Druis Beasley

Druis A. Beasley is an artist, educator, and activist with an extensive background in diversity, arts-in-education, arts administration, humanistic community development, creative writing, and performance. She conducts interdisciplinary arts-in-education residencies; literary residencies in Poetry, Non/Fiction, Autobiography; and Storytelling. Along with performing throughout Upstate New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Vermont she has designed and administered a number of literacy-based afterschool programs, community-based human services and arts-in-education programs; and, presented original mythopoetic spoken word performances.

As a humanistic community developer, Druis has used her expertise in group dynamics, cultural diversity, service learning, organizational development, grants management and training to promote and facilitate creative approaches to living. Some of her many clients have included the Piedmont Peace Project, the Troy Rehabilitation & Improvement Program, Hudson-Mohawk Association of Colleges & Universities, Girl Scouts of the USA, Public/Private Ventures, The Natural Heritage Trust, the Governor’s Office for Voluntary Services, and Odyssey Quest, Inc., a non-profit specializing in holistic healing & integrative medicine.

A co-founder of the Sisters of Color Writing Collective, Inc. a 25-year old non-profit literary organization promoting women’s writing through regularly held workshops, poetry and prose readings, and the publication of an annual journal SEEDS; she is also cofounder of the New African Music Collective, an improvisational music and spoken word group from 1983-1992; and WEMBA, a Trans-African Ensemble, in 1999-2001.

Her poetry and essays have been published in a number of journals and anthologies including Women Outside: Conversations about Nature, Art & Spirit, 2010, and She Who Made the World, 2007 a poetry chapbook both released by High Water Mark Press.