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Ruth Forman is a highly acclaimed writer and poet, as well as a former teacher in the Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley. At Safe Harbor, Ruth guides women in early recovery to reconnect with themselves, taking them on a spiritual healing journey through contemplative writing.

Her first book, We Are The Young Magicians, won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize and wide acclaim for its fresh approach to poetry, as well as a listing by the American Library Association as a 2001 Popular Paperback for Young Adults. In its starred and boxed review, Booklist said, "Ruth Forman['s]... poems are alive and kicking; they pound and pulse with a hard-won sense of self, beauty, femininity, and strength…”

Renaissance, Ruth Forman's second book, fulfills the promise of her debut and is written with the same irrepressible voice. Of these poems, Sonia Sanchez said, "Hers is a commitment to the possibilities of life, joy, and beauty though terrible at times on this earth. What an impressive rich song she sings." This second book won the 1999 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetry, and received a nomination by Beacon Press for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is widely anthologized.

Forman credits much of her vision and inspiration from voices not only before her, but those singing at this very moment. "We are not individuals, but a chorus." When not writing and teaching, she spends her free time practicing another passion, tai chi sword. Her latest project is a children’s book, Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon, (Children’s Book Press, 2007). Forman teaches at The University of Southern California.