Rebecca is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in various publications including (alphabetically) Elle, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The NYT Magazine, Salon, Vogue (contributing editor 1999-2020). Johnson is the author of the novel And Sometimes Why. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.

Bex lives in France with her husband and their dog. She is the author of the novels (Under Bex Brian) Promiscuous Unbound and Radius. At present, she’s working on a new novel entitled, Finnick

Mackenzie is a writer, editor, and student in her junior year at UC Berkeley. She began her writing journey at age 10, publishing a fiction series on her own blog. Now studying Classics, she is passionate about language and storytelling—and plans to pursue a PhD, assuming she has the gumption to survive the eight arduous years of graduate school.

Emily is a Chicago writer, poet, and visual artist who includes her poems in her art. In 2019, Calvo was noted as one of “30 Writers to Watch” by Chicago’s Guild Literary Complex. Her poems have been published in Wherever I’m At, After Hours, and other print and online publications. A grant from Chicago’s Department of Culture and Special Events helped her self-publish her collection of poems, Lending Color to the Otherwise Absurd. She also collaborated with poet Nikki Giovanni, as the illustrator for Standing in the Need of Prayer. She recently completed a memoir about her relationship with her gay father titled, Not Just Another Gay Dad Story—and 6000 Tapes to Prove It. Visit emilycalvo.com for more. 

Katie’s work has appeared in The Citron Review, The James Franco Review, The Voices Project, The Middlesex Review, The Dead River Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Bennington College. Katie is now working on a memoir exploring the depths of her family’s struggles with poverty and mental illness.

Amanda is a writer, host of the Grief Trails podcast, founder of RememberGrams, and a proud Adirondack 46er. She has been published in Slate Magazine, The KeepThings, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She is working on a memoir about her long trek through grief, love, and nature as she hiked the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. Find her on Instagram @AmandaKernahanWrites or on Substack @AmandaKernahan. She lives in Rochester, NY with her husband, two children, and their big loveable German Shepard.

Ona's new memoir, Everywhere I Look, is about sisterhood, longing, true crime, and family secrets. Her nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Utne Reader, and been named Notable in The Best American Essays. She teaches creative writing to teenagers with disabilities.

Julieanne is a former federal prosecutor from Washington, D.C. She prosecuted numerous cases involving sex crimes against women and children. She also played a leading role in the prosecution of one of the leaders of the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. Julieanne lives in New York City with her husband, an FBI agent, and is writing a novel.

Alice is recently retired from a long career in health care. Always a story- teller, she is now putting her stories to paper, one key stroke at a time. Her essays have been published in The Denver Post, The American Journal of Nursing-Reflections and in the upcoming winter edition of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt. Alice lives in Littleton, Colorado with her husband and yellow lab Cassie.

After a long corporate marketing career, Jill is now happily instead using her words as a writer. Her work has been published in the New York Times “Tiny Love Stories” (newspaper and book), the Boston Globe Magazine, Multiplicity Magazine and elsewhere. While she identifies as a New Yorker, since 2020 she’s been living in the state of Florida and sometimes denial. It can happen when you love a golfer.

Anne has written, produced and directed many award winning films (see MakepeaceProductions.com). In 2008- 2009, she received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in support of her film work. Late in 2019, Makepeace left the film world to write fiction. She spent 2020 adapting an unproduced screenplay into a novel. In 2021, inspired by a workshop called “Memory Into Fiction,” she began writing stories for a linked collection, tentatively called Curiosity. “Temptation” is the fourth story in that collection. She is now revising all ten stories in hopes of publishing the book in 2025.

Eve is a journalist and author currently scraping out a tiny living crafting police reports for newspapers in New York and Oregon. She is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and other titles bearing some relation to her stint editing Penthouse Forum and other ribald publications. She makes her home in a rural seaside community near Portland, OR with her husband, R.J. Marx, a jazz saxophonist, and Lucy, their dog child.

Ann is the author of LIVING WITH A DEAD LANGUAGE; My Romance with Latin (Viking/Penguin, 2016) . Her essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Linga Franca, Society for Classical Studies, Oprah.com, The Bucket, Publishers’ Weekly, and The Toast. She was the founder and publisher of The Poseidon Press and an executive editor at Crown Publishers and Harcourt. She currently rusticates in the Hudson Valley, with her husband and dog.

N. West has had her work published in The New York Times, Salon, McSweeney’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere. She has published a memoir (Flesh and Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life, from Algonquin), a short story collection (The Subway Stops at Bryant Park, from Leapfrog), and a novel called Birdy forthcoming from Little, Brown. She can be reached on Instagram and Facebook.

Sallie is 85, lives back of beyond in Northern California with her painter-writer-mechanic husband, a grand dog, and two hawks (she’s a licensed falconer.) She had to live this long in order to become a decent human being. Her stories are here and there, her two novels are on Amazon.

Kresha is a writer living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. She is writing a memoir contrasting her days as a campus radical to her current role as the mother of a police officer and is in love with her first, tiny granddaughter, whom she finds a delightful distraction from other creative work. Kresha’s essays have been published in The Brevity Blog, The Bucket, Amethyst Review and anthologies including American Writers Review 2022 and the Proud to Be Anthology published by Southeast Missouri University Press. For a complete list of her work, please visit her website, www. https://kresharwarnock.com/. Follow her on Instagram @kresharwarnock or Twitter/X @krwwriter.

Vicki is co-author of the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You~A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013). She has had work published in Gravel Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Writer, Sleet Magazine, Damselfly Press, The Feminine Collective, and Tweetspeak Poetry. A personal essay is included in the anthology My Body My Words, edited by Loren Kleinman and Amye Archer. You can follow Vicki on Twitter @VickiAddesso.

Elizabeth earned her MFA in poetry at the age of 60. A Canadian author, she is inspired by nature—the nature of who we are, how we got here and how to live fully with each moment. Her work is forthcoming or has been published in anthologies: Voicing Suicide; The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling; Island Writer Magazine, Minerva Rising Press, and VanIsle Poetry Collective, and Beyond Words among others. You can find her on Instagram at @eadilman

Lesley is a psychotherapist and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She has been a staff editor at Money and Real Simple magazines (where she learned about frugality and the quickest way to clean a kitchen), and was a co-author of a New York Times column on the personal costs of healthcare, Patient Money. As the author of The Book of Times, published by HarperCollins in 2013, she revealed such scientific facts as how long it takes to get over a broken heart and how many hours of sleep your dog actually needs. Currently, Lesley writes about mental health for the Times and other national publications.

Jenny Allen's collection of essays, "Would Everyone Please Stop?", was a finalist for the Thurber Prize. Her one-person play, "I Got Sick Then I Got Better," premiered at New York Theatre Workshop, won the Gilda's Club "It's Always Something" award, and has been seen across the country. Jenny has been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times, and many other publications. She has sold her house and lives in New York City.

Photo by David Welch

Sherri has been a freelance writer for more than twenty years. She recently began writing creative nonfiction. Her essays have been published in Wild Greens Magazine, Five Minutes, and A Plate of Pandemic. After years of urban life in Washington, DC, and Baltimore, she now lives with her husband and two cats in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Michelle is the co-founder of La Porte Peinte Centre pour les Arts in France, an artists’ residency programme. A writer, artist, and editor, she wrote and illustrated The Japanese Way of Beauty and Awaiting a Lover and was formerly Editor in Chief of the Paris-based magazine Bloom. Her work has been published in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers and magazines in the USA, Japan, Italy and France. See here for more info.

Jenny’s essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, The Washington Post, Brevity, Speculative Nonfiction, Cordella, SweetLit, Blood Tree Literature, and Creative Nonfiction's "Sunday Short Reads" among other publications. She was a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction at Bellingham Review. JJenny lives outside of Washington DC, with her husband, a dog, a cat, five hens, and occasionally, two adult children. You can find Jenny’s work at jennyapostol.com

Carol Ardman is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times and many other publications. She is the co-author of five books about medical conditions for a lay audience. She is also the author off an e-memoir, Tangier Love Story: Jane Bowles, Paul Bowles and Me.

