Wayne is a retired teacher and teacher of teachers. He has degrees in English, history and religion, as well as extensive graduate study in philosophy and educational psychology.  Since retiring in 2012, he has published three chapbooks: Magmamystic, From the Ashes, and, most recently, Sacred Chill, poems written during the first year of the Pandemic. Before the Pandemic, Wayne was in demand as a poet-performer, sometimes jamming with jazz musicians.

Wayne was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2005. He took refuge in poetry and has written over 325 poems about his experience living with Parkinson’s; he calls these poems “parkiejazz.” Since the Pandemic began, Wayne has led a monthly poetry workshop for a group of Davis Phinney Foundation Ambassadors and facilitated poetry workshops for Parkinson’s support groups all over the US and Canada. He has also led workshops and programs both online and in-person for The Victory Summit® Event. He refers to this work as Metaphor Medicine. Making and sharing poems is an effective way to fulfill the Davis Phinney Foundation’s commitment to “help people with Parkinson’s live well today!”

Wayne is co-founder of Reconnect with Your Body, a Dance for PD® affiliated class and performance company, a Poetry Partner of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, co-founder of Us-in-a-Box Theatre Workshop, and the founder/facilitator for several years of Unlocked Poetry, a monthly poetry workshop for incarcerated poets in a Colorado maximum security prison. In 2018, Wayne received the Colorado Governor’s Creative Leadership Award. He is a husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle.