Dawn Casteel Lorick

DAWN CASTEEL LORICK is a healing arts facilitator for animals, the writer of the upcoming book Once Wild, and creator of The Listening Project, a creative program using deep listening as a tool for reconnecting our inner landscape to the original voices of animals and the natural world. An animal advocate and communicator, she helps animals (companion animals or those in the wild) through challenges and life transitions - whether it is illness, rehoming, a situational conflict, or in connection with relationships with humans. She also helps humans to better understand and work with animal transitions and challenges/conflicts with animals and nature.

She writes:

“There is little more staggeringly poetic than the sounds right before dawn. The multifaceted vocalizations of the Barred Owl, the whisper of leaves as they make ready to greet the sun, tiny movements in grass and trees. Life is occurring, and there’s enough stillness to actually be able to hear it in its fullness.

“Before long, the hum of human existence takes over: the whir of coffeemakers, computers, cars, trains, radios, TVs, iPods, cell phones, laptops, transformers, talking, thinking, projecting ~ and on it goes. The morning beauty of stillness has been relegated to a nice idea. A sort of sideshow. The cacophony is so prevalent that we’ve become desensitized to it.

“Take a moment and recall a power outage, that instant when all humming in our life suddenly falls silent. The refrigerator, outside power lines, lights, all the electronics we take for granted inside and outside of our homes are muted. The new-found silence is unmistakable. It’s as if we’re able to hear ourselves — and our existence — for the first time.”

www.onekindredpaw.com

John Yunker

JOHN YUNKER is a writer of plays, short stories and novels focused on human/animal relationships. He is the co-founder of Ashland Creek Press, a publisher devoted to environmental and animal rights literature. He is also the author of award winning novels that encompass topics on the natural world (The Tourist Trail and the sequel Where Oceans Hide Their Dead), and is the editor of the anthologies Writing for Animals and Among Animals.

His play Meat the Parents was a finalist at the Centre Stage New Play Festival (South Carolina) and semi-finalist in the AACT new play contest, and his play Species of Least Concern was a finalist in the 2016 Mountain Playhouse Comedy Festival. His short stories such as City of Strays and Of Mice and Marines have been published in literary journals, and his short plays including most recently Veganish, have been produced by theaters in Florida, New York, Oregon and Washington DC and Our Hen House. His radio play Sanctuary was performed in a staged reading at Symphony Space NYC for Compassion Arts & Culture and Animals Festival 2017.

John is also a photographer of wildlife and nature, as well as an artist focused on our relationship with languages and cultures, and teacher of Writing for Animals workshops.

He writes:

“Animals talk. All around us, they converse and whisper and shout. But because they speak in different languages, we, like travelers in a foreign land, often tune out their voices, generalizing them into a background of bird calls, squirrel chirps, and dog barks. But there are some of us, such as naturalists and writers, who do try to interpret these foreign languages. Naturalists have devoted lifetimes to unlocking the secrets of the whale’s sonar songs and the prairie dog’s complex vocabulary. And they have slowly progressed, albeit paced by peer reviews and the scientific phobia of being accused of anthropomorphizing animals.” (From Minding Nature Journal , Spring 2018)”

www.johnyunker.com

ELLIE SARTY is the founder/director of Compassion Arts and creator of Compassion Arts Festival. A past honoree of the Culture and Animals Foundation grant, she is a dedicated animal advocate with a passion for the arts and for using creativity as a bridge for healing and transformation. She is a former professional singer-songwriter (music published with Phil Ramone), a past independent recording artist (Top of the Food Chain and Constant As The Sun), and was a performer at Concert for the Children of Chernobyl (Minsk) in the former Soviet Union back when dinosaurs walked the earth:) She is the writer of two original musical plays for Compassion Arts, and co-host of the new podcast CompassionSpeaks.

MARLENE NARROW is a vegan peace advocate dedicated to raising awareness about animals and veganism. She is the creator and host of Vegan Nation Radio at wcuw.org a(4 pm to 4:30 pm EST Mondays), WCUW 91.3 FM, a radio news and music program for advancing compassion for animals, non-violence, radical inclusion, sustainability, cultural transformation, and the intersections of veganism and social justice. Marlene is also a World Peace Diet Facilitator, and a member of World Peace Writers—a collective of Vegan writers. She has been a contributing host and presenter with Compassion Arts since 2016