Our already prestigious list of guest speakers has grown to include a diverse selection of individuals. Writers, theologians, performers, leaders of industry, masters of Tai Ji, and mythologists. All with a common connection -- myth. Like gold spun from flax, the thread of our list just keeps on lengthening:

Huston Smith is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Syracuse University. For fifteen years, he was Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and for a decade before that he taught at Washington University in St. Louis. Most recently he has served as Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Holder of twelve honorary degrees, Smith's fourteen books include The World's Religions, which has sold over two-and-a-half million copies, and Why Religion Matters, winner of the Wilbur Award for the best book on religion published in 2001. In 1996, Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS Special to his life and work. His film documentaries on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won international awards, and The Journal of Ethnomusicology lauded his discovery of Tibetan multiphonic chanting as "an important landmark in the study of music." Says Bill Moyers, "America's religious landscape is changing before our eyes, and no one has done more to prepare us for the new religious reality than Huston Smith."

Scott Livengood is the CEO of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation. In addition to leading to astonishing success, he uses a degree in industrial relations and psychology to employ mythology as a strong foundation for his successful company and his personal philosophy. He developed the Krispy Kreme “mythodology” and runs the company based on the ideas in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Scott has also agreed to join the Mythic Imagination Board of Directors.

Tom Key, the talented Atlanta-based actor renowned for his performances in Cotton Patch Gospel, and the one-man show, C.S. Lewis on Stage, is the artistic director of the award-winning Theatrical Outfit.

Ellen Kushner is a  writer, producer and storyteller who hosts the WGBH Radio's award-winning series Sound & Spirit, which Bill Moyers calls "the best program on public radio, bar none." She is the author of fantasy novels Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners, The Fall of the Kings, and Thomas the Rhymer.

Gregory Schremp is Associate Professor of Folklore and co-director of the graduate program in Mythology Studies at Indiana University, where he teaches myth, cosmology and worldview, comparative mythology, and the history of ideas. He is the author of Magical Arrows: The Maori, the Greeks, and the Folklore of the Universe (New Directions in Anthropological Writing.)

Chungliang Al Huang is a highly regarded and internationally respected Tai Ji master and authority of East-West cultural synthesis. His unique approach to Tai Ji allows students to first experience the joy of physical awareness and Tai Ji's natural principles, before engaging in its determinant components. He is the author and co-author of numerous books on Tai Ji, mind-body-spirit integration, and Taoism as it relates to business, performance and daily life, including the best-selling classic Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain: The Essence of Tai Ji, which has celebrated its 30th anniversary and been translated into twelve languages. He is a research fellow at the Academia Sinica, a member of the World Academy of Art and Science, recipient of the Republic of China's Gold Medal of Education, and founder of The Living Tao Foundation. Unfortunately, Chungliang Al Huang will only be able to appear on the final day of the conference.

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of Sister Noon, Sarah Canary and her most recent release, The Sweetheart Season. Her numerous short stories are often nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards, and have appeared in magazines like Asimov's, Omni, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, as well as in The Year's Best Science Fiction, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and Writers of the Future. Her work has been collected in Black Glass, Peripheral Vision, and Artificial Things. Her poetry has been published in The California Quarterly, The Centennial Review, The Ohio Journal and The Plains Poetry Journal. Ms. Fowler has instructed at Stanford University, Cleveland State University, and the Clarion Writers Workshops.

Be sure to take a look at the Web site for a complete list of participants.