We are thrilled to announce that our 2026 conference Poetry as a Pathway to Peace will be held Wednesday, April 15 - Sunday, April 19, 2026 in the beautiful city of Chicago! Joining us as our Keynote Poet will be the Illinois Poet Laureate Mark Turcotte. Perie Longo will give our Keynote Address. Nile Lansana will be featured as our Opening Event and Jessica Young will be closing our conference. Beth Jacobs and Barbara Kreisberg will be leading our Wednesday Day Trip. In addition, there will be a wide range of workshops to bring us all together again!

Our Call for Proposals is now open. Click here for instructions. Proposals are due September 15, 2025.

Click here to book your rooms at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Chicago Downtown at the discounted NAPT group rate. The rate will be available until March 22, 2026. We encourage you to use this link to book your rooms as booking outside the group or with third parties results in NAPT paying extra fees. 

Our 2026 Keynotes & Special Events

Newly named as the 6^th Illinois Poet Laureate, Writer Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan.

Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993 Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city’s thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award.  Soon thereafter he was selected by Ms. Brooks as a Significant Illinois Poet and was named to the Illinois Authors Poster. During that time Turcotte was awarded the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. 

Turcotte is author of the books, The Feathered Heart; Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise; a bilingual collection, Le Chant de la Route; and Exploding Chippewas (Northwestern Univ Press).  His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals. His poem, The Flower On, was part of the Poetry Society of America’s inaugural Poetry In Motion project, which placed poetry placards on public transportation in cities across the United States. He is included in the new and first ever Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. His poem, “Dear New Blood,” was recently featured on the poetry podcast, Poetry Unbound. Turcotte was the recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Award and his work is included in the NEA/Poetry Foundation project Poetry Out Loud. 

In 2008 he completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University. Afterward he served as the 2008-2009 Visiting Native Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He now lives in Chicago with his wife, Susan, and since 2009 has been Senior Lecturer and Distinguished-Writer-In-Residence in the English Department at DePaul University.

Perie J. Longo, PhD, Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Poetry Therapist, has been in private practice and active in the National Association for Poetry Therapy since 1990. She served as Executive Director (2003-05) and President (2005-07), as well as a long-time mentor/ supervisor. In 1998 she received their Outstanding Achievement Award. In 2000 she was the keynote speaker for their annual conference and in 2004 she was given the “Distinguished Service Award.” In 2018 she was honored with NAPT’s Pioneer Award. Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara (2007-09), she has authored four books of poetry: Milking the Earth, The Privacy of Wind, With Nothing behind but Sky: a journey through grief, and the latest, Baggage Claim. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, International Poetry Review, Nimrod, The Paterson Literary Review Prairie Schooner, Passager, Solo, Salt and Rattle.

Since 1986 she has been a poet-in residence at many local schools through California-Poets-in-the-Schools and teaches poetry privately as well as being on the literary staff of the national Santa Barbara Writers’ since 1984. She currently facilitates weekly Poetry Writing for Bereavement at Hospice (since 2004) and just retired from Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara where she did poetry therapy groups weekly for 33 years. In 2005 she was invited by the University of Kuwait to speak about the power of poetry as a path for healing and peace. She is poetry chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. In 2012 she received the Woman of Achievement Award from the Santa Barbara Chapter of Women in Communication. 

Nile Lansana is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. His work is centered around revealing radical truths and amplifying marginalized voices and narratives through a lens of Black imagination. He was nominated for a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award in

2024 and the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate position in 2023. He won the UW-Madison 2021 Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize, the 2021 Esther Rose Goodman Prize for Excellence in Journalism, 2020 George B Hill Poetry Prize, and the 2018 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Awards. His first cinepoem was featured in Ajanae Dawkins’ Portable Paradise gallery exhibition at Urban Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio in 2024. He holds fellowships from the Rebuild Foundation and Obsidian Foundation. He is currently an inaugural awardee of the Healing Arts Chicago apprenticeship, teaching writing workshops at the Lawndale Mental Health Center. He’s graced stages across the country, including Lollapalooza, the Kennedy Center and the Auditorium Theater. He’s just trying to be even better than he was the last time! He is a proud uncle and the oldest of four Black boys.

Jessica Young is an Associate Professor Emerita at Columbia College Chicago and the 2020 recipient of the American Dance Therapy Association’s President’s Award and Excellence in Education Award. Her 25-year career spans serving those who are homeless with severe and chronic mental illness to educating master’s students in Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) and undergraduates in Arts in Health and wellness. She has facilitated over 35 peer reviewed conference presentations nationally and internationally. Her research and publications focus on the therapeutic movement relationship; DMT as a strengths-based practice; bridging DMT and drama therapy; DMT theory, practice, and education; and wellness programming. Her clinical expertise is rooted in harm reduction, motivational interviewing, healing centered engagement, and trauma informed care as she guides individuals, groups, and communities along their journey of health, healing, and well-being. Currently, Jessica is the Behavioral Health Supervisor for the Ascension Autism Spectrum & Developmental Disorders Resource Center. She also practices at New Prairie Counseling Center, provides clinical supervision, and is on faculty at the Embodied Education Institute of Chicago.