A Message of Gratitude
from Mari Alschuler, NAPT's VP, Conferences

This year NAPT has gathered leading national and international workshop presenters with a focus on community, family, and the individual. Once again we offer optional “tracks” in five areas: SP-spirituality, K–children/youth, T–teachers, C–physical/cognitive challenges, FC–family/community/intergenerational. Feel free to focus on one or two tracks, or sign up for a variety: it’s your choice! Workshops fill quickly on a first-come, first-served basis during registration, which is available online, by phone/fax, or mail. Please be sure to pick a 2nd choice for each workshop in the A, B, C, and D slots.

If you are in the process of becoming a CPT (Certified Poetry Therapist), RPT (Registered Poetry Therapist), or think you may begin the process shortly after the conference ends, you may receive didactic credit for workshops indicated with an asterisk [*], which denotes that one or more of the facilitators is a CPT or RPT. Check with your M/S first. More information about the certification process is available after Saturday’s lunch.

Our entertainment and keynote speakers this year are spectacular! We are thrilled to have Greg Greenway return to help us open our conference, preceded by one of our own Praise of Muses members, Michael Dennis Browne, who will inspire us with a performance of his and others’ poems. Our keynote poet, Gregory Orr, is a gifted and prolific writer, poet, and professor. Our keynote speaker is well-known to and beloved by the NAPT community: Deborah Eve Grayson. And our closing performer, Mark Holland, promises to present us with an uplifting and moving close to our wonderful conference with his Native American flute and accompanying dancer. Expect to get moving as we dance along!

The 2005 Conference Committee and I know that you will find fulfillment, stimulation, inspiration, creativity, education, delight, new and renewed friendships, and the continued joy of poetry and its healing potential in this, our 25th annual conference. Please be sure to complete your individual workshop evaluations and the final conference survey in order for us to evaluate this year’s conference and to plan for the next one.

I would like to thank our committee: Site Chair–Cathy Callahan, Dottie Joslyn, Barbara Bethea, Richard Brown, and my fellow proposal reader/raters: Brian Moore, Jerri Chaplin, Deborah Grayson, Sirkku Sky Hiltunen, and Diane Allerdyce. I’d also like to thank Lianne Mercer for handling our volunteers, Valerie Knight for designing the final brochure, and Barbara Kreisberg for helping to select our NAPT sale items. Thank you to our Treasurer, Rich Rosenfeld, our outgoing President, John Fox, and our incoming President, Perie Longo, for their support and assistance throughout the conference planning process. I must also give a special thank-you to Dottie Joslyn for typing the brochure, to Toussaint L’Ouverture High School for Arts & Social Justice staff member Stephanie Horning for her help preparing information for the program, to Lauren Keller-Pacilio for her help in typing, and to Diane Allerdyce and Ted Bowman for selecting our pre- and post-conference workshops. Above all, I want to thank our management company, DMS, and the superb and capable work of Sheila Dietz, our NAPT Administrator. Sheila and her DMS associates have shown us the possibilities of teamwork at a whole new level, and we welcome her heartily into our PT family and community.

Enjoy the conference, and thank you for a wonderful three years facilitating our annual conferences.

– Mari Alschuler, LCSW, RPT, M/S

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