Aisha’s writing, published in The Rumpus, The Maine Review, River Teeth and elsewhere, reflects her attempts to root herself through place and perspective. As an Irish immigrant and late-diagnosed autistic female in a cross-cultural marriage, her work explores the legacy of trauma, the nature of being an outsider and the narrow confines of belonging.

She currently lives in Canada.

Morgan is an award-winning writer and professor at Emerson College. Her work is featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Brevity Blog, Talking Writing, The Bark, Cognoscenti, and Hippocampus, among many regional and national publications. She was also Managing Editor of The Bucket. Her most recent work is the memoir, “Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Goodbyes.” She lives with her husband and two dogs in Cambridge, where she also quilts and bakes. You can find out more at www.bymorganbaker.com.

Angela’s poems, translations, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Boulevard, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, The North American Review, The Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Grand Street, Field, Colorado Review, The New Republic, The Bennington Review, and elsewhere. Her sixth and most recent book of poetry is Talking Pillow (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). Awards for her work include an Individual Artist’s Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Sotheby’s International Poetry Prize, along with invitations to The Poetry International Festival and Chateau Lavigny Writers’ Retreat. She teaches in the Center for Writers, part of the School of Humanities at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where she lives with her dogs, Miss Bishop and Boy.

Melissa received her doctorate in chemistry from Columbia University. At her time at Columbia, she co-authored over ten publications and was awarded the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching for her efforts in the classroom. Melissa joined the Loo Group at Princeton University as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in 2019. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her daughter Margot and husband Mark, writing, cooking, and traveling. 

Ruth writes about family, adoption, mothering, Palestine, books, and capers. She lives not far from the ocean in Massachusetts with her partner, two kids and two ornery rescue cats. She is currently in the Essay Incubator at Grub Street. Her personal essay “Close By” was included in the anthology, An Adoption Reader: Birth mothers, Adoptive Mothers, and Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories.” Ruth was a long-time elementary school teacher in Massachusetts and directed an elementary school French program in Vermont. She sometimes dreams of living forever so she can read all the books.

Daphne is the author of the novel In the Land of No Right Angles and numerous essays, articles, and short stories. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, McSweeney’s, Open City, and The London Review of Books among other places. She’s been awarded fellowships by the New York Times Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and worked as an assistant editor at The New Yorker. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Pratt and is completing her second novel.

Elizabeth is a retired Professor of Anthropology. She has published seven books (most recently Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story), and now focuses on creative non-fiction. Her work appears in Under the Sun (winner, Readers' Choice Award 2022), Tangled Locks, Biostories, Streetlight, Ariel's Dream, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She placed third in the 2022 International Human Rights Art Festival's Creators of Justice Literary Awards.

Jessica is a director and community-engaged theater artist based in Brooklyn. She is the proud mom of two amazing young men. She has written about her theater work in American Theatre magazine and HowlRound. This is her first published personal essay.

Judy is the author of ASYLUM: A Memoir of Family Secrets from Mandel Vilar Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in major newspapers such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, essay anthologies, and literary magazines She is the recipient of writing fellowships from Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Mineral School. Judy is a three-time Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and BAE nominee.

Tommie returned to writing during the pandemic after decades designing and running programs for those suffering from Substance Use Disorder. Her work, including creative non-fiction and poetry, has appeared in Brevity Blog, VisualVerse, CounterMeasures, and Sojourner. This is her first CNF publication, a piece from her memoir about the long haul, conjoined challenges of trauma and addiction. She lives in New Hampshire, where she keeps watch on the Squamscott River and its birds.

Tricia’s poems have appeared in Portland Review, GEEZ Magazine, and The Winnow, among other publications, and her debut novel Wren won a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal. By trade, she is an editor and co-writer, mainly working for the National Park Service and Native tribes. She also writes a column at Patheos.com, ‘About Religion, Doubt, and Why They Matter.' In her free time, she relishes the four-legged menagerie on the Oregon farm where she resides.

Marguerite grew up in Sydney, Australia, where she published poetry in some anthologies and won a couple of prizes. When her poems became too long for traditional publication, she wrote a libretto for an opera based on a Bocaccio story from the Decameron. “The Remedy” was performed by the Sydney Metropolitan Opera company. Short films she wrote were shown at the National Film Institute in London and elsewhere. She currently lives in the south of France where she is experimenting in new forms of writing, such as the essay published here.

Linda spent 20 years running an award-winning agency and romping across six continents to speak on creativity and writing. Her essays on relationships have appeared in the New York Times Modern Love and Boston Magazine. She completed the Memoir Incubator at Grub Street and is working on a memoir about marriage, madness, and how martial arts saved her. https://lindabutton.works

Stephany has been telling her life stories for, well, as long as she has been on earth. Raised in San Francisco Peninsula and coming to Santa Cruz in 1970 as a happy hippie with no direction, she managed to find a passion in baking that directed her life. Beginning in natural foods baking she ended her career working at one of the premier culinary colleges in the country. Her journey has been both challenging and creative but always tasty. Her Memoir, Tasting Life Twice, is available on Amazon.

Michelle is a retired social worker and the author of Stealing; Life in America. She has 90+ publications in, among others, Able Muse, The Sun Magazine, North American Review, Under The Sun. Four of her essays have been among the most notable of the year, two have been Best of The Net, she has won the Hope Award and was runner-up in the Brooklyn Literary Arts contest. She lives in the currently iced over state of Maine.

Donna is the author of the 2018 book, A Year of Living Kindly. She considers herself an activist for kindness, though admits to occasional lapses into bitchiness. Her articles and essays have been featured in The Washington Post, Seattle Times, and numerous other publications. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she loves outdoor activities that require little or no coordination. Visit her website: https://ayearoflivingkindly.com.

Laura is a writer who lives in New York with her husband and their rambunctious terrier. When not writing, she’s in her studio making art or working with high school students as a writing tutor. She earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work can be found in Motherwell and in upcoming editions of Sonora Review and Hippocampus Magazine. Her memoir, PROOF OF LOVE, is out in the world seeking representation.

Bella is an award-winning author of three books, most recently Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? Finding Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book. A devoted wordsmith and spiritual psychology practitioner, Bella facilitates online writing circles for writers, artists, healers, and seekers. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including The Sun, Lilith, and the Brevity Blog. Visit her online at http://bellamahayacarter.com or on Instagram @bellamahayacarter.

Kerby has spent most of her life in Southern California. She earned a BA in Film Studies from the University of California at Irvine and an MA in education from Cal State Long Beach. After 20 years in education, she put pen to paper for more than just grading tests. Her work has been published in The Good Life Review, Months to Years, Lit Angels and MUTHA Magazine. "Treading Water" is a chapter from her memoir Oma and Me, still looking for a publisher. She is currently copy editing Lit Angels, Time by Design by Dr. Dawna Ballard, as well as working on her third novel, Facing Reality.

Rachel is the author of three novels including The Question Authority. On Killing Mom is an excerpt from a longer piece that she will probably never stop rewriting.

Marie (she/her) is a writer and poet. Her work has appeared in HerStry, Corvus Review, Scribes Micro, Bare Back Magazine and elsewhere. She is at work on a memoir about disenfranchised grief. Her website is www.mariecloutier.com.

Cynthia is the author of the essay "Letters to David," which won The Missouri Review Editors' Prize in 2007. She is also the author of the academic book Thinking Themselves Free: Research on the Literacy of Teen Mothers. Her essays have been listed as notable in Best American Essay anthologies and have appeared in The Missouri Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, and elsewhere.

Rosalind is a retired pediatrician and scientist who has published extensively – mostly on lipid metabolism rather than fiction or personal essays. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and Bella, her German shepherd. She will travel anywhere to see a Wagnerian opera and is writing a memoir.

