Saturday, January 25, 2014

Leaf Seligman's Star Island Conference


My dear friend Leaf Seligman recently announced her upcoming Star Island Conference, Water From the Rock: Writing Toward Freedom, Meaning and Connection. It will be held from Sept. 8-12, 2014. For those of you who are not familiar with Star Island, it is a gorgeous island off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

I first met Leaf when she was 13 years old in the mid-1970s when she was a student at the University School in Nashville and was immediately impressed with her intellect. She has been a writer since childhood. Her letters to the editor as a young teenager earned her several seats as an honoree at The Tennessean annual banquet to honor exceptional letters to the editor.

Leaf studied fiction writing and poetry at the University of New Hampshire where she earned an MA in writing; she studied playwriting at Brandeis and earned an M.Div. from Harvard. She started teaching writing in 1985, as a graduate assistant at the University of New Hampshire, and a volunteer at the Rockingham County jail. She has taught writing ever since at two universities, a college, two prisons, two jails, and a variety of community settings. After ten years as a Unitarian Universalist minister, she has happily returned to a writing-centered life.

     Leaf with her beloved dog Zuki

 To learn more about Leaf and the Star Island Conference please click on her website – Opening the Window Writing that Matters – and the Star Island website – Star Island.


1 comment:

Stickup Artist said...

What a cool lady. It's amazing how many experiences and connections she has made thru writing. Checked out Star Island. As worthwhile as it sounds, in that setting, I fear I'd never make it to a conference. I'd be out roaming that gorgeous, wild coast, alone, from dawn to dusk :-)