Fred Lehr: While I am an ordained pastor, what probably describes better is that I am an incurable behavioral scientist.  I am entirely consumed with the wonder of how people relate to themselves and to each other.  How do organization manage?  What are all the ins and outs of family life?  What makes it all work?

Rosie Whitehouse: I am a journalist and for the last four years I have been specialising in the story of what happened to Holocaust survivors after the Second World War. My new book The People on the Beach: Journeys to Freedom After the Holocaust (Hurst, 2020) traces the story of why and how the Jews left Europe after 1945. I am currently working on a new book about my husband’s family and their experiences in France during World War II.

Janet Ruth Heller is president of the Michigan College English Association. She has published three poetry books: Exodus (WordTech Editions, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). The University of Missouri Press published her scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama (1990). Fictive Press published Heller’s middle-grade chapter book about sibling rivalry, The Passover Surprise (2015, 2016). Her children’s book about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 6th edn. 2018), has won four national awards. 

You could say my life has been anything but conventional. I always called myself a gypsy, traveling to many places and reinventing myself many times. I have worked with iconic legends like Martha Graham and Elizabeth Taylor, and lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Bali, Indonesia. While working with the San Francisco Ballet on the Opening Night Gala in 2010, I left on that dark and rainy evening and stepped into a deep pothole, breaking both my feet. With months of recuperation ahead, I was given the opportunity to write my novel, Wolf Den Hollow: one that had been waiting to be told for over thirty years.

Dr. Jeff Spiess is the author of Dying with Ease: A Compassionate Guide for Making Wiser End-of-Life Decisions. He has spent his medical career with people facing serious illness and death, first as an oncologist, then as a hospice physician. He has lectured extensively and has been recognized as a leader in the field of end-of-life care. He has observed, through extensive clinical experience and innumerable conversations with the dying and those caring for and about them, the burden of unnecessary or avoidable suffering and distress engendered by the American tendency to avoid facing death as an inevitable personal reality. His medical practice and writing are informed by his interest in philosophy and theology, and he finds additional insights in depictions of dying in literature, including sacred texts, music, and popular culture. His writing provides information and inspiration, challenging readers to honestly encounter their own mortality to both die better and live more fully.

After graduating from Loyola Marymount University with a BA in Technical Theater, Michele Kwasniewski spent over fifteen years in film and television production. Starting out as a film set assistant on movies such as INDEPENDENCE DAY, FACE/OFF, PRIMAL FEAR, and EVITA, she worked her way up to production manager on TV shows including BIG BROTHER. She is also a proud member of the Producers Guild of America. Michele’s colorful experiences in the industry inspired her to write THE RISE AND FALL OF DANI TRUEHART series. Michele lives in San Clemente, California with her husband, their son, and their disobedient dachshund. RISING STAR is her first young adult novel.

Kevin T. Myers is the author of Hidden Falls (Beaufort Books), which came out in July. He proudly hails from Peabody, Massachusetts. He is a former stand-up comic and comedy writer. He has appeared on the Comedy Channel and was featured on 20/20. His jokes have been told at colleges, clubs, on the Tonight Show, and on Broadway. His essay “The Power of Compassion” aired nationally on NPR’s "This I Believe" series. He has worked as a journalist and editor in newsrooms from New Hampshire to Alaska, where he ran the Capital City Weekly. He has worked in higher education as a speechwriter, a spokesperson, and a media, government, and public relations liaison. He is currently the spokesperson for Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Brooklyn born Carol Schlanger lives in both rural Oregon and West L.A. She has been married for 45 years, has two children and two grandchildren. As an award winning actress and writer, her work has been nominated for an Obie, an Emmy and her memoir Hippie Woman Wild, won the 2020 gold Independent Publisher’s award. She has 3 LA Dramalogue Critics Awards for performance and writing and won the LA Playwright’s Monologue Slam. An artist-in-residence for the Jewish Woman’s Theater, she has been in serious demand as a storyteller and performed in varied well- known venues throughout Los Angeles and New York. An almost graduate of Yale Drama, she has written for Imagine Entertainment, two T.V. pilots for CBS and her plays have been published by the National Organization of Women’s Playwrights and the Theatre of Note. She can chop wood, light a fire and everyone loves her lasagna.

Dr. Steven R. Feldman is Professor of Dermatology, Pathology, Social Sciences & Health Policy, and Molecular Medicine & Translational Science at the Wake Forest School of Medicine.   He serves on the Medical Board of the National Psoriasis Foundation and directed psoriasis education programs for the American Academy of Dermatology.  According to Expertscape.com (on January 11, 2019), Feldman was the #1 expert in the world on psoriasis (and on acne and on dermatology!). He is the co-author of the book, WHEN WILL IT EVER GO AWAY: PRACTICAL ANSWERS TO YOUR COVID-19 QUESTIONS.