Eileen writes true stories she wishes were fiction and fairy tales she wishes were true. Her essay collection, Love in the Archives: A Patchwork of True Stories about Suicide Loss is forthcoming in November with Apprentice House Press.

Vivian is a writer, librarian, and IT business analyst who lives in Manhattan. A native New Yorker, she grew up in a large Greek-Jewish clan in Brooklyn, graduated from Brooklyn College, and holds master’s degrees from Pratt Institute and Baruch College. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York magazine, Lilith, Narratively, Next Avenue, and Ducts. Her memoir is Losing the Atmosphere. More info at VivianConan.com.

Tova lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two kids, and two fur-babies. After spending 20 years in academia, Tova now spends her time writing creative non-fiction, making ceramic art, and raising her two children. She is currently working on a novel entitled, Death in the Humanities.

Trista is a writer, artist, and writing coach. Much of her work celebrates food—growing it, cooking it, and eating it. Recent essays have been published in Bacopa Literary Review, Farmer-ish, Oregon Humanities Magazine, and Taproot Magazine. Visit www.carrotcondo.com to see her art and read her essays. Visit @carrot.condo on Instagram to say hello.

Kim is co-editor of the multi-genre literary anthology The Boom Project: Voices of a Generation (Butler Books 2019) and is working to finish a full draft of memoir, We’ll Laugh About This Someday. Personal essays have appeared in The Louisville Literary Review, HerStry, 94 Creations, The New Southerner, Today’s Woman, the Louisville Anthology (Belt Publishing 2020), The Boom Project, and The New Social Worker. Kim edits a Medium.com publication, Landslide Lit(erary), where she publishes both prose and poetry.

Lana lives, writes, and plays in the city of Powell River, q̓at ̓ᶿət (qathet Regional District) on lands traditionally stewarded by the Tla’Amin First Nation on the West Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Lana's writing draws on waking dreams, voices, and visions that reveal the tender places where human truth, individuality, and courage intersect. You will find her work at CBC, The Globe and Mail, Truck Logger BC Magazine, and on the BC Writer’s 2022 Literary Contest Longlist. Lana is a regular contributor with The Powell River Peak, guest hosts Life Story Writing online (based in Waterloo, Ontario), and teaches Writing into the Sacred to community groups.

Karen is a retired accountant, recently relocating from Franklin, Tennessee, to Missoula, Montana, to be close to my grandchildren. My stories can be found in Potato Soup Journal, Horse Illustrated Magazine, pulsevoices.org, three Stories of Life anthologies, deadmule.com, and oldkaren.com.

Patty has written seven books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her novel, Mermaids, was made into a movie starring Cher, Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci. The Butterfly Hours was chosen as One of the Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers. She has written three Modern Love columns for The New York Times.

Sarah is a retired English teacher who taught in UK, India and Tanzania. She lived in Kolkata (Calcutta) for many years. She was married to a Bengali journalist. While in hospital last September, after an accident, she started writing. Outside writing and reading, her main interests are equestrian sports and the countryside. She is 80 years young.

Anne is a veteran photojournalist, portrait, and architectural photographer and writer based in Salisbury, Connecticut.

Her photographic work has appeared in TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, Vogue and other publications. As a photojournalist, she has covered events in Haiti, Cuba, South Africa and Namibia, as well as United States Presidential Inaugurations, marches, political conventions, school picnics, weddings, birthday parties and “grip and grin” events all over the world.

Caroline is a daughter, sister, wife, mother of twins, retired business owner, and champion of educational endeavors. A lifelong diarist, she has written for friends and family - wedding ceremonies to eulogies! - and is now ready to share her writing with the world.

Dawn lives, writes, and teaches in north central Mississippi. Her nonfiction has appeared in Barnstorm, Brevity, Literary Mama, Past-Ten, Poets&Writers, Solstice, Waterwheel Review, and Zone 3. She is co-author of Writing Together: Transforming Your Writing in a Writing Group and has a BM from Eastman School of Music and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Cathy is a freelance writer, essayist, former restaurant columnist, and word game enthusiast. She previously published an essay for The Inside Press, where she is a regular contributor, on her beloved Rolling Stones, In Honoring Charlie Watts, which got national attention and filled her cup. Cathy is also a regular feature contributor for Katonah Connect magazine. She has also been published in the online blog Storytelling at Work. She resides in Westchester County NY, with her partner John, their feisty Shih Tzu Ollie and is always looking forward to visits from her playwright daughter Avery who shares her love of language and storytelling.

Kimberly is a survivor of two marriages trying to stay sane in the crazy state of Florida. Her work has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Entropy, Montana Mouthful, Sunspot Literary, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature and other lit mags, and anthologies. She’s currently working on an essay collection and a memoir.

Saara is a freelance journalist. She has been published in The New York Times, The Observer, Salon, and Writer's Digest, among others.

Kathryn is an essayist, poet, and professor. Her personal essays have appeared in The Nassau Review (winner of the Writer's Award for Prose) and Still Point Arts Quarterly. Her poetry chapbook, Blue Ghosts, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. Other poems have appeared in journals such as Feed Literary Magazine, Press Pause Press, The Fourth River, and Blueline among others. She teaches literature and writing at the State University of New York, Delhi.

Sally is an award-winning collage artist and writer who considers herself a visual archeologist digging deep into American mythology. An incurable collector of vintage ephemera, that serves as a source for both her hand-cut collages and her writing, she draws heavily on popular culture and how it both informs our identities and fragments it.

Along with feminist icons such as Judy Chicago, her work is currently on view in “Agency: Feminist Art and Power” at The Museum of Sonoma County, CA until June 2022.

As a writer, her essays have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Independent, Next Avenue, N.Y. Daily News Next Tribe, Tablet and is she is the author-illustrator of This Year's Girl (Doubleday)

Told through both text and illustration her blog Envisioning the American Dream probes the ways that advertising and media steer out perceptions of race, class, and gender. Sally currently resides in Huntington, N.Y. with her yellow lab Stanley.

Amy is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, is a journalist published in Vermont Magazine, Manchester Journal, Grande Dame Literary Journal, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. She attended the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, is a graduate of the Brattleboro Retreat, studied with the poet Kate Grey, and has taken many classes at the Westport Writers’ Workshop. A retired Trauma-Sensitive yoga teacher, she lives and hikes in Vermont, and loves the “catch ‘em before they croak” bands like the Rolling Stones. She is currently at work on a memoir.

Alyssa is a writer, editor, and ceramicist, and has spent half her career behind a screen and the other half covered in porcelain. Please don't ask her to choose which is the better fit. This is the second piece of memoir she's submitted since her undergrad days. .She lives in Brooklyn, NYC, with her cat Prudence.

Kimberly is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Her novel, WHAT IS VISIBLE, was picked as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and named to several Best of 2014 lists. Kimberly's fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Glamour, Slice, The Village Voice, and Best New American Voices, among others. She was a Finalist for the National Magazine Award, and has also won a New York Moth Slam. www.kimberlyelkins.com

Mary Kay is a Seattle native, an acknowledged bibliophile, and former bookseller. She can be found curled up most anywhere with Jenny Diski, Helen Garner, Ali Smith, and other wordsmiths. Known as Fun Girl Feather in her youth, she is writing a memoir called The Trouble with Fun: a bookworm looks back at sex, drugs, and rock'n roll.

Ellen Ann’s essays have been published in The New York Times, Atlantic, Washington Post, Baffler, Oxford American and Bitter Southerner. Her memoir The Steps We Take : A Memoir of Southern Reckoning came out in September 2023. She teaches in Mississippi University for Women’s low-residency creative writing MFA program. Follow her @ea_fentress on Twitter or through www.ellenannfentress.com

Annette lives and works in London, UK. Her father is Sri Lankan and her mother is half Italian, half French. Annette has exhibited work across the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. Annette’s visual style is rooted in the realm of comic books, romantic pulp novels and film noir. See selected pieces in DPA+ and learn more here.

Amy Ferris is an author, editor, screenwriter & playwright. Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions from a Midlife Crisis (Seal Press) was adapted into an Off-Broadway play in 2012. She recently co-authored the book, Old School Love (HarperCollins, 2020) with Rev Run of RUN DMC fame. Amy serves on a variety of advisory boards supporting women and the arts. She co-founded the Milford Readers and Writers Festival which celebrates the written word. In 2019 she was named one of Women’s eNews 21 LEADERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, and she is Co-Director of The Story Summit Writer's School.

Andrea is a writer and educator living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an Editor at Brevity Blog and cofounder of Diablo Writers’ Workshop. Andrea was a finalist for The Missouri Review's 2021 Perkoff Prize in nonfiction. You can read her work at her website and find her on Instagram.

Leah was born and raised in New York. When not working her day job in real estate finance, you can find her drinking copious amounts of coffee, reading, writing, teaching yoga, and engaging in relentless social activism. She has been published in The Taoist blog, The Inclusion Solution blog, Call Me [Brackets], Dear Diary Zine Collective and Lady + the Smut magazine.

Iris is a Professor Emerita, NYU, is a retired academic and psychotherapist, known for published writings about feminism and women’s mental health. She is also a photographer. A recent focus is on memoir with poems and stories from a Bronx childhood. She has a son and a daughter and three granddaughters. She lives on the Upper West Side and Woodstock, New York.

Virginia writes overlooking Lake St Clair in Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines in Canada and USA, most notably, Read650, Southshore Review, Canada’s History Magazine, Talking Writing, and Dreamers Creative Writing. You can visit her at www.virginiafoley.com

Wendy’s work has appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Hippocampus Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, Short Reads, Sweet Lit, Sunlight Press and Under The Sun. She has received nonfiction prizes from Identity Theory, Hunger Mountain and Tiferet Journal, as well as nominations to the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthologies. A native New Englander, she currently resides in southern California and holds a master’s degree in creative writing.

Melissa is the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which was named one of “The Best Fiction Books of 2017” by the Chicago Review of Books as well as the story collection The Longest Pregnancy(Livingston Press, 2006). The University of Nebraska Press will publish her forthcoming collection of essays, The Perils of Girlhood. She founded the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, and also teaches creative writing at Purdue University. Melissafraterrigo.com

Lise's books include, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity. Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home, and Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents. She conceived, commissioned, and edited an anthology of original work, Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents. Her essays have appeared in Threepenny Review, Harper's, New England Review, Cimarron, Broad Street, Brevity, The Nation, New York Times, Chattahoochee Review, Oprah Magazine, National Geographic, TIME, Best African American Essays, and elsewhere. She is a lecturer in creative nonfiction at The University of Pennsylvania. www.lisefunderburg.com

Nina is a writer, visual artist and psychiatric nurse practitioner who spent the pandemic hunkered down across from the longest floating bridge east of the Mississippi with her dog, two cats, husband. Please visit www.ninagaby.com for a complete list of publications and images of Gaby’s mixed-media artwork.

Robin’s first novel, INVINCIBLE SUMMERS (ELJ Editions), was a Shelf Unbound 2018 Best Indie Notable 100 Book, runner-up in General Fiction at the Florida Book Festival, and semi-finalist in the Iowa Short Fiction Award & John Simmons Short Fiction Award. As a former music journalist, she started as a research intern at Rolling Stone before writing magazine and newspaper interviews and critiques. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Lit Break, Crack the Spine, Slice, The Citron Review, Redux: A Literary Journal, and Beyond the Plots Anthology. In addition, Robin writes a book blog at www.robingaines.net and facilitates writing workshops all over the world for Wide Open Writing. She has just finished her second novel, MOSAIC.

Marianne’s poems and essays have been published in print and online journals including Mudfish, CALYX, Oberon Poetry Magazine, and The Naugatuck River Review. Her chapbook, Do NOT Stop for Hitchhikers, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her career as a journalist is often reflected in the narrative style of her poetry. A committed humane volunteer, she does enrichment with stray and injured cats at her regional animal shelter, socializing them and preparing them for adoption. She lives, writes, and gardens in verdant Western Massachusetts, with her photographer-husband and two feline muses.

Nadia is a writer in Cambridge, MA. A former professional violinist with graduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music and Harvard, she has published in Bellevue Literary Review, Slag Glass City, Solstice Literary Magazine, Talking Writing, and Complete Sentence. In 2021, her essay, "Motherhood Requiem," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently working on a memoir about music, mental illness, and love.

Lirit is a Creative Writing student from the DMV and the Midwest. Her work has been published in the Fourth River and Pittsburgh Magazine. She currently lives in Pittsburgh.

Stephanie is a freelance author, journalist, and book doctor in Brooklyn, NY. Her first book, The Women Outside: Meanings and Myths of Homelessness (University of California Press, 1992) was a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and received Honorable Mention, Emily Toth Award (Women's Caucus, Popular Culture Association, American Culture Association). She’s also author of Slaying the Mermaid: Women and the Culture of Sacrifice (Harmony Books, 1998) and has written seven books with expert collaborators. Recently she’s been writing essays, which have appeared in The Startup, Aeon, Salon, Tricycle, Curator Magazine, and The Manifest-Station.

Vivian was born in New York City in 1936. She is the author of fifteen books and the recipient of numerous awards. Her most recent, Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader was published in 2020 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The Odd Woman and the City, from which her piece is excerpted, was published in May, 2015.

Katrina Irene writes in hopes that, by examining our complicated and sometimes troubling human experiences, we can create more compassion for our struggles. She has spent thirty fulfilling years as a psychotherapist in Portland, Oregon but her deepest love is still writing. So far this year, she has been published in Hot Pot Magazine and Glacial Hills Review, Literally Stories, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Katrina has never enjoyed cocktail parties but is quite fond of cocktails themselves. She is also fond of her husband.

Cynthia lives in New York City and Hiram Maine. Her writing has been published or soon will be by Exsolutas Press, Griffel, 10x10 Flash, Swallow Publishing, Alternate Route, Rogue Owl Press, The Common, Deep Overstock, Rubbertop Review, The Bridge: Journal of the Danish American Heritage Society, Maine Public, HuffPost, Spry Lit, Barren Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Résonance, Canadian Women’s Studies, the Washington Review, Bat City Review, Persimmon Tree, Garfield Lake Review, Kinder Link, the LA Review, Rattle, and Exchanges. She has been a Dorothy Parker fan for decades, thanks to her wonderful eighth-grade English teacher.

Sarah is a psychologist living in Brooklyn with her two daughters.

She has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University. In addition to her private practice, she teaches courses on trauma and international mental health at Mount Sinai Hospital system.

Lisa is a New York born and bred Metalsmith, Wordsmith, and Full Spectrum Doula. Both her art and doula work are focused on racial, social, sexual, and reproductive justice and equity. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Patricia is a writer, psychologist and musician who lives in the Boston area. Her previous articles and essays have appeared in Slate Magazine, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, WBUR's CommonHealth Blog and Psychology Today. She's also been interviewed in Australian ABC Radio's podcast, All in the Mind, on the topic of traumatic loss. An Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and graduate of Grub Street-Boston's Memoir Incubator, she's completing a work of narrative nonfiction, Grief in the Margins.

Kathleen is a fifth-generation native New Yorker whose work has appeared in Longreads, Craft, Creative Nonfiction, Sonora Review, McSweeney's, and The Rumpus, among others. She has also performed as a storyteller on The Moth Podcast, and co-hosts the 'What's Your Story?' live-reading series in northern New Jersey, where she lives with her husband and two teenaged children.

Janet Ruth is president of the Michigan College English Association. She has published four poetry books: Nature’s Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), 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. Her website is https://www.janetruthheller.com

Pamela is a creative writer and storyteller from Franklin, TN. She is the Assistant Editor at Proem Journal. Her writing is found at Heartland Society of Women Writers, Pure Slush, Little Old Lady Comedy, The MockingOwl Roost, Halfway Down the Stairs, Livina Press, Funny Pearls, Persimmon Tree and Crow’s Feet. Description goes here

Pia is a recovering journalist, writer, editor, open-water swimmer, and small business owner. Her writing has been published in Alta Journal, The FruitGuys Magazine, and The Dolphin Log. She is a co-author of The Court That Tamed the West: From the Gold Rush to the Tech Boom (Heyday). Currently at work on “Pia & The Elephant: A Daughter-Father Memoir,” about growing up with her buccaneer journalist dad. She lives in San Francisco with her entrepreneur husband Chris Mittelstaedt, and their deaf basset hound, Toby.

Jessica is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter writing and teaching in the West Village with Frida Catlo and Amelia MewHeart. As the founder of Meditative Writing, she is honored to work with award-winning showrunners, writers, producers, and recovering journalists to help TV, film, theatre, and prose writers suffer less and write more unique stories. She has an MFA in Writing from the New School for Drama and has studied creative nonfiction at City College of New York and Yale. For more information, please visit MeditativeWriting.org.  

Beth has published work in dozens of national publications, including Smithsonian and Natural History. She teaches writing at Rutgers University and Gotham Writers Workshops. She holds a bachelor’s of journalism from the University of Missouri and an MFA from Columbia University. Of her many honors, favorites include a year-long Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT and six-week trip to Antarctica with the National Science Foundation. She is currently working on a series of essays about farm life in New Jersey. Her favorite place to be is on the back of horse.

Lesley (she/her) is an Irish poet and artist living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and service dog. Her work is inspired by long walks, the human condition and all things Celtic. She loves popcorn, sunshine, Pink Floyd and the ocean. Her poetry is (or will be) published in The Hyacinth Review, Querencia Press and Cirque.

You can find her on Instagram & FB: @opentoabundance | Her writer’s website is: https://lesleyrogershobbs.com/ | She blogs at: https://opentoabundance.com/

Susan is a writer and educator. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Communication Arts, and more. Her short memoirs are published in assorted anthologies and literary journals; one was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a co-author of “Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance With Our Mothers” (Big Table Publishing, 2013). She has taught memoir writing for nearly 15 years. More at www.susanhodara.com.

Mary Beth is a Chicago writer and playwright and a 2021 winner of Nickie’s Prize for Humor Writing. Her short fiction has appeared in Hypertext and Halfway Down the Stairs, and her creative nonfiction has appeared in Hypertext and the Bacopa Literary Review. She has two memoir pieces published in anthologies: one in Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year and in Sisters! Her education includes an M.A. in English from the University of Illinois, Champaign, and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago.

Nancy is a settler descendant who writes, lives, and caregives on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (Ottawa, Canada). Thanks to Firefly Creative, Merritt Writers, and not-the-rodeo poets, she has work in American Literary Review, Citron Review, The Forge, Gone Lawn, Prairie Fire, and The New Quarterly. She’s won & been shortlisted for some awards while racking up a gazillion rejections, which hasn't stopped her from working on a collection of lyric essays about caregiving and ambiguous loss.

Laura is an elementary school learning specialist and author of two books for preschoolers: Who has These Feet? and Who Has This Tail? Her short stories for an older demographic have appeared in TulipTree Review and Imitation Fruit.

Mina is a retired college English professor. She currently oversees her family's farm in the panhandle of Texas, but lives in a Quaker retirement community in the Philadelphia area. She is the mother of DPA’s co-founder, Rebecca Johnson.

Sass is known as Canada’s Queen of Rock and has found herself working with and in the company of many of the people that inspired her to do what she does, amongst them the incomparable Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Steve Miller Band, Van Halen, The Foo Fighters, Cheap Trick, Santana, Joe Cocker, Styx, Rodger Hodgson, April Wine, Jeff Healy, and countless others. She has won various awards, including Juno and Billboard, and has sold over a million records worldwide.

Gabrielle is a writer based in Philadelphia. She teaches online workshops at the intersection of writing and spiritual growth. She is drafting a memoir about ongoing conversations with her ancestors.

Donna is a multi-genre writer and the author of “UN/MASKED, Memoirs of a Guerrilla Girl On Tour” and “PUSH/PUSHBACK, 9 Steps to Make a Difference with Activism and Art (because the world’s gone bananas). She is currently a Research Fellow at Winterthur and the director of the Kaz Conference Writing Workshop. donnakaz.com; ggontour.com, @donnakaz

Ann Kathryn writes from New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. She’s an editor with Barren Magazine, a columnist with WOW! Women on Writing, and she works in the technology sector. Ann leads writing workshops for a nonprofit that offers therapeutic arts programming to people living with brain injury. Her essays have appeared in a number of literary journals. https://annkkelly.com/

Tess’ work has appeared in Ruminate and The RavensPerch, and will soon appear in FiveMinuteLit. She is the first prize recipient in the 2020 Women's National Book Association awards, in the category of Flash Prose. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.

Adina is a writer, editor and quilter. Her most recent writing can be found on Esme.Com and Kveller.Com. Adina is currently working on a memoir tentatively titled, “Making Shit Up: A Field Guide to Knitting, Quilting, DIYing Your Own Baby, and Raising Her Alone Without Killing Anyone.” She lives in New York City with her daughter Shirley.

Nancy Davidoff Kelton teaches writing at the New School, privately, and at the Strand Bookstore. Her essays appear in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, AARP, McSweeney's, and Next Avenue, among numerous other publications. Her 7 books include: Writing From Personal Experience and her memoir Finding Mr. Rightstein which she is adapting for the stage. Link to her Next Avenue essay about the play: https://www.nextavenue.org/playwriting-lifes-second-half/

Beth is the award-winning author of three-dozen books in multiple genres, an award-winning teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founder of Juncture Workshops, and a widely published essayist. Her new books are Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays and We Are the Words: The Master Memoir Class. More at bethkephartbooks.com.

Ann is a writer living in Shaker Heights, OH, but a New Yorker at heart. Her work has appeared on the Brevity Blog, in Yankee Magazine, Literary Mama, Hippocampus, and in other journals. One advantage of her non-Manhattan life is the climbing rosebush outside her kitchen window.

Naomi is an artist who lives in Zürich, Switzerland and Noyers-sur-Serein, France with her husband, Eric and their cat, Oona.

Instagram: naomi_koffman

Sally is the author of seven books translated into fourteen languages. The Real Mrs. Tobias, her next novel, will be released in September 2022 by Harper Collins, which also published Another Side of Paradise, a biographical novel about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s turbulent love affair with Sheilah Graham, a Gatsby-esque gossip columnist. The former editor-in-chief of McCall’s and other major consumer magazines, Sally has contributed essays to magazines, newspapers, anthologies, and websites, including The New York Times, Oxford University Press, Real Simple, O the Oprah Magazine, and many others. She’s spoken at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society in France and at numerous colleges, libraries, women’s clubs, synagogues, book clubs, and Generation Women and has taught creative writing privately and at The Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College. Sally lives in Manhattan, but hopes the statute of limitations never ends on bragging that she’s from Fargo, North Dakota. www.sallykoslow.com,

Susan is a writer, and a yoga and mindfulness teacher, living in North Carolina. She is working on a memoir about leaving her lifelong home of New York City. Let's just say that the story of her second husband plays a part.  Find Susan at sk-yoga.com

Sue is an accomplished Filmmaker & Screenwriter, CEO & Creative Director. She attended UCLA Film School, and founded her production company Bella Films. Sue has written & directed extensively for film and TV. Her film "Gray Matters" is now on Amazon Prime. Always a storyteller, Kramer writes for many magazines, blogs and online media outlets, and directs and conceives campaigns for numerous brands & causes including "Be Dope. Vote" and "Erase Hate" and "YouVoteVideo.”
Sue is the creative force behind her boutique, branding agency connectingdotsguru.com, using her filmmaking lens and screenwriter's pen to brand businesses & individuals through a very unique, cinematic POV.

