WHJan18Program

Presenters
Gabriele Davis
Yoga Alliance registered yoga instructor. On staff in the Mind Body Spirit department at
Mountainside, a drug and alchohol addiction treatment center. Founder of Bright Energy
Yoga which offers yoga classes and workshops throughout Northwestern Connecticut.
Visit: www.brightenergyyoga.com
Mary Fahy, RSM
Spiritual director, former pastoral care director at The McAuley, West Hartford, CT;
author of The Tree That Survived the Winter and A Time for Leaving.
Chef Margaret Jacobs
Head Chef at Wisdom House; Graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY.
Worked at the United Nations Plaza Hotel in New York City and has over 30 years of cooking,
baking and business experience in the culinary arts.
Leslie Johnson
Award winning writer whose short stories have been awarded the Pushcart Prize with the
Pushcart Press publication. Her fiction has been broadcast on NPR, appeared in Norton’s Best of
the West Anthology and published in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals. Teaching
artist of Connecticut Office of the Arts where she leads interactive writing workshops and
professional development seminars. Visit: www.lesliejohnsonwriter.com
Thomasina Levy
Award winning musician and Connecticut State Troubadour (2005/2006). Teaching Artist for
the Connecticut Office of the Arts where she assists fellow artist, educators, schools and
museums incorporate the arts into their programs. Facilitator of Music Improvisation. Her
music has been aired in over twenty countries across the globe and she has created recordings
and instructional books for children and adults. Visit: www.thomasina.net
Fernando Martinez
Artist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Studied bioengineering at Polytechnic Institute of
Technology and furniture design and fine arts at S.U.N.Y. , Purchase, NY; opened his own
woodworking and art studio in 1995. Presently residing in Port Chester, NY. His woks have
been in shows in the P-Café in New Rochelle, NY, at the Lotus Wellness Center in
Greenwich, CT, at the Miranda Fine Arts Gallery and the Art-Miami Solar Gallery
in East Hampton, NY, and other East Coast venues.
Barbara Putnam, RYT-200
Began her personal yoga practice in 1970 and completed her training at Peaceful Way
Wellness School in July of 2015. She seeks to share the healing effects of yoga on body, mind
and spirit and encourage self-awareness, and curiosity about exploring the human potential.
Peggy Richard
Holds an MA in Pastoral Theology from St. Joseph College of Maine. Will facilitate a new
monthly program at Wisdom House “Journeying in the Spirit” beginning January 2018. Student
in J.P. Newell’s program: The New England School of Celtic Consciousness. She is a
retired library media specialist.
Susan Strand
Graduate of the Womens’s Leadership Institute at Hartford Seminary; organist at the Church
of Christ Congregational in Goshen, CT; long time experience playing African drums and
rhythms, and giving drumming programs at Wisdom House since 2011.
Davyne Verstandig
Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the Hartford Campus of the University of Connecticut.
Published books of poetry, Pieces of the Whole and Provisions. Her work also appears in the
anthologies Sex and Sexuality in a Feminist World; Songs of the Marrow Bone; Where Beach
Meets Ocean; This One Has No Name and the Connecticut Poet Laureate Anthology.
She has performed improvisational work "composing on the tongue" painting and poetry
at The Knitting Factory and Housing Works Café in New York City. CT. She is Poet Laureate
of Washington, CT. Visit: www.davyneverstandig.com
Sally Campbell Woodhall
Former director of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance; Holds an MA in Theology, Fordham
University; Founding Head of the Woodhall School, Bethlehem, CT, author of Teilhard de
Chardin: Pilgrim, Prophet, Mystic.
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(860) 567-3163 programs@wisdomhouse.org www.wisdomhouse.org