Story Circle

by, for, and about women

About

Our Story

We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women, whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.

– Barbara Deming

Story Circle Network is dedicated to helping women of all ages share the stories of their lives through memoir, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, and to raising public awareness of the importance of women’s personal histories. We carry out our mission through publications, a website, classes, workshops, writing and reading circles, and woman-focused programs. Our activities empower women to tell their stories, discover their identities through their stories, and choose to be the authors of their own lives.

Story Circle Network was founded in 1997 by Dr. Susan Wittig Albert and received its nonprofit 501(c)(3) status shortly afterward. Our activities are funded by the annual dues of our members, through our educational programs, and by the generous gifts and grants of our supporters (such as the $100,000 grant that sponsored the Older Women’s Legacy Circle Project). Our national office is located in Georgetown, TX, and our membership is made up of hundreds of women around the country and the world who share their experiences in Story Circles in their local communities, through our online Circles Program, and through the Story Circle Journal, our eletters, publications, online classes, book reviews, and the annual SCN Women’s Book Awards.

 

A big THANK YOU to SCN. I have been a member since 2009. Most of my life I have been a quiet daily writer  . . . over 50 years, 88 volumes, thousands of pages. Belonging to this organization has really-really helped me develop my style and belief in myself. THANK YOU. During the past few years I have completed two self-published books. . . . I am proud. THANK YOU.

– Debra Dolan

About Our Board of Directors

Story Circle Network is governed by a volunteer board of directors that meets four times a year. An active, working board with an international membership, it is committed to the Story Circle mission and responsible for the Network’s management and planning. Service on our board offers each member an opportunity to use and develop her teamwork skills and find new ways of learning and growing as a contributing member of our women’s writing community. Board members serve a variable term, volunteer for board workgroups and SCN program activities, and must have access to email.

Interested in serving on our board? Members can read more and apply (you will be prompted to log in).

Board Members

 

  • Susan Wittig Albert
    Susan Wittig Albert
    Founder; Past President: 1998-2003, 2015-2018
  • Pat Bean
    Pat Bean
  • Liz Beaty
    Liz Beaty
    Program Director, Treasurer
  • Candi Byrne
    Candi Byrne
    YouTube
  • Shelley Johnson Carey
    Shelley Johnson Carey
    Publications
  • Cynthia F. Davidson
    Cynthia F. Davidson
  • Tina Games
    Tina Games
  • B. Lynn Goodwin
    B. Lynn Goodwin
  • Jeanne Guy
    Jeanne Guy
    Vice President
  • Linda Hoye
    Linda Hoye
    Blog Coordinator, Contest Coordinator
  • Shawn LaTorre
    Shawn LaTorre
    Secretary
  • Helen Leatherwood
    Helen Leatherwood
    President, Online Classes Coordinator
  • Teresa Lynn
    Teresa Lynn
    Administrator, Book Reviews
  • Marilea Rabasa
    Marilea Rabasa
  • Susan Schoch
    Susan Schoch
    Anthology Editor
  • Jo Virgil
    Jo Virgil
  • Jude Walsh
    Jude Walsh
  • Robin Wittig
    Robin Wittig
  • Paula Stallings Yost
    Paula Stallings Yost
    Periodicals Editor
  • Caroline Ziel
    Caroline Ziel

Our Commitment to Privacy

Your privacy is important to us. We use the information you provide only for the purpose for which you have provided it. We do not provide your information to any third party. View our expanded statement: Privacy Policy.

 

Members Only                                                                                                              For the Board

Susan Wittig Albert
Founder; Past President: 1998-2003, 2015-2018

Susan is SCN's founder and current (2015-2017) board president. She has presented at conferences, LifeLines, and Writing From Life events; taught in the online class program; and volunteers as the coordinator of StoryCircleBookReviews and the Sarton Award Program. She is also a facilitator in the WorkInProgress Roundtable and coordinates the Austin Reading Circle. She writes mysteries, historical fiction, memoir, and nonfiction; her work is traditionally published and published by her own imprint, Persevero Press. Visit her website.

Pat Bean

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who is passionate about nature, books, art and writing. A native Texan, and longtime Utah resident, she spent nine years traveling this country in an RV. She now lives in Tucson with her canine companion Pepper. Her book, Travels with Maggie, was published in September, 2017. Pat is a staff writer for the Story Circle Journal, is the co-mom of the Writer2Writer Roundtable, and manages SCN's tweets. Visit her blog.