Mara is a graphic designer, photographer and illustrator and founder of Mara Kurtz Studio.
Her work has been published in numerous publications including Metropolis, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel and Leisure, and The Wall Street Journal.
She has been a Professor at Parsons School of Design,The New School, NYU and School of Visual Arts since 1990. She is a graduate of New York University and Parsons School of Design. She received an MA from The New School in 1995.
The Rock Hill Pictures, a book of Mara's documentary photographs, was published in 2012.

Claire is a Professor of Creative Writing at Bloomsburg University. She has a PhD in Creative Writing: Fiction from the University of Houston and an MFA in Fiction from the University of Utah. She has published fiction, poetry, and memoir in numerous magazines including Crab Orchard Review, TriQuarterly, Event Magazine, Terra Nova, Western Humanities Review, Lunch Ticket and Juked. Claire lives in the forest with my husband, children, and two Pekingese named Mushu and Kung Pao.

Maggie has an MFA in fiction and remembers every book she read in Vivian Gornick's memoir class at the University of Arizona. Her newsletter, ArtWrite, explores the common ground between writers and artists through a blend of personal narrative and interviews.

Leslie is the author of Daughter of Heaven: A Memoir With Earthly Recipes (Arcade Publishing); BIttersweet: A Novel (Tuttle Publishing); and Just Us Girls (Four Seasons Press), the official companion book to The Kim Loo Sisters, her forthcoming documentary about a Chinese American jazz vocal quartet popular in the 1930s and '40s who became the first Asian American act to star in Broadway musical revues. Her personal essays and feature articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Gourmet, Travel & Leisure, Saveur, Modern Maturity, Garden Design, and other print publications.

Steph is a writer and professor in the English Department at George Mason University, where I earned my MFA in Creative Nonfiction. My essays have appeared in River Teeth, Cream City Review, Inside Higher Ed, and elsewhere.

Nina holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program, and is working on a memoir in parts titled "My Body Remembers." She and her partner divide their time between midcoast Maine, Israel and Norway.

Leslie has been published in various literary journals, most recently in Wrong Turn Lit. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY. Her work can be found on Substack: https://substack.com/profile/129102103-leslie-lisbona

Kristine is a writer and librarian who recently relocated to Pittsburgh, because she owns a lot of winter coats. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Salon, and other online outlets.

Kate is a journalist, author and essayist. For 20 years, she was a regular contributor to The New York Times. Kate’s work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Time.com, Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest, AARP’s “The Ethel” and other national publications. She is the author of “THE MAMA’S BOY MYTH” (Avery/Penguin, 2012), a nonfiction book on raising boys.

Marianne writes personal essays, fiction, and literary interviews. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, Pulse and has aired on public radio. She lives in Oakland, California.

Alice writes about life, language, food and family. Her essays have been widely published, including this past year in Big City Lit, Borrowed Solace, FEED, Drunk Monkeys, Midway, Eat Darling Eat, Eclectica, Fauxmoir, Idle Ink, Superpresent, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. Her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. Alice has authored essays and reviews on Virginia Woolf’s life and work and is a regular contributor at Blogging Woolf. She lives in San Diego, California, and posts at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com

Gail is a screenwriter and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside/Palm Desert. When she’s not cranking out treatments, she writes essays, flash fiction, and film reviews. Her work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Manifest-Station, Purple Clover, the flash fiction anthology “Microchondria II”, published by the Harvard Book Store and elsewhere. She lives in L.A. with about three million other screenwriters, an eccentric and highly entertaining British husband, and a one-eyed poodle/terrier mix named Bowie.

Wendy is a Pushcart Prize nominee and award-winning poet, a storyteller, educator, and researcher who earned a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a Professor at Mercy University, she researches the effect of the arts on learning and development. To complement her research, she performs original stories at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. Please visit https://www.mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages to learn more about her and her work and to find links to her published stories and poetry.

M.R. (she/her) is a writer living in Los Angeles. A transplant from Katy, Texas, she now lives by the beach with her muse, a Golden Retriever named Chester Blue (at her feet), and her longtime partner (by her side). You can find her work in Pile Press, Chill Subs, The Dried Review, Boats Against the Current, The Final Girl Bulletin Board, little somethings press (2023), The Bloom (forthcoming), and others. Twitter: @mrmandell8 Instagram: m.r.mandell

Melinda has primarily worked across visual media—from advertising to narrative film and documentaries, including an upcoming series on LGBTQ families. Melinda is a graduate of Barnard College at Columbia University and the recipient of a James Michener Fellowship in Screenwriting. And while she grew up in the Southwest and spent several years living in New York City and France, she now resides in Los Angeles with her artist partner and three (mostly) adorable rescue dogs.

Meredith is the author of a dozen books, and a contributor of op-eds, essays, and book reviews to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, O Magazine, and many other outlets. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and a passionate proponent of independent presses, bookstores, and thought, Meredith lives in Los Angeles.

Marianna is a Latinx writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. After devoting years to academic writing, her focus now is creative nonfiction that explores issues of gender identity, feminism, cultural hybridity, intersectionality, and more. Her short memoir has been published in Narrative, Hippocampus, The Woven Tale Press, Eclectica, Sukoon, and The Acentos Review, among others. Her memoir in essays, Portrait of a Feminist, will be published in the Spring of 2025.

Linda has a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing. Her memoir, Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery received a starred review from Kirkus. Her essays and stories have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Catamaran Literary Reader, The Ocotillo Review, Mom Egg Review, Under the Gum Tree, and elsewhere. Two of her paintings were featured in literary magazines. She is also an Associate for the National Museum of Language and a docent at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Her second memoir comes out in 2024.

Rona is a former editor-in-chief of Chatelaine, Canada's premier magazine for women. She broke into print at 14 with a prizewinning story about bullying that is still drawing fan mail from teens studying it in class. Her work has appeared in Brevity, MORE, Next Avenue and Reader's Digest, among other places. Rona's latest memoir is Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging and Loving This World.

Dr. Tamara is an Applied Linguist who researches language, culture, and identity in the Middle East and beyond. She studied poetry and creative nonfiction at Columbia University and has been granted numerous residencies and fellowships, including Bread Loaf, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Sewanee, Ragdale, Cave Canem, and Vermont Studio Center. She’s widely published in places such as Salon, The Independent, Parents Magazine, Food52, and Motherwell. She was awarded the Pauline Scheer Fellowship and recently graduated from GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator. She wrote her debut memoir, Child Bride, about her marriage at 12.

Lisa is a writer and a women's health advocate. Her writing has been featured in HuffPost, TODAY Show, Newsweek, Popsugar and more. She is also working on a book about infertility, she can be found on Instagram and Twitter @lbmccarty717

Deborah co-owns and operates the much loved Club Helsinki Hudson in Hudson, New York. She was previously Hudson Valley stringer for The New York Times, and her articles and essays have been published in newspapers and magazines in the USA and Europe. In these pandemic times, she is currently at work on a book about her club and is keeping the floors of Helsinki tidy for musicians and music lovers alike during the shutdown.

Sarah teaches tutorials at Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Philip Schultz’s Writers Studio. She is editor of Namaste, the Integral Yoga Institute of New York Newsletter.

For ten years, she co-hosted Writers Read NYC, providing performance venues for writers in Greenwich Village. Her essay, “Fingertips Part 3, With Thanks to Stevie Wonder,” about teaching yoga to the blind is forthcoming in The Art of Touch, University of Georgia Press (September 2023).

Jill is a Seattle poet who finds inspiration on a paddle board or a hiking trail. She also loves to travel, and this poem was written while she was living in Kathmandu, Nepal, working as an editor for tourism magazines.

Judy is a writer/recruiter/recovering advice columnist who currently lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with three cats and a man. She’s authored two books—How NOT to Date and The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Lists— and ghosted a few too—including a Hardy Boys mystery and one by Rihanna’s tattoo artist.

Jenn is a Michigan-based former arts reporter/critic whose writing has appeared in Shondaland, Good Housekeeping, The Writer, American Theatre, Scary Mommy, Hour Detroit and more. She earned an MFA in fiction writing from Penn State University, before realizing her true love was nonfiction; and she met her husband while playing trombone in the Michigan Marching Band. Jenn now works at her local public library when she's not writing (or ferrying her two daughters around town), and you can follow her introvert adventures on Twitter (@jennmckee) or Instagram (@criticaljenn).

Deirdre is the author of the story collection, Real Lives of Married People (8foldOccasional Press Feb., 2022). Her arts and culture writing has been published in Ms.com, The L.A. Times, WWD, Variety, Thebeet.com, and Miami New Times. She teaches writing at Woodbury University and Glendale College.

Deborah is a public health educator who lives in Sacramento, California with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack. She has been published in local literary anthologies and in the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher. Her first book of poetry Becoming a Woman was published last year.

Judith is a retired corporate and entertainment lawyer who lives in Brooklyn Heights. Her passions are photography, nonfiction writing and singing with her local choir, and will participate with Eric Whitacre in a concert at Lincoln Center in April.

Denise writes to save herself from existential crisis. Her nonfiction has been featured in Brevity, Epoch, Complete Sentence Lit, and many other publications. She lives in the regional village of Millthorpe, Australia, with no pets but plenty of books.

Sarah is a writer and lawyer who has been published in McSweeney's and Motherly. She lives in the Washington DC area. When not otherwise occupied by work, family, and dog, she is a competitive rower and coach.

Carol’s essays have been published in Book XI: A Journal of Literary Philosophy and Weber: The Contemporary West. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop. She lives in Utah, the Beehive State.

Susan has written extensively about art, design, and cultural biography. Her work has been featured in specialist journals, mainstream magazines, artist catalogues, and literary anthologies. A former contributing editor at Interview, Mirabella, Elle, Metropolitan Home, and Aperture, she now serves as a contributing editor for East of Borneo, the online magazine of contemporary art, and its history, as considered from Los Angeles.

Tanja is on a lifetime faith journey, grateful to overcome many toils and snares. Her pending memoir “Father-Daughter Dance” (working title), is about her quest to house her homeless dad. Tanja is a former newspaper reporter and selectwoman. She currently writes grants for a soup kitchen and food pantry in Connecticut.

Cathy is a retired teacher who lives in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. She is enjoying exploring writing as part of Abigail Thomas's Memoir Writing Workshop for those who are or have had cancer.

Mary is the author of sixteen books - eight novels, including most recently Gateway to the Moon (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2018), three collections of short stories, and four travel memoirs, including the travel classic, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone (Houghton Mifflin, 1988), and an anthology of travel literature. All the Way to the Tigers, from which “Visa Trouble” was excerpted was published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday to rave reviews.

Julia is a writer, performer, and yoga teacher. She lives in NYC with her husband, two kids, and an ever-growing menagerie of animals. She has a piece forthcoming at The Manifest Station and is working on a memoir and an essay collection. Occasionally she posts things @juliamotyka_me. Maybe she will tweet someday. That day is not today.

Leah's work appears in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, The Spectacle, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Leah appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, "Stealing Buddha" was published by Anxiety Press in 2024. Website: http://www.leahmueller.org.

Patricia formed the editorial consulting service Brooklyn Books after over twenty years in book publishing. She started as a temp at Farrar Straus and Giroux and left as Editor in Chief at Doubleday. Her authors included bestselling crime writers James Lee Burke and Michael Connelly.

She is the co-author of It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year –Old Woman, by Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson (Penguin, 2010) and Making Masterpiece: 25 Years Behind the Scenes at Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! on PBS by Rebecca Eaton (Viking 2013). Her writing has appeared in Publisher’s Weekly, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, and in the anthology Brooklyn Noir 3 (Akashic Books). A member of the editorial collective 5E, she now lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.

Photo by Bill Kontzias

Wendy is an American by birth, spent thirty-six years living and working in Japan. She is now dividing her retirement between the UK and Japan. She has published widely on Japanese and English literature and, under the pen name of Lea O’Harra, is the author of the Inspector Inoue mystery series set in rural modern-day Japan: Imperfect Strangers (2015); Progeny (2016); and Lady First (2017), originally published by Endeavour Press and recently reissued by Sharpe Books. She has also just published a standalone murder mystery set in small-town America: Dead Reckoning (2022).

Alex is a writer and editor living in Toronto with her Lab puppy and aging cat. The kids are well and truly launched and can now enjoy sailing, kayaking and canoeing without anxiety!

Ellen’s internationally renowned work has touched millions in more than twenty-five languages. She is the author of the award-winning historical novel The River by Starlight, the perennial bestseller Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. and numerous posts, magazine columns, and essays that have captured audiences on every continent. While she is deeply concerned about the global decline of insect populations, she’s not above towel-whipping flies on windowsills or sending stinkbugs who invade her home on insider tours of her city’s Big Pipe sewer system.

Beth is a fitness professional and emerging creative non-fiction writer who uses her passion for music, movement, and the written word to inspire others into action. She has published three self-help books, the most recent in 2021, You Are the Spark – Motivational Essays to Support Your Fitness Journey. Beth lives in the country near Rigaud, Quebec in Canada.

Victoria is working on a family memoir about her father’s art career. She published a biography of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and taught in the Expository Writing Program at New York University for eleven years. You can find more of her writing at vcolsen.substack.com.

Corinne is a retired New York City public school literacy teacher. Her essays have been published in Oldster.substack.com, TwoHawksQuarterly.com, sadgirlsclublit.com, the manifeststation.com, and this journal, among others. Her short stories have been published in survivorlit.org and bookofmatcheslit.com which recently nominated her for a Best of the Net award. She has also participated in live readings with Read650.org. She divides her time between Mexico and The Bronx.

Denise writes lyric essays, poetry, fiction, songs and works in clay in her studio in the Hudson Valley. Her essays and short stories have been featured in pigeonpagesnyc.com, The Los Angeles Review, Persimmon Tree and The Los Angeles New Fiction Emerging Writer Series. Her songs have been featured in films and recorded internationally. Her sculpture appears in Jane Dunnewold’s award-winning book Damsel, Hero, Artist, Judge: Meditations on Archetypes and Creativity.

Jane was raised in Colorado and grew up in New York City. She recently completed a memoir in verse entitled “At the Home for Wayward Girls.” Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in Nimrod International Journal, PANK Magazine, The Journal, and New Southerner, among others.  Jane enjoyed a long career in the non-profit sector. Currently, she provides pro bono services for organizations serving people with disabilities. Photo credit: a photobooth in downtown L.A.

Jeannine’s memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women’s Literature, with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Her essays and fiction appear widely in literary journals including Los Angeles Review of Books, Narrative, Masters Review, North American Review, Calyx, and more, as well as in her Substack, Writing in the Dark. She teaches writing at the University of Minnesota and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and Elephant Rock, a creative writing program she founded in 2012. She is working on her first novel. Find her at jeannineouellette.com.

Lea’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Pinch, Stonecoast Journal, Sycamore Review, Pithead Chapel (nominated for Best of Net), High Desert Journal, riverSedge and Slipstream. She is also the author of Parenting in the Here and Now (Floris Books, 2015). She lives in rural Montana with her husband and a small circus of semi-domesticated animals.

Betsy is a native of Connecticut, but has lived in the DC area for 28 years, where she misses snow. Her essays have been published in The Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, and Bethesda Magazine. She has worked as a pastry chef, owned a catering business, and taught pie-making to legions of the crust-phobic. Betsy currently spends a lot of time in the garden of her empty nest, where she lives with her husband and their overweight Chihuahua.

Wendy has enjoyed a dubious life in the performing arts, as a singer, songwriter, and actor. Against her better judgment, she has crafted a number of projects around personal narrative, including a musical memoir, and the well received Callie’s Solo, a musical comedy web series on Youtube. She exalts in being a voice teacher with a thriving studio.

