Playing War

About Kathy Beckwith

Kathy Beckwith is a mediation trainer from Dayton Oregon having worked for over two decades with schools (K-12) and community mediation programs. She has mediated for parent/teen victim/offender and neighborhood mediation cases and volunteers as a school mediation coach. Kathy is an author. Her most recent book is A MIGHTY CASE AGAINST WAR: What America Missed in U.S. History Class and What We (All) Can Do Now published by Dignity Press. She is also author of the picture book Playing War; a YA novel Critical Mass dealing with sexual abuse in the lives of teens; and two books related to problem-solving an elementary school curriculum guide DONT SHOOT! We May Both Be on the Same Side and a picture resource book If You Choose Not to Hit: A Dozen Skills That Make Kids Powerful Problem-Solvers. Kathy is a graduate of Northwest Nazarene University Nampa Idaho (Business Administration) and did a semester of advanced study with the University of the Seven Seas (World Campus Afloat now Semester at Sea). She and her husband Wayne were Peace Corps Volunteers in India working with a horticulture program in Karnataka. She is a mom and grandma and a baker of blackberry pies in the summer. Lea Lyon is an award-winning childrens book illustrator painting teacher and portrait artist who has made a childhood dream come true. Lea loved to draw and paint as a child and she wanted to be a childrens book illustrator.  She ended up raising a family going back to school for an MBA and working in the corporate world but she kept painting. Now at long last Lea is a childrens book illustrator with five published picture books: Say Something Playing War Keep Your Ear on the Ball (all with Tilbury) The Miracle Jar and Operation Marriage. She lives in Richmond California.