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Board and Committees
2009-2011 NAPT Executive Board (biographies included below)
President: Catherine Conway
Past President: Barbara Bethea
VP for Conferences: Rob Merritt
VP for Membership: Nessa McCasey
Treasurer: Eric Kreuter
Secretary: Susan Wirth Fusco
Diversity Chair: James Brandenburg
Public Relations Chair: Open
Academic/Institutional Outreach: Diane Allerdyce
Fundraising Chair: Dottie Joslyn
Publications Committee Chair: Karen vanMeenen
Journal of Poetry Therapy Editor: Nick Mazza
Advisor to the Board: Sherry Reiter
Board Members-at-large
Dahlia Lorenz, International Liaison
2010-2011 BOARD MEMBER BIOS
Diane Richard Allerdyce, PhD, CPT, Academic/Institutional Outreach. Like many of who believe wholeheartedly in NAPT’s tag line: “Promoting Growth and Healing through Language, Symbol, and Story,” Diane discovered poetry therapy as if it were a long-lost country. Interested all her adult life in the intersection between literature and psychology, she earned her Ph.D. in English in 1988, specializing in psychoanalytic approaches to literature. In 1996, she attended John Fox’s poem-making workshop at Omega Institute and soon afterward began training as a certified poetry therapist with mentor/supervisor Deborah Grayson, receiving her CPT in 2000. She joined the Board in 2000 and served as VP of Conferences for two years before serving as President 2007-2009. Her many years’ experience as a university professor and, during the last decade, work as a charter school founder/administrator allow her to incorporate many aspects of poetry within an interdisciplinary approach to education—a focus she would like to continue to develop as part of her service to NAPT.
Barbara Bethea, MA, PTR, LCAT. Past President. Barbara has served on the NAPT Board as Diversity Chairperson since 2003. She graduated from Vermont College with a Master of Art in Psychology, Poetry Therapy and Counseling in 2004. She received her certification as a Registered Poetry Therapist in 2005 and her licensure as a Creative Art Therapist in NYS in 2006. She is currently employed at Woodhull Medical & Mental Health Center/Cumberland Diagnostic Treatment Center in the Department of Psychiatry. She is currently the only Certified and Licensed Poetry Therapist working as a clinician in a hospital. She is also a certified rape counselor advocate for the Mount Sinai Sexual Assault & Violence Intervention (SAVI) program. Barbara is the founder of Poetryworks Entertainment and is also known as "The Afrikana Madonna," a spoken word artist with a CD release entitled Like Manna for the Soul. She is also a co-author of Writing Away the Demons, edited by Dr. Sherry Reiter.
James Brandenburg, LPC, LMFT, CPT. Diversity Chair. James applied for the position of Diversity Chairperson for NAPT because he feels he should be doing more in helping our organization. He says, “My entire life has revolved around diversity, both my personal life and my educational and work history. I see a need for our organization to reach out to a more diverse population—both in our recruitment of candidates for poetry facilitators and poetry therapists, and in our outreach programs in our local communities. As Diversity Chair, I encourage NAPT members to increase their awareness in this area and to focus on a more diverse population in their work as poetry facilitators and poetry therapists.”
Catherine Conway, LCPC, CPT, CADC. President. Catherine says, “I discovered NAPT in 1996 through John Fox's book, Finding What You Didn't Lose. I contacted Peggy Heller to inquire about membership and began my training in October 1997 through Ken and Peggy's Poetry Therapy Intensives. I pursued a Graduate Degree in Clinical Psychology while simultaneously training for my CPT. I received my CPT in 2003 at the NAPT conference in Miami and have been an active and passionate member of NAPT since that time. I have been known to proselytize to my seatmates on the plane, traveling to and from our conferences, leaving them with a NAPT brochure before we deplaned. I have presented poetry therapy workshops at midwest expressive arts conferences, to community mental health organizations for staff enrichment, and for women in life transition. I have integrated poetry therapy into every professional position I've held, working with survivors of sexual abuse, addicts, and alcoholics. I've developed poetry therapy groups in my community outreach work at a residential drug court rehab center and the work release program in Aurora, IL. Currently, I am a clinical therapist, for Linden Oaks Hospital in the Chemical Dependency program and have integrated poetry therapy into the treatment program, weekly. I will be facilitating ‘Life Stories through Poetry & Prose’ at a local senior leisure center this fall, which will expand my experience with non-clinical participants. I believe I am a strong candidate for the NAPT Board because of my deep passion for the work we do, the appreciation for the life-enriching experiences and friendships NAPT has given me and the collegial environment I have known in NAPT. I believe more people should be aware of the rich rewards of being a part of our ever-evolving organization. Through my promotion of poetry therapy in local communities, I have had to become very creative in marketing techniques and hope to share these effective strategies with our membership so that we may all be a part of expanding NAPT.”
