Interview with author, composer, and TEDX speaker Kathleen Macferran

Kathleen Macferran is a facilitator, author, teacher, Certified Trainer and Assessor for the Center for Nonviolent Communication and the owner of Strength of Connection. She has spent much of her life bringing harmony to communities through music, including two decades as a classical music conductor and seven years as a public-school music teacher. Kathleen loves children and believes music and giraffes (the main characters in her children’s books) have much to teach us about interdependent social living. Central to Kathleen’s work is a vision for a peaceful, just, and sustainable world. Kathleen’s website is www.StrengthofConnection.com where her TEDx talks, books, workshops and music can be found. • Author of How Giraffe Found Their Hearts and How Giraffes Got Their Ears, children’s story picture books, and • Conductor for Giraffe Tales, a children’s CD setting these stories to music • Co-author with Jared Finkelstein of Choice: A field guide for navigating the polarization of our world and living interdependently • Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) • TEDxTalks: Houses of Healing, TEDxMonroe Correctional Complex; The Art of Listening, TEDxRainier; Fearless Women, TedxSeattle • Conductor on multiple Rainier Chamber Winds classical music recordings THE STORIES Giraffe Tales is a two-book series of beautifully illustrated children’s picture story books that are also set to music and narrated in the digital ePub editions. Giraffes, one of the land animals with the largest hearts, are sometimes referred to as symbols of Nonviolent Communication since our hearts are where we hold the feelings and needs we most cherish. In How Giraffes Got Their Ears, the giraffes find joy when they are able to hear the beautiful feelings and needs in all hearts, in other words, when they are able to empathize with each other. How Giraffes Found Their Hearts is a story of the importance of being connected to our own hearts so we can live from our own values and joy.