday, February 26

7-9 PM Community Discussion and the Sharing of Our Stories
In this evening session, the Saturday workshop presenters will explore through story and discussion the way storytelling is a humanizing factor within their disciplines and in the world.

9:30-11 PM Story Circles
This is an opportunity for informal socializing and participation in several stories circles focused on different aspects of healing. In the story circles participants have the opportunity to share their experiences and stories of healing. Rooms will be set up throughout the hotel for this time.

Sunday, February 27

9-11:45 PM Break Out Sessions
Heartland Institute will facilitate participants in a story-based process on topics to provide opportunities for those with similar interest to network, to reflect on ideas that have arisen during the conference and to decide on possible future actions.