CAROLYN BRIGIT FLYNN, Editor, is a writer, poet and teacher. She is the author of the poetry collection Communion: In Praise of the Sacred Earth and the editor of the anthology Sisters Singing: Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by Women. Her memoir The Light of Ordinary Days, set against the backdrop of Irish history, mythology, geology and more, is forthcoming in 2020. Carolyn is a writing teacher in Santa Cruz, CA, and periodically brings groups of writers and artists to Ireland for writing retreats and tours.  carolynbrigitflynn.com

 

JANIS O’DRISCOLL, Designer, is an artist, photographer and printmaker who translates pencil, marker, and ink drawings into intaglio and relief prints. She is a member of the Printmakers at the Tannery Cooperative in Santa Cruz, Ca, and serves on its board. She has exhibited her work in juried shows in California and New York state, and frequently in the Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay area. As a professional librarian, Janis has spent her life steeped in literature and writing. The 2016 journey to Ireland was her first visit to the home of her ancestors.  http://pattpress.org/janis-odriscoll/

 

URSI BARSHI is an artist and writer born in central Switzerland, where she grew up with fairy tales and local folklore. As a painter and textile artist, she creates puppets, figures, sculptures and felted paintings. As a kindergarten teacher she developed stories, plays, songs and puppets to design curriculum on essential skills. Ursi was drawn to Ireland by its rich mythology, art and deep connection to the land, which reminded her of the alpine landscape of her homeland. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA.

 

JUNE BLUESPRUCE is a writer, activist, life coach and shamanic practitioner. Her poems have been published in off our backs, Northwest Passage, South Seattle Emerald, Sisters Singing: Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by Women, My Lover is a Woman: Contemporary Lesbian Love Poems, and I Am Ready to Speak. She is the author of the poetry chapbook clear cut. Her blog on dreaming, healing and activism is at www.junebluespruce.com/blog. June worked for many years in health care delivery and research. She now works with community-based groups on tree protection, climate change, women’s and LGBTQI rights, and social justice. She lives in Seattle, WA

 

JENNIFER COMEAU is a writer, singer-songwriter, and engineer who inspires humans to remember and restore our sacred partnership with the natural world. A finalist in the 2014 Maine Songwriting Competition, her two music CDs “She Flies” and “Feed the Tribe” are available online (iTunes, YouTube, CD Baby). Jennifer has recently completed A Moon in All Things, a novel-with-songs set in 1820’s Ireland. Her retreat workshops take place at Sanctuary at Sunrise Hill, located in Kennebunkport, Maine. www.jennifercomeau.com

 

SUZANNE DAUB is a mosaic artist and photographer who turns to art as a meditation. She is on the Board of Directors of the Mosaic Society of Philadelphia and shows her work in local galleries. Her artwork involves working with tile, glass and stone, and she was thrilled to encounter the carved megalithic stones of Ireland in 2016. As a clinical social worker, Suzanne focuses on improving the health and wellness of poor and vulnerable populations, and is a national leader on this topic. She has won the Innovations Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers. She lives in Philadelphia, PA

 

SANDY DEMPSEY spent 35 years as a social worker/activist devoted to the prevention of and healing from interpersonal and family violence. She served as Legal Director for Women Organized Against Rape, Executive Director of Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Co-Director of the Institute for Safe Families. She joined the Ireland writing retreat to reconnect and make peace with her father in his ancestral homeland. While there, she fell deeply in love with cows and has become an advocate for ethical dairy farming. She devotes her creative life to writing and mosaic art. She lives in Philadelphia, PA.

 

ANNE FITZGERALD is a writer, international activist, and founder of the consultancy ~Spirit at Work Globally~. An executive leadership coach and facilitator, she has organized women’s leadership and empowerment projects. Her current focus is honoring indigenous wisdom and the earth. In 2008, she brought BEADS 4 PEACE to the US, to enable AIDS widows from Meru, Kenya to sell their beaded jewelry. Anne serves on the Board of International Peace Initiatives and the leadership council of Women of Spirit and Faith. She was a facilitator at the Parliament of World Religions in Spain and Australia. Having previously traveled to Ireland to meet her Irish relatives, she was thrilled to return in 2016. She lives in Waltham, MA.

 

NORA JAMIESON is a writer and psychotherapist, and the author of Deranged, a book of three short stories which was a finalist for the Indie Book Award in 2016. Her work has appeared in Dark Matter: Women Witnessing and Sisters Singing, and she publishes occasional essays on her blog at www.norajamieson.com. Nora established Women’s Temple, Earthspirit Council House. After many years of writing about the dead, Nora is now an apprentice to grief, mourning her beloved husband of 37 years, Allan Johnson. She lives in Canton, CT.

 

JEAN MAHONEY is a writer, poet and award-winning educator whose writing has appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Sisters Singing: Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by Women. She is the author of Brave Hearts: A San Francisco Story: The Grit and Dreams of an Irish Immigrant Family, which tells the tale of four generations of her family in America. She taught sixth grade in public school in Santa Cruz for twenty years, and worked as a pioneer in environmental education and the movement for Life Lab school gardens. She later helped to design and present teacher training programs in the California Environmental Education Initiative curriculum. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

 

SAROJANI ROHAN is a writer, musician and educator who first traveled to Ireland in 2004, where she discovered her love of Irish music. Upon returning, she established the Celtic music group, Innisfree. She has since returned to Ireland four times for inspiration and renewal. Her poems have been published in Monterey Bay Poetry Review, Landscape of Poetry and Soul, and Sisters Singing. She has published articles on education and working with young children based upon her 38 years as a teacher. She lives in the mountains of Santa Cruz, CA.

​

LINDA SERRATO is a retired teacher and poet whose work has been published in Along These Lines, Travelogue for Two: Poems by Sanford and Friends, re:home photographers and writers, Sisters Singing, and Watershed Literary Magazine. As a young poet, she was awarded the Josephine Miles Award by the American Academy of Poets. In 2013, she won the Editor’s Poetry Prize from Floodplain Literary Magazine. Linda helped to organize public school teachers, and is involved with workers’ rights and human rights. She received her MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and lives in Chico, CA.

 

JUDY TSAFRIR is a Board Certified holistic adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. She has a private practice of holistic psychiatry with a special interest in Environmentally Acquired Illness in Newton Center, Massachusetts. She is also a professional astrologer, tarot reader, shamanic practitioner, painter and writer. Her paintings have been included in exhibitions at The Boston Psychoanalytic Society.  She

writes about medicine and healing in two blogs, “Adventures in Holistic Psychiatry” at www.JudyTsafrirMD.com and “Holistic Psychiatry” at Psychology Today.

 

JESSICA WEBB is an artist whose works are evocative renditions of the world and the sacred. Her paintings have been shown at the William Park Studio in Portland, OR, Townshend’s Tea Gallery in Eugene, OR, and Anavami Studio in Santa Cruz, CA. She is a longtime meditator and practitioner of Surat Shabd Yoga. She has also studied with Martin Prechtel, a noted indigenous wisdom teacher. She lives in Portland, OR.