Heidi’s writing can be found, or is forthcoming, in Brevity, Forge Literary, Fugue, Multiplicity Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, River Teeth Journal’s “Beautiful Things,” Sweet Lit, The Manifest-Station, and more. Her Brevity essay, “The Once Wife,” was recently nominated for the Best American Essays 2023.

Karen is a writer in Takoma Park, MD, and the principal of Catalyzing Philanthropy, a fundraising and development consultancy. She is working on a memoir about grief, trauma and widowhood after being a caretaker for a spouse with terminal brain cancer. She has published essays and short stories in numerous outlets, including the New York Times Modern Love column, the Washington Post, Lilith Magazine, Boston Globe, Pangyrus, San Antonio Review, Modern Loss, Motherwell, Red Wheelbarrow, Open Secrets substack, and the two-volume pandemic collection, When We Turned Within. Karen graduated with an MFA in creative nonfiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Holly has taught English in the U.S. and Italy, worked abroad with a medical nonprofit, and managed a PR firm in Manhattan. She has been writing about the Jazz Age poet Edna St. Vincent Millay since the 1980’s, when she lived with the poet’s sister, then 92, at Millay’s former home in upstate NY. Her essays about Millay’s life and work appear in the Penguin Classics, Harper Perennial, and Yale University Press collections of her poetry. She is also co-author of two Scholastic YA books and the memoir of Eve Branson, mother of the colorful British entrepreneur.

Elisa worked for twenty-odd years as senior/executive editor at such major publishers as Dutton (twice), Rolling Stone, Macmillan, and Bantam. She then spent seven years developingand overseeing projects at two prominent literary agencies. In between (and concurrently), she collaborated on twenty books, primarily memoirs and novels, nine of which were New York Times bestsellers. This is her first solo turn.

Linda (she/her) is a writer obsessed with short form fiction and CNF. Her latest essays appear in Minerva Rising, Barren, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Permafrost. She won first place in the WOW! Women on Writing Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest and placed runner-up in the Santa Clara Review Fall 2021 Flash Nonfiction Contest. Linda lives on the Big Island of Hawaii where she writes and shares a lanai with one husband and ten cats. http://lindapetrucelli.com

Marge has published 20 poetry collections, most recently, ON THE WAY OUT, TURN OFF THE LIGHT [Knopf, September 30, 2020]; 17 novels including SEX WARS. PM Press reissued VIDA, DANCE THE EAGLE TO SLEEP; they brought out short stories THE COST OF LUNCH, ETC and MY BODY, MY LIFE [essays, poems]. She has read at over 500 venues here and abroad.

Anne is the author of the memoir Were You Close? a sister’s quest to know the brother she lost (Vine Leaves Press, 2023). Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, and “Beautiful Things” at River Teeth Journal, among other publications, as well as the anthology, The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink.

Ann is a writer. Her creative non-fiction has been published in Brain, Child; Literary Mama; and Oregon Literary Review. In addition to my creative life, I've had quite a fun and varied career as an arts administrator and college professor. You can read more about me at my website: https://www.annwhitfieldpowers.com

Faith is probably drinking coffee or reading. She has lived in northern Virginia nearly her entire life and recently graduated from George Mason University with a BFA in creative writing. In 2021 she won the Joseph A. Lohman III Poetry Prize.

Lee is a care worker and author. Her writing has won recognition from Hunger Mountain, Florida Review, Barbara Deming Fund, the State of Illinois, Monson Arts, and other arts organizations. Her flash fiction has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, London Independent Story Prize, Hippocampus, and elsewhere, and she’s published two nonfiction books. She lives in Maine, where she hosts the Shannaghe residency for writers and photographers.

Anna is a therapist and writer. She is an MFA dropout and a member of the Brooklyn Writers Collective. She lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband and two children.

Evelyn has been a top editor at national magazines, including Good Housekeeping and Lear’s, as well as at Newsday and the New York Daily News. She’s taught journalism at Fordham University and NYU and reviews books for Kirkus. As an editorial consultant, she works with writers at evelynrenold.com

Diahann is a writer and a former CNN journalist. Her essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Role Reboot, and other publications. She is working on a memoir about female desirability and desire. After a lifetime of living in big cities around the world, Diahann now lives in a mountain town in New Mexico with her husband and their clowder of cats. Visit her at www.diahannreyeslane.com or follow her on Instagram @diahannreyeslane.

Robin is a professor of sociology at Queens College, City University of New York, and a collector of true stories. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and did her post-doctoral work at Yale University. She is the author of a book on the politics of welfare reform and numerous articles, including an op-ed in the Washington Post on the dangers of billionaire philanthropy. Her current research is on the women of generation X: what happened to the first group of girls told they could have it all?

Marianne is the author of the Pushcart-nominated story collection Love Is Blind in One Eye, the memoir Silvie’s Life, and numerous travel stories, short fictions, essays, and book reviews.

Anna is a writer living in Huntington, WV with her husband and children. She teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Marshall University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Salon, Electric Literature, Joyland, and in other outlets. Her forthcoming memoir, Famished, explores the intersection of purity culture and diet culture. Follow her on Instagram or Substack @annajrollins

Holly has worn many hats yet never tires of transformation. From newspaper crime reporter and magazine marketing director to university creative writing teacher and small town yoga therapist, she loves how words make the world. Happiest hiking and kayaking near her home on the Oregon Coast, her long-term goal is to own a pack of huskies. Until then, she plans to continue traveling to countries near and far, always curious, often content, in any language.

Fredda is a non-fiction writer whose early work was published in the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. She took a thirty-year detour from the writing life to lead a nonprofit that helped people with developmental disabilities find jobs and live in their own homes. Thrilled to be retired and writing again, she lives in New York City with her husband and a large tabby named Monsieur.  

Helen is a writer whose work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Her novels include “What Was Mine” and “The Latecomers.” She's working on a memoir about life with her late husband, Donald K. Ross, a public interest advocate, philanthropist and one of the original Nader's Raiders. She lives in Manhattan and Lakeville, CT.

Charlotte lives with her husband and two Havanese princesses in Louisville, Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Christmas 2022 Edition, The Longridge Review, and The Boom Project Anthology. She writes creative nonfiction, teaches primordial sound meditation, and spends as much time as she can on the beach with her grandsons. Home will always be Pineville, Kentucky, that small town nestled in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where most of her stories begin. You can follow her on Instagram @croth502 and X( formerly Twitter) @croth502.

Victoria lives in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, enduring the infernal cauldron of summer in order to pursue her passions for horses and writing. The world comes clearer with a pen in her hand; horses have given her the courage to write. She’s been published in the Washington State Bar News.

Debra is a TEDx Monterey speaker, the author of two children’s books and Religomania, a musical about two Moms on a mission… to take down organized religion. Her essays have appeared in the Manifest Station and the San Francisco Chronicle, and she has just completed a memoir chronicling her misadventures as a drug and diamond smuggler.

Ellen has work forthcoming in Bull Men’s Fiction. Past writing appeared in The Sun, Northwest Review, The Stay Project, and in Going Green, an anthology from the University of Oklahoma Press. In 2021, she co-edited PLACED: An Encyclopedia of Central Oregon, Vol. 1. She is currently based in upstate New York and teaches at The Forge.

Susan has published a novel, The Wedding Writer, based on her experiences working as an editor at a bridal magazine. Way back when women's magazines still published good fiction, she was the fiction editor at Mademoiselle. She's also written nonfiction books, poetry, and short fiction. She is the mother of a wonderful grown-up daughter named India who studies monkeys and teaches at Arizona State University. Susan lives in New York City with her husband, Larry.

Tina is a Pushcart nominated poet and the author of three poetry collections, Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press, 2019) which was a finalist in the National Poetry Series, Four Way Books Intro Prize and the Julie Suk Award; Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions, 2017) which won the Diode Editions Chapbook Competition and As If (Parlor City Press, 2010) which was awarded