Rita Bregman is a poet, published photographer, video producer, editor, poetry teacher, singer, performance artist, playwright, feminist and mother who has been in love with the written, spoken, and sung word since birth. By age six, she was writing stories; at eight, she began singing, and at ten became the youngest voice student ever accepted into the Juilliard School. The daughter of an inventor and printer, she developed an early eye for the literary and visual arts. After creative writing study, children's theatre founding and management, and public relations consulting, photography, writing and performing poetry became her principal artistic venues, and she has recently branched out into video producing.

In 1996, she became co-director of the Berkeley Arts Center's Poetry Reading Series, and in l998, she was approached by Bay Area publisher Manto Press to co-author the first volume in Elegant Conversations in an historic three-part series in collaborative poetry. "On Amethyst Glass: Two Voices, One Song," was released in 2000 (one of her poems from this volume, "Afternoon," has become an art song by New York composer Myrna Schloss). In 2001, Rita edited the second volume in Manto Press' three-part poetry series, "Seen From Here and There." (Salome/Shaw).

In 2000, she made a second trip to Paris to collaborate, with poet/artist Sean McGinnis, in the co-creation of yet another unique book, "The Seine Says," a poetic dialogue between a gay American man from the midwest who lives in Paris, and a straight American woman from the east coast who lives in California. Rita's latest and first solo poetry manuscript, "Every Sleeping Thing," was completed in 2002.

Believing that every poem is a monologue meant to be read aloud, Rita has joined with composers, musicians, dancers, and other poets to perform her work in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Tucson, Los Angeles, and Paris.

Rita Bregman's photography has appeared regularly in numerous Bay Area publications including the cover of The San Francisco Examiner Sunday Datebook magazine. She had her first photography exhibition in 1999, and recently produced her first video, "About Earth Island." Her photographs of Italy and France have this year been chosen by New York jewelry designer Robin Steele to be featured with a new line of Ms. Steele's fashion jewelry.