Cynthia Gustavson has blossomed from constrictive roots to make expression her life’s work. She’s an outspoken public policy advocate, innovative educator, an academic with many accreditations, and a devoted social worker and therapist.

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Cynthia is best known for a variety of award-winning titles, including her poetry collection, Please Use This For Children and Not for War and Guns, children’s books Ballad of the Rag Man and Bully! The Big Book for Bullies and the Bullied, and her bestselling series of poetry therapy workbooks In-Versing Your Life. She’s contributed a chapter on the use of poetry in therapy for the textbook Expressive Therapies for Sexual Issues (Springer Press), and she’s a contributing author to The Speaker Anthology.

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Outside of her acclaimed writing career, she is a social worker and therapist with over 30 years of experience. Cynthia also serves on the editorial board of the acclaimed Nimrod International Journal in Tulsa. It’s a full life made more meaningful by strong family bonds with her husband of 40 years and her two grown children.

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The prose in her latest book, Between Tahlequah and Tulsa, combines her time-honored flair for evoking pastoral scenery with a newfound muscular emotionality and a brave declarative voice. Unapologetically, she addresses Native American rights, spirituality, blunt political discourse, and the new frontier dream of 1960s.

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I grew up in a family where it was difficult to express feelings. Poetry felt like my only outlet. – Cynthia Gustavson