JoyaWinwood was born and raised in Long Beach, California.  She has played guitar since she was twelve.  She was inspired to play by watching a fourteen year old girl lead one-hundred kids in song at a YMCA summer camp program in the San Bernardino Mountains.    It was night time around a campfire.  Stars, breezes, pine trees, trails, and singing together sparked her joy and desire to play and perform music.

     Santa Cruz, California has been Joya's home for much of her adult life.  In 1986 she went to her first Mothersong gathering when she was pregnant with her second child.  She enjoyed singing along with other moms.

"We are the flow, we are the ebb,
We are the weavers, we are the web"

     Four years later Debra Bone, the founder of Mothersong, and Copperwoman asked Joya if she would like to take the torch for Mothersong gatherings.  She accepted, and the gatherings grew from two to twenty-two per month over an eighteen year period.

     Two CDs and a DVD later, there are three Mothersongs in the U.S. and one in New Zealand.  Her idea of a good time would for HUNDREDS of Mothersongs on the planet.

     Joya is attracted to multicultural songs because they say to her -

We are human beings on a planet.

It's amazing!
We like to sing about it.

     Joya intends Mothersong to provide an opportunity for families to explore, imagine, create, affirm, surrender, take a stand, take a seat, and celebrate the human experience.

     Joya received the United Way's Community Hero Award in 2005.

Mothersong - Joya Winwood
Phone: (831) 426-2935  Email: