ABOUT THE AUTHORS

CHRISTINA BALDWIN is an author, teacher, consultant and co-originator of PeerSpirit Circle Process with more than thirty years’ experience as a seminar presenter. She has written eight books and contributed three classics to the international renaissance in personal writing and story. Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice, was revised and reissued in 2007 after 100,000 original sales and Story catcher: Making Sense of Our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story, is a seminal work on the necessity of story to communicate in all areas of professional and personal life. As a primary thought leader in understanding personal story, she began, with Ann Linnea, to study personal growth and group dynamics, and wrote Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture to explain how collaborative conversation could release needed wisdom and lead to well-informed action and activism. Since 2000, she has also written The Seven Whispers: Spiritual Practice for Times like These and recorded an entire curriculum, “Lifelines, How Personal Writing Can Save Your Life.” She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with honors at Macalester College, and a Master of Science degree in educational psychology at Columbia Pacific University. She currently lives on Whidbey Island, near Seattle, from which she travels extensively to lecture, teach, and call people and organizations into conversations of heart, meaning, and activism.

ANN LINNEA is a writer, educator, facilitator, mentor and guide with decades of experience serving the art of dialogue in a fascinating range of settings. Whether guiding people on a wilderness quest or presenting a workshop to business leaders, she embodies the stewardship of wild things that has characterized her life and work. She began her writing career in Utah, composing hiking and skiing guides during her years as a U.S. Forest Service naturalist in the 1970s. In 1991, Ann co-wrote the award-winning Teaching Kids to Love the Earth. In 1992, she designed her own mid-life rite of passage and became the first woman to circumnavigate Lake Superior by sea kayak (an 1,800-mile journey). Deep Water Passage: A Spiritual Journey at Midlife, describes this journey, portraying her extraordinary physical courage and even more extraordinary spiritual trial and transformation. Besides The Circle Way, her most recent work is Keepers of the Trees: A Guide to Re-Greening North America. Ann graduated from Iowa State University with honors and distinction in botany and holds a master of education degree from the University of Idaho. When replenishing herself at home on Whidbey Island, she enjoys gardening, hiking, kayaking, and motor-scootering. She has two grown children and one adorable grandson.

Ann and Christina founded their educational company, PeerSpirit, Inc., in 1994. Since then, they have offered training in PeerSpirit Circle Process throughout the United States and Canada, Europe, and southern Africa and they are soon to bring their work to Australia and New Zealand. The full-range of their contribution is documented on their website, http://www.peerspirit.com, where many downloadable resources are available in several languages.