Dr. Alla Reneé Bozarth, poet and prose writer, therapist and Episcopal priest, was among the first eleven women ordained as Episcopal priests in 1974 in Philadelphia. Dr. Bozarth is author of numerous books, including Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello: Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss, A Journey through Grief {Hazelden); The Book of Bliss, Accidental Wisdom, This is My Body~ Praying for Earth, Prayers from the Heart, Moving to the Edge of the World, This Mortal Marriage~ Poems of Love, Lament and Praise {iUniverse); Soulfire~Love Poems in Black and Gold (distributed by the author at bearblessings.com); Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey (Paulist Press 1978, revised edition Luramedia 1988, distributed by bearblessings.com); Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys: poems by Alla Bozarth, color paintings by Julia Barkley and commentary by Terri Hawthorne [currently out of print]; and her scholarly book, The Word’s Body (University of Alabama Press 1979, University Press of America, Rowman and Littlefield 1997). She has a doctor of philosophy degree in performing arts from Northwestern University and a certificate in Gestalt psychotherapy from the Gestalt Training Center of San Diego. She has over forty years of professional experience as a soul caregiver– soul-mending as a psychotherapist and soul-tending as a spiritual director. She has served as pastoral counselor, consultant and mentor for individuals and groups.

Now retired from public ministry and travel for reasons of health, Dr. Bozarth’s home and sanctuary incorporate Wisdom House in Sandy, Oregon, where she devotes herself to writing as a way of harvesting the fruit of a life richly fertile from experience and formal learning, plumbing the depths of the human condition, exploring the breadth of Creation from Earth’s smallest creatures to the vast regions of the stars. Her poems have been put to music, painted, danced and performed by other artists and are loved and used throughout the world.