Susan Wirth Fusco, PhD, LMHC, CPT, CADAC. Susan enthusiastically supports NAPT and has joined NAPT's Board with the sincere hope to promote educational outreach and to cultivate diversity at all levels, both ethnic and linguistic. After a thirty-year college teaching career as Professor of French and French Literature at Queensborough, CUNY, NYC, Susan decided to pursue another long-abiding passion: learning about how and why creativity and the imagination— manifest in all forms of literature, art, music, and dance— heal. Because Susan's interest in poetry was omnipresent since her studies at Oberlin College (BA in French Literature and Music) and Columbia University (MA and PhD in French Poetry and Stylistics), it naturally ensued that her subsequent studies and work in mental health counseling and expressive arts therapy gravitated towards Poetry Therapy. After completing her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology and Mental Health Counseling at Cambridge College, Susan began doctoral work at nearby Lesley University, where her Senior Advisor, Shaun McNiff, urged Susan to join NAPT in 2003. While focusing on Poetry and Healing, Creativity and the Imagination, and the Expressive Arts Therapies in all her course work, clinical work, and dissertation research (2003-the present), she has attended NAPT Conferences on an annual basis; Susan earned the CAPF and CPT with Sherry Reiter, her much cherished NAPT Mentor/Supervisor.
Dottie Joslyn, CAPF, CJF. Fundraising Chair. Dottie says, “I am a CAPF, CJF, Journal to the Self® instructor and a poet and writer who has been involved with NAPT and the NAPT Foundation for six years. I have led a poetry therapy group of stable mentally ill people for five years and several Journal to the Self groups. I was engaged in the profession of bookkeeping and human resources for thirty years and am now offering my skills to help NAPT as the Foundation transforms into Fundraising on the NAPT Board of Directors. I have had poems published in various journals and have self-published a poetry chapbook. I bring an enthusiasm for the poetry therapy profession to fundraising for special projects within our field. I believe that it takes dedicated people to create and maintain an organization, and that there are roles for everyone. I’d like to be a part of NAPT in a more in-depth way to help propel it forward into the future.”
Dahlia Lorenz, PhD, International Liaison. Dahlia lives in Haifa, Israel. Dahlia says, “I received my PhD from Haifa University. My involvement with Poetry Therapy began many years ago through a model I developed for CIPT (Creative Interactive Poetry Therapy), as well as my work in TA, moderating groups, counseling, and creative writing. During my employment at the Ministry of Culture and Education of Israel, I was the director of all counseling services in the northern region of Israel (supervising some 350 people). Some of my special projects focused on leadership teaching and supervision, marketing and expanding of counseling awareness and budgets and promoting drug prevention, life skills and crisis management with children and teenagers. I authored two books and many articles. For me, Poetry Therapy is universal in its qualities supporting beauty and health and touching us deep inside. Poetry Therapy can benefit many countries and people in its quest for humanity, well-being, reducing stress, and perhaps even promoting peace. Furthering the reach of The National Association for Poetry Therapy, its promise, potential, and ideas, is a mission that I will be proud to be part of, committing my knowledge and overall vision.”
Nicholas Mazza, PhD, PTR-M/S. Nicholas Mazza is the Interim Dean and Patricia V. Vance Professor of Social Work at Florida State University. He is the founding (1987) and current editor of the Journal of Poetry Therapy and author of Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice. Dr. Mazza has been involved in the practice, research and teaching of poetry therapy for over 37 years. He is past vice president and has served on the NAPT board since 1985. In 1997, he received the Pioneer Award from NAPT. Nick holds Florida licenses in clinical social work, marriage and family therapy, and psychology.
Rob Merritt, PhD, Vice-President for Conferences. Rob is Professor of English at Bluefield College in Virginia and a poet who offers workshops about creativity and the healing powers of writing. He is interested in educating people, specifically those in higher education, about the resources available through NAPT. He is currently writing about how major authors, such as W.B. Yeats for example, fit within the context of poetry therapy and cultural healing. His poetry deals with the transformative power of landscape and language.
Sherry Reiter, PhD, PTR-M/S, CSW, RDT/BCT. Sherry initiated the trans- formation of APT( founded in 1969) to NAPT (1982) and served as President of NAPT from 1993-1995. She was President of the NFBPT for about ten years until 2003. She is a clinical social worker and Director of The Creative Righting Center, as well as coordinator of Poetry Behind Bars, where trainees mentor poets at Indiana State Prison (long-distance). Sherry’s most recent work is Writing Away the Demons: Stories of Creative Coping through Transformative Writing (North Star Press, 2009).
Karen vanMeenen, MA, CAPF: As a continuing Executive Board Member of NAPT, Karen serves as Chair of the Publications Committee. In this capacity, she edits The Museletter as she has done for the past seven years, and is interested in the possibility of producing additional print publications along the lines of Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace, published through funds granted by the NAPT Foundation in 2002 and now in its fourth printing. She states, “Poetry therapists are people of words, and maintaining a strong print presence through regular publications and periodic anthologies is imperative for our mission, as is providing an accessible, engaging, and useful web site.” Write to Karen through this site's contact page (choose "Publications" in the send-to field).
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