Liz Beaty
Program Director, Treasurer

Liz Beaty, SCN's Program Director, lives with her husband, bulldog, and seven chickens on an orange grove in Ojai, California. She is a licensed California attorney with years of experience working with/in nonprofit program management. Her areas of expertise are coordinating teams of volunteers and improving organizational/information systems. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, hiking, and spending time with her family. Liz is an avid reader and loves to travel. Her involvement with SCN began in 2019 as a participant in the International Writing Workshop in Italy.

Candi Byrne
YouTube

Candi lives in an enchanted forest on a West Virginia mountainside mere minutes from her two delightful granddaughters. As an award-winning marketer back in the day, Candi helped launch the $2 billion public/private National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign as well as a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored global health initiative. Candi is keen to see the Story Circle Network YouTube channel grow like kudzu. Make sure to like and subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJRdtKQgFjA9mV84rncrtBA!

Candi is a long-time member of Story Circle Network. Her adoption-related memoir, Regifted: An Odyssey of Belonging, is slated for publication by She Writes Press in November 2022. Now in her third chapter of life, Candi helps women midlife and beyond find the clarity, courage, and confidence to finally live in alignment with their True Nature. www.sweetfirecoaching.com 

Shelley Johnson Carey
Publications

Shelley Johnson Carey is the author of numerous articles, short stories, and poems, and of the nonfiction book, Thin Mint Memories: Scouting for Empowerment through the Girl Scout Cookie Program. She recently retired from her nearly 40-year editorial career, where she worked on several award-winning magazines and journals. Most recently, she served as the editor of Peer Review, a higher education journal, where she worked with hundreds of authors to polish their writing. Shelley has an BA from Hampshire Colleges and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Goucher College. She has facilitated several writing workshops for teens and adults. She is currently revising a novel about a group of friends, which is based on her own lifetime friendships. www.shelleyjohnsoncarey.com

Cynthia F. Davidson

A member of SCN for over a dozen years, Cynthia F. Davidson is now a member of the board and on the faculty. A long time expatriate and former CBS News journalist, she spent two decades as a pioneer in the global management field. She credits SCN membership with the support and skill development required to publish her first memoir, The Importance of Paris. SCN also inspired her to start facilitating workshops and writing groups that capture women’s lived wisdom.

Tina Games

Tina lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where she has been inspired as a freelance writer for over nine years, after moving from the Washington, DC area where she was active in the political scene. She owns her own consulting/coaching business where she works with highly-creative women who want to make their mark in the world through creative activism and artistic endeavors. She is also a contributing writer for a variety of print and online publications, and a licensed workshop facilitator.

Tina serves on numerous boards in a leadership capacity, and is also a grant writer, having written several grants for a variety of nonprofit organizations, causes, and campaigns focused on the general welfare of women and children, as well as charitable organizations focused on the arts, culture, and education. Through her volunteer work, Tina has utilized her creative, visionary, and organizational skills to plan and execute an array of successful programs, projects, and events. She has been a member of Story Circle Network for over a decade and is fully committed to serving its mission.

B. Lynn Goodwin

Writer and editor B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. She’s the author of two award-winning books, a YA called Talent and a memoir titled Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62 Her flash fiction is published in Flashquake, Nebo, Cabinet of Heed, Murmur of Words, 100-Word Stories, Ariel’s Dream, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Her second YA, Disrupted, is forthcoming from Indignor House. She's also a reviewer and teacher at Story Circle Network.  

Jeanne Guy
Vice President

Jeanne, SCN’s 2018-2020 president, is a speaker and veteran self-awareness reflective writing teacher. She’s the author of You’ll Never Find Us: A Memoir, the story of how her children were stolen from her and how she stole them back (She Writes Press 2021), co-author of Seeing Me: A Guide to Reframing the Way You See Yourself, and author of numerous anthology essays. Details about this avid walker, slow reader, and irreverent blogger are on her website.

Linda Hoye
Blog Coordinator, Contest Coordinator

Linda Hoye lives in British Columbia, Canada with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terriers but will always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved and Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com.

Shawn LaTorre
Secretary

Shawn, a star book reviewer for Story Circle Network and a member of a local Story Circle book group, retired from secondary education a few years ago. She spends summers sailing the Great Lakes aboard HMS Juicy Fruit and the other nine months in Austin mentoring, volunteering for a local food pantry, quilting, and spinning tales. You can visit her blog at CeruleanSeasons.com or follow her educational re-tweets as MizLaTee on Twitter, or see some of her quilts as MizLaTee on Instagram.

Helen Leatherwood
President, Online Classes Coordinator

Len Leatherwood, the Program Coordinator for SCN’s Online Classes program and current president of Story Circle Network, has been teaching writing privately to students in Beverly Hills for the past 21 years. She is a nationally recognized writing coach as well as an award-winning author. Len has published work in flash fiction and nonfiction and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her blog, 20 Minutes a Day, can be found at lenleatherwood.com.

Teresa Lynn
Administrator, Book Reviews

Teresa Lynn is a writer and editor with a background in journalism and education. She has written for a range of publications on a variety of topics, including book publishing, current events, historical topics, food, nature, and pop culture. She has authored three books, Little Lodges on the Prairie, Thanksgiving Joy, and Understanding Copyright, under her own name, as well as ghostwriting works for others.
In 2014, Teresa helped establish Tranquility Press, a hybrid publishing company near Austin, Texas. Today, she provides all types of writing, editorial, and publishing services. She is also administrator and board member of Story Circle Network, editor for Georgetown Friends of the Library, President of Central Texas American Christian Fiction Writers, and Distribution Editor for Story Circle Book Reviewers. She is a member of Women Writing the West, the Writers League of Texas, the Former Texas Rangers Association, the Order of the Eastern Star, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. Teresa speaks to groups nationwide on writing and publishing, Freemasonry, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency.
In her free time, Teresa enjoys reading, traveling, and seeking out little-known history of interesting people and places. She lives in Georgetown, Texas with her husband, near their two grown daughters. Website, blog.

Marilea Rabasa

I grew up in Massachusetts. For seventeen years I was an ESL teacher in Virginia. Before that, I lived overseas in the Foreign Service. Just as I provided “springboards” for my students in writing class, my travels provide the backdrop for my two memoirs: my award-winning debut memoir, A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; and its sequel,  Stepping Stones: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Transformation, winner of the 2020 USA Best Book Award.

Susan Schoch
Anthology Editor

A member since 2002, Susan has been the Editor of SCN’s quarterly Journal and our annual Anthology since 2014. She joined the Board of Directors in 2016 as chair of Publications, and is also a frequent reviewer and editor at Story Circle Book Reviews. Susan has been a freelance writer and editor for 30 years. She specializes in personal history and biography, most recently The Clay Connection: Jim and Nan McKinnell. Susan shares SCN's commitment to women's growth through the empowering focus of writing and recognizing women's stories.

Jo Virgil

Jo Virgil has been a Story Circle Network member for many years and now serves as editor for True Words and as a SCN Board Member (Publication and Program member). Jo has a Master's Degree in Journalism and has worked as a reporter, as a writing workshop teacher, as Community Relations Manager for Barnes & Noble, and as Community Outreach Coordinator for the Texas Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities. One of her favorite messages was from one of her journalism professors who said, "Stories are what make us matter."

Jude Walsh

Jude has been in love with Story Circle Network for over a decade. With Becca Taylor she coedited True Words From Real Women in 2008 and coproduced the Story Circle Podcasts. Her writing is in Kitchen Table Stories, SCN anthologies and SCN quarterly Journals. She has been published several times with Chicken Soup For the Soul and numerous other anthologies and magazines. She presented at Stories From the Heart and for two years chaired the Silent Auction there. She has contributed blogs to One Woman's Day and HerStories, occasionally reviews for Story Circle Book Reviews, and has participated in judging for the Susan Wittig Albert LifeWriting Competition and the Sarton Award. She received the Star Blogger of the Year award for her blog Sensuously Sixty. Her current blog is Jude Walsh Writes.  She is a creativity and life coach at Second Bloom Coaching and loves working with women ready to embrace their superpowers. She is the author of Post-Divorce Bliss: Ending Us and Finding Me (Morgan James 2019) and is currently writing a memoir and a romance.

Robin Wittig

Robin is the editor of the SCN Journal and Senior Director of Community Programs at Pikes Peak YMCA. She lives in Woodland Park, CO. In addition to her work with the Journal, Robin does the layout for the annual anthology, Real Women Write, and creates the print program for "Stories From the Heart."

Paula Stallings Yost
Periodicals Editor

Paula is a former and current board member. She has presented at conferences and Writing From Life events; taught in the online class program; served as co-editor of a couple of Story Circle anthologies; and volunteers as the coordinator of the Sarton Award Program. She also is a personal historian who helps families and individuals write and publish their life stories. Visit her website.

Caroline Ziel

Caroline is SCN’s eCircle coordinator. She took on this role with a desire to give others some of the confidence she gained from SCN in crafting her own life story. Caroline’s commitment to women’s stories springs from her 45 years as a clinical social worker, and her own story of trauma, mental health issues, and a tenacious desire to be emotionally healthy. In addition to her work with the eCircle, Caroline assists with our conferences and the Sarton Award.