With masters in Counseling Psychology and Transformative Language Arts, Patricia Fontaine taught Women's Studies and social justice for the past 20 years. She has designed and led workshops that interrupt oppression, and as a woman with a facial birthmark, her work also challenges culturally imposed beauty and appearance norms. She currently teaches classes using expressive art and writing as a refuge for those living with illness and their caregivers. Patricia survives a medley of cancers, and self-published a book of poems, Lifting My Shirt: The Cancer Poems. She lives on the edge of a big lake in Northwestern Vermont with birds, wind, and a grand collection of friends and family.