About the Instructors

Bernice Lewis

A fixture on the coffeehouse circuit, contemporary-folk radio, and at the major folk festivals, Lewis -- who studied vocal improvisation with Bobby McFerrin, guitar technique with Alex DeGrassi and Guy van Duser, and songwriting with Roseanne Cash and Cris Williamson -- has been a featured performer on National Public Radio's "Mountain Stage" program. In 1987, she was a finalist in the prestigeous New Folk Songwriting Contest at the Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival, where she continues to be a main stage favorite. Her ballad, "Bridges That Hold," was included in the PBS-TV "Lifelines" documentary starring Peter, Paul and Mary. She was featured in Yoga Journal for her work with sound and yoga, and has shared the stage with many renowned artists, including Dar Williams, Dixie Chicks, Patty Griffin, Pete Seegar, Ellis Paul, John Gorka, Rory Block, Livingston Taylor, Odetta, Christine Lavin...it's a long list. She is also a published poet, a sought after producer, and an educator extraordinaire. She currently teaches at Williams College in Williamstown, Ma and Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Co. She's had a thirty year daily yoga practice, loves good coffee, and her religion is the Grand Canyon.

Lewis' CD "Religion and Release," features guest appearances by some of folk music's finest performers: Dar Williams, Ellis Paul, Brooks Williams, and Jennifer Kimball, Berkshire Eagle's Seth Rogovoy proclaimed "not a bad note on it..."

Website: www.bernicelewis.com

Mark DeCarteret

Born in Lowell Massachusetts in 1960 Mark DeCarteret attended and graduated from Emerson College in 1990 with his B.F.A in Creative Writing (their representative at the 1990 Boston Inter-collegiate Poetry Festival) and from the University of New Hampshire in 1993 with an M.A. in English--Writing (the recipient of the Thomas Williams Memorial Poetry Prize) and has been a fixture in the New Hampshire/Southern Maine poetry scene, as a reader/editor and as a performer (in the Dadaist troupe Carteret Voltaire) for the last decade and a half. His poetry has appeared in over two hundred different reviews including Agenda (England), AGNI, Ars-Interpres (Sweden), Atlanta Review, Caliban, Chicago Review, Conduit, Cream City Review, Gargoyle, Killing the Buddha, Phoebe, Poetry East, Quick Fiction, Salt Hill, and Sonora Review, as well as such anthologies as American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press, 2000). His books of poetry are Over Easy (Minotaur Press, 1990), Review: A Book of Poems (Kettle of Fish Press, 1995), The Great Apology (Oyster River Press, 2001) for which he also co-edited Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets, and (If This Is the) New World, released by March Street Press earlier this year. Mark has taught at Chester College, Heartwood College of Art, Maine College of Art, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester NH and worked for many a year at Stroudwater Books in Portsmouth where he hosted and coordinated a monthly reading.

Star Island 2007 Retreat

We invite you to join us for the next retreat on Star Island from September 6 to 9, 2007.

Early bird registration opens May 1, 2007 and runs until June 21, 2007.

General registration ends August 1, 2007.

More information coming soon.

E-mail talk@witrhome.org