Marieke Slovin Lewis
Prescott, Arizona

Marieke grew up studying and performing classical piano and began composing music in 2010. While studying sustainability education in a doctoral program, she co-created a method of participatory songwriting called Story-to-Song (STS). STS has its roots in the oral folk music tradition. Through STS, a person is guided through the collaborative, creative process of shaping a story from their life into a song. Marieke has found STS to have a powerfully positive, transformative effect on the people with whom she has worked. There is a catharsis to sharing a story that holds emotion and meaning, as well as an empowering element to creating a unique work of art from authentic, human experience. Since earning her doctorate, she has been employing STS with individuals and groups, facilitating the creative process so a song may reveal itself in its own unique way, be it from a traditional spoken story, shared words or phrases, or poetry. The creation of each song is unique to those who participate in the birthing process. Marieke does her utmost to honor the authenticity and integrity of each person’s story. Marieke composes music predominantly on the baritone ukulele and plays several other instruments, including piano, clarinet, guitar, bodhran, and mandolin. 

To read a complete bio, please visit Marieke Slovin Lewis: Creating a more sensitive, sustainable world, one person at a time

Sarah Reader Harris
Brussels, Belgium

Marieke and Sarah Reader Harris met in January 2017 at the Fedasil Arrival Centre known as Petit-Château, which is located in Brussels, Belgium. They had the great fortune of meeting on the first day Marieke visited the center to begin volunteering there. Sarah had been volunteering at the center for over eight years, offering poetry workshops and poetry-related projects. She started a project together with CEDES www.cedes-ed.org and several organizations in Brussels to work with refugees and asylum seekers on poems that featured their stories and experiences. Together they published two issues of these poems and artworks: “Letters from Brussels” and “Portraits.”

Originally from Scotland, Sarah has been living in Belgium for the past several decades. She is a gifted writer and poet and has an incredible gift for creative expression and for drawing people into the creative process. Sarah writes children’s books, which have been translated into Dutch and French. She is an active member of the Brussels Writers Circle and last year completed an online writing course at Curtis Brown Creative. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Asham, Ian St James, and Bridport prize and are published in Wild Cards, the 1999 Virago anthology of writing women, and Making Changes, an anthology published by Bridge House in 2008. Plums Taste Different Here, her debut adult novel, was recently highly commended in the Winchester Literary Festival competition and long-listed in the Novel category of the 2018 Yeovil Literary Prize.

Please visit her website “A Sheep Called Skye” to learn more about her children’s books.