Draft Conference Schedule
(NOTE: scroll down below this schedule for workshop and panel descriptions)

TO REGISTER, go to the web address provided below.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5

8:00 - 9:00 a.m.: Registration / Coffee

9:00 - 9:30 a.m.: Welcome / Introduction to NILAS

9:30 - 10:30 a.m.: Jessica Speart, "Bringing Conservation Issues to Life" keynote lecture

10:30 - 10:45 a.m.: Break

10:45 - 11:15 a.m.: Jonathan Reyman, "Macaw Becomes a Rainbow" Amazonian story & slide presentation

11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.: Kevin Strauss, "Environmental Storytelling in Teaching" workshop

12:15 - 1:15 p.m.: Lunch

1:15 - 3:15 p.m.: "Teaching Animals: Humane Education and Personal Healing" paper panel

3:15 - 3:30 p.m.: Break

3:30 - 5:00 p.m.: Jessica Speart, "Nature Can Be Murder: Writing an Environmental Mystery" writing workshop
OR
3:30 - 5:00 p.m.: Celeste and Gene Gryniewicz, "Flying With Turtles--A Natural Fit: Stories and Early Childhood Education" teaching/storytelling workshop

5:00 - 6:30 p.m.: Ice Cream Social / Open Mike Storytelling
-- will include performances by storytellers Rona Leventhal, Mile Lockett, Cathy Mosley, G. J. Weiss

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6

8:00 - 9:00 a.m.: Registration / Coffee

9:00 - 11:00 a.m.: Lincoln Memorial Gardens tour
OR
9:00 - 10:30 a.m.: Lyn Ford and Leslie Zak, "Wild Voices: Breaking the Sound Barrier" storytelling workshop

11:00 a.m. - noon: Angela Cay Klinger, "Story, Stone, Water, Fire" storytelling workshop

noon - 1:00 p.m.: Lunch

1:00 - 3:00 p.m.: "Wild Animals in Human Culture: Folklore, Novels, and History" paper panel

3:00 to 3:15 pm: Break

3:15 - 4:30 p.m.: "Poetry as Story" poetry reading and discussion
-- will include poets James Fairhall, Patricia Monaghan, Boria Sax, and Judith Strasser

4:30 - 5:00 p.m.: Closing remarks

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: JESSICA SPEART

Award-winning mystery writer Jessica Speart will give our keynote lecture, "Bringing Conservation Issues to Life," and will also lead a mystery writing workshop (see below). Speart began her writing career as an investigative journalist covering endangered species issues, wildlife law enforcement, and the environment for publications such as _The New York Times Sunday Magazine_, _Omni_, _Audubon_, _Travel & Leisure_, _Wildlife Conservation_, and _Animals_ magazine. When she began to find situations she covered stranger than fiction, she decided to turn her pen toward writing books, creating a whole new genre--wildlife mystery thrillers. "The Rachel Porter Mystery Series," her original paperback series with Avon Books, has received starred reviews from _Publishers Weekly_ and high praise from newspapers around the country, such as the _Boston Globe_ and the _Pittsburgh Post_.

WORKSHOP AND PANEL DESCRIPTIONS

Friday, August 5

Kevin Strauss, "Environmental Storytelling in Teaching" teaching/storytelling workshop
-- How to identify, find, and craft "environmental stories" from cultures around the world and from personal experience for use in schools, libraries, nature centers, and Earth Day Programs. Topics include: environmental education concepts, defining "environmental stories," anthropomorphism in animal stories, finding traditional environmental stories, and developing original environmental tales through lecture and discussion.

"Teaching Animals: Humane Education and Personal Healing" paper panel
-- Carol Hoyt and Kathleen Alspaw, "Narratives in Humane Education: Re-visioning Our Personal Stories"
-- Carol Price, "The 'One Day When I' Story Circle"
-- Kate Nicoll, "Healing Children with the Power of Animal Life Stories"
-- Maria da Nitividade Pires, "Children's Moral-Ecological Development--Ecological Education in Literacy Narratives: A Road to Intercultural Education"

Jessica Speart, "Nature Can Be Murder: Writing an Environmental Mystery" writing workshop
-- The mystery novel is a unique venue in which to raise conservation issues. Learn how to come up with a strong idea wrapped in conflict that will keep your readers spellbound to the end. The workshop will cover outlining, creating memorable characters and dialogue, the importance of location, and pacing scenes to create suspense.

Celeste and Gene Gryniewicz, "Flying With Turtles--A Natural Fit: Stories and Early Childhood Education" teaching/storytelling workshop
-- Learn how to help nurture your child's "natural" curiosity through stories, crafts and activities. This is a hands-on workshop--come prepared to have a little fun and enjoy a story or two. For early childhood educators (pre-K through 3rd graders), parents, and anyone else working with young children.

Saturday, August 6

Lyn Ford and Leslie Zak, "Wild Voices: Breaking the Sound Barrier" storytelling workshop
-- One of the greatest--and most entertaining--of human talents, shared by all, is mimicry. It is the root method of language transmission among people and an "Open Sesame" to genuine communication with other species. Zak and Ford offer an interactive workshop-performance of stories and story-telling songs, demonstrating and instructing participants in the expressive--and connective--possibilities of the human/animal voice while encouraging qualities of empathy and awareness of all that surrounds us, through music, dance, and folktale adaptation.

Angela Cay Klinger, "Story, Stone, Water, Fire" storytelling workshop
-- This workshop uses Native American traditional tales to introduce the concept of "geomythology" (story enhanced by geographical, environmental, cultural, historical, and scientific insights) and its role in world myth and legend.

"Wild Animals in Human Culture: Folklore, Novels, and History" paper panel
-- Kelley Enright, "Why the Rhinoceros Doesn't Talk: The Cultural Life of a Wild Animal and the Boundaries of American Anthropomorphism"
-- Lisa Baruzzi, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse in Fable and Story"
-- Boria Sax, "Ravens in the Tower of London: The Genesis of a Modern Myth"
-- Marion W. Copeland, "Wildlife Eco-Thrillers"

"Poetry as Story" panel of poets addressing the role of nature and story in poetry and reading from their work
-- James Fairhall, DePaul University, author of _At the Water Puppet Theater_ and "Dragon Music"
-- Patricia Monaghan, DePaul University, reading from _Earth Oracle_
-- Boria Sax, Mercy College, author most recently of _Crow_ and _Animals in the Third Reich_
-- Judith Strasser, Madison, Wisconsin, author of "Sand Island Succession" and the memoir _Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life_