Diane Nine is the President of Nine Speakers, Inc. is a full service entertainment agency representing people across the world in a number of areas including the literary, lecture, theatrical, film, and television arenas.  Diane is a graduate of George Washington University’s Law School.  She is the author of BE AN AUTHOR, and her latest book, MY LIFE WITH HELEN: THE DEAN OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS THROUGH HER AGENT’S EYES.

Barbara Mahany is an author and freelance journalist in Chicago, who writes these days about stumbling on the sacred amid the cacophony of the modern-day domestic melee. She was a reporter and feature writer at the Chicago Tribune for nearly 30 years, and before that a pediatric oncology nurse at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Her first book, Slowing Time: Seeing the Sacred Outside Your Kitchen Door, has been called “a field guide into the depths of your holiest hours;” Publishers Weekly named it one of their Top 10 religion books for Fall 2014. She has since written three other books, including her latest, THE STILLNESS OF WINTER: Sacred Blessings of the Season (October 2020), a compendium of mediations, essays, recipes, and prayers rooted in the depths of winter’s months, from Abingdon Press.

Rodney Sadler - As a decorated police officer, my ability to document Michigan serial killer Don Miller's case comes from a unique perspective.  For my entire thirty year career in law enforcement, I unknowingly fostered relationships with many of the key people involved in the investigation, prosecution, and even the defense of the killer.  The list includes acquaintances of the killer, uniformed officers, detectives, prosecutors, judges, and even Miller's own defense attorney.

Philip Mann has begun a genre loosely called Jewish paranormal, which is to say, a non-existent genre. The best way to describe it, he believes, is a dark, Jewish version of Bewitched, a sixties comedy.

Veena Rao was born and raised in India but calls Atlanta home. A journalist by profession, she is the founding editor and publisher of NRI Pulse, a popular Indian-American newspaper. Although her day job involves news reports, interviews, and meeting press deadlines, she devotes her spare time to creative writing and long walks in the woods. Purple Lotus, her debut novel, is the winner of the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest.

Born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in St. Louis, Missouri, Marian O’Shea Wernicke is the eldest of seven children. She was a nun for eleven years and spent three years working in Lima, Peru, during that time. She is a former professor of English and creative writing at Pensacola State College and the author of a memoir about her father called Tom O’Shea: A Twentieth Century Man. She also coedited and contributed to an award-winning book of short fiction and memoir called Confessions: Fact or Fiction? Marian is married to Michael Wernicke, and they are the parents of three adult children. After many years in Pensacola, Florida, they now live in Austin, Texas.

Heidi McCrary is the youngest of five children. She has worked in the media world all her life; she spent many years with the West Michigan CBS TV station, and is currently in the advertising marketing industry. She is also a contributing writer for a regional women’s magazine. Embracing all that West Michigan has to offer, Heidi can often be found in one of the many wonderful towns along the Lake Michigan shoreline, or on the local golf course, working on her goal of becoming a mediocre golfer. She lives with her husband, Jon, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, just a short drive from Alamo, where she grew up, and owns the family woods depicted in Chasing North Star. Her two sons, Tyler and Phillip, are doing great despite being raised by a mother with no formal training. Chasing North Star is her first novel. She currently resides in Kalamazoo, MI.

Joseph A. Esposito is an historian, writer and educator. He served in three presidential administrations, most recently as a deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. He also held various positions over eleven years at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was a working group chair for the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. He has taught history at three colleges, and is currently an adjunct associate professor at Northern Virginia Community College.

Rikki West is a birdwatcher, book lover, and student of meditation who started training in Muay Thai at age sixty-two. She holds a bachelor’s in genetics from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s in integrative humanities from San Francisco State University. Her greatest passion is ideas, and her greatest thrill is understanding a new subject, perspective, or person. Thai kickboxing and meditation support her aspiration to awaken as much as possible before her lights go out. Now retired from a thirty-five-year high-tech management career, she is the mother of Lauren Magnolia and godmother of Morgan Lisa, and she lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her spouse, Jill.

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Bronte's Mistress, her first novel, was published by Atria Books in August 2020. Bronte's Mistress explores the scandalous historical love affair between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson, giving voice to the woman who allegedly corrupted her son’s innocent tutor and brought down the entire Brontë family. By day, Finola works in digital advertising.

Lan Cao is the author of Monkey Bridge and The Lotus and the Storm, and most recently of the scholarly work Culture in Law and Development: Nurturing Positive Change. She is a professor of law at the Chapman University School of Law, and an internationally recognized expert specializing in international business and trade, international law, and development. She has taught at Brooklyn Law School, Duke University School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and William & Mary Law School. Harlan Margaret Van Cao graduated from high school in June 2020 and will be attending UCLA. She was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, and moved to Southern California when she was ten.