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Meet Our Fabulous Advisory Board

Elana Dykewomon has been a cultural worker and social justice activist since the 1970s. Her most celebrated work, the Jewish lesbian historical novel, Beyond the Pale, won both the Lambda and Ferro-Grumley Literary awards, and her 1974 novel, Riverfinger Women, is on the list of the best LGBT books of all time. A new novel, Risk, will come out in 2009. She has also published two books of poetry and two of short stories, to critical acclaim. The recipient of many residency fellowships and awards, she has spent time at Hedgebrook, Soapstone, Cummington Community of the Arts and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Dykewomon was editor of the international lesbian feminist journal, Sinister Wisdom, for nine years and has been a board member of numerous literary organizations, including the San Francisco Library Commission and The Journal of Lesbian Studies. She co-coordinates disabled and senior access for the San Francisco Dyke March. Currently she teaches at San Francisco State, was the fiction faculty for the Lambda Literary Association Retreat for Emerging LGBT Writers 2008 and offers private creative writing classes.

Mushim (Patricia) Ikeda-Nash is a poet and author, Buddhist meditation teacher, diversity consultant, and socially engaged Buddhist community activist. She is included in two documentary films. One is Between the Lines: Asian American Women Poets, which premiered at the Asia Society in NYC in 2002 and was recipient of the Fall 2002 Golden Eagle CINE award for cinematic excellence (education category). The second documentary follows three American women activists, Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist (Acting on Faith: Women’s New Religious Activism in America, which premiered at Harvard University in 2005). She has published poetry widely under her secular name, Patricia Yoshiko Ikeda, and is known as one of the pioneers of Asian American poetry, and she has also published widely under her Buddhist or Dharma name, Mushim.

A longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism with both monastic and lay training, Mushim is currently a Core Teacher at East Bay Meditation Center, a diversity and social-justice based meditation center in downtown Oakland, and she teaches meditation retreats for social justice activists and people of color across the U.S. She is a diversity consultant and diversity facilitator as well, working mostly with American Buddhist communities, and she volunteered for more than ten years as a literacy teacher and tutor in the Oakland public schools. Mushim lives with her partner in Oakland, California; they have a son, 19, who is attending university.

Bernice Soohoo Lee has been in the field of Education for over thirty years. She started as a paraprofessional and in her career, worked as teacher, counselor, trainer and administrator for programs serving infants through high school. She was an adjunct instructor with Pacific Oakls College. Bernice was also a consultant for the California State Department of Education. She has volunteered with many Bay Area non profit agencies including SF Child Abuse Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights (LRP), and The Lyon-Martin Women's Health Services. Bernice was also on the Board of Directors and Co Executive Director of the Pacific Center in Berkeley. She lives in Oakland, California.

Dr. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel has been a dharma practitioner for 20 years, initially as a student of Nichiren Buddhism and currently in the Soto Zen tradition at San Francisco Zen Center and Berkeley Zen Center. She is currently training as a novice priest and the leader of the Kasai River Healing Sangha in Oakland, California.

Zenju has an M.A. in Urban Planning from U.C.L.A. and a Ph.D. in Transformation and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has served as Development Director and Program Director for several California-based nonprofit organizations and cultural centers, including the Women of Color Resource Center and The Women’s Foundation of California. She co-founded the Marcus Garvey Alternative School for African American children in Los Angeles in 1974. Zenju currently lives in Oakland, California with her partner Simbwala Schultz.

Zenju is also a visual artist and the author of Seeking Enchantment: A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Oppression (Kasai River Press), and the Black Angel Cards: A Soul Revival Guide for Black Women (Harper San Francisco). She is a contributing author to Dharma, Color, and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism (Parallax), an anthology of essays by Buddhist teachers and practitioners of color and Spirited (Redbone Press), an anthology of Black gays and lesbians on spirituality. Her essay, The Zen Liberation in the Art of Romare Bearden appears in the International Review of African American Art. Other essays have appeared in Turning Wheel, Wind Bell (S.F. Zen Center magazine), and Mindfulness Bell.

Margo Rivera-Weiss has been the Community Outreach Manager and Art Gallery Curator at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center since 1992. Holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley as well as a degree in Library Technology. Has presented at National LGBT Cancer conferences in NYC, Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta and co-produces ¡Salud! WCRC's Annual Latino Heritage event. Created the JanRae Community Art Gallery at WCRC in 1998 and is a visual artist and filmmaker. Currently a film festival team member for the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project and a past board member of the Richmond Art Center. Has navigated between being able bodied and living with chronic pain since a work injury 20 years ago.

Teya Schaffer, MFA, is an accomp-

lished editor and teacher of writing workshops. She is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in anthologies and journals for over thirty years. Her stories and essays as well as poems are used in college readers. Her chapbook The Silent Poems was a recent Comstock Review special merit finalist. Her book A Ritual of Drowning: Poems of Love and Mourning won the Pippestrelle Best of the Small Press award. This collection of poems addresses the death of her spouse Jackie Winnow, founder of the Women’s Cancer Resource Center (WCRC).

Teya’s political activism spans early days volunteering at the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective, organizing the first S.F. Jewish Feminist Conference, and participating in the creation of the WCRC. The mother of an adult son and a long time Oakland resident, she is glad to have found employment in community work, first in the public library and more recently as an English instructor at the College of Alameda.

Judith Smith, Artistic Director, has earned an international reputation in the field of physically integrated dance. Upon taking over artistic leadership of AXIS in 1997, AXIS began commissioning works by some of the nation’s best choreographers, composers and designers and launched Dance Access Community Education and Outreach Program. Prior to becoming disabled in a car accident at age 17 Judith was a champion equestrian. She transferred her passion for riding to dance after discovering contact improvisation in 1983. Along with several other disabled and non-disabled dancers she founded AXIS in 1987.

Judith has been featured in several award winning videos including Dancing from the Inside Out, WNET TV’s nationally broadcast series People in Motion and John Killacky’s Crip Shots. In 1997, she was a co-curator and Artistic Consultant for Dance Umbrella’s International Festival of Wheelchair Dance.

Judith teaches dance to youth and adults and lectures at community organizations, schools, universities and conferences. She has been on the faculty of Florida Dance Festival and Bates Dance Festival. In addition, she has served on numerous arts grant review panels and is on the advisory boards of The National Art and Disability Center based at UCLA, Bates Dance Festival, Dancers’ Group and the Magee Allessee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University. Judith received KQED’s Local Hero award in 2005 and the Artship Foundation’s Local Hero award in 1999.

Akaya Windwood, is President and CEO of Rockwood Leadership Program. She is known nationally for her commitment to social and economic justice, and to building a new and compelling vision for effectiveness and collaboration in the non-profit sector. Prior to joining Rockwood as its President and former Director of Leadership Development, Akaya was founder and President of In Common, a multicultural consultation firm, co-founder of the Women's National Leadership Project and Executive Director of the Pacific Center, a leading Bay Area LGBT Community Center.

An executive leadership coach and organizational consultant with more than 30 years experience working for social justice, Akaya is dedicated to strengthening her many communities and has served on the Alameda County Human Relations Commission, the Alameda County Hate Violence Prevention Task Force, and the board of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. A long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, she loves the richness of living and working with diversity, and is committed to joy, laughter, and healthy communities.

Teresa Favuzzi, currently the Executive Director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC) joined the Disability Rights Movement 10 years ago. She has worked to:

Advance diversity and cultural competence of disability organizations to serve underserved disability communities with Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco and the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers;

Increase management skills of disability agency staff teaching national online courses with the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Independent Living Management;

Encourage emerging leaders with disabilities through her leadership on the steering committee of the Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities.

Organize and mobilize the California Disability Communities around issues that impact our lives, including assistive technology, in home support services, healthcare, emergency preparedness with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers.

Promote the importance of the building a Disability Voting Bloc in California with the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers and the National Disability Vote Alliance.

Teresa Favuzzi, holds an MSW with a concentration in Community Organizing from San Francisco State University, and has lived with an autoimmune disorder since the age of 5. Teresa is a recent Alumnus of the Sierra Health Foundation Leadership Program. She has served on the California 1115 Waiver Stakeholders Committee, California Consortium on Emergency Preparedness and Developmental Disabilities, Easy Voter Guide Advisory Committee, the Office on Disability and Health Advisory Council, Governor’s Emergency Partnership Advisory Workgroup, Advisory member to Department of Social Services Functional Assessment Service Teams, Disability in the Media Advisory Board, the Sacramento Lambda Community Center Board of Directors, and the Resolve to Stop the Violence Advisory Board.

Active in statewide networks for Disability Rights and Queer Rights she is particularly interested in building local and statewide coalitions to work on public policy issues that impact our lives.

Left: Laura Rifkin, Right: Bernice Soohoo Lee

Left: Teya Schaffer, Right: Jackie Winnow (1947-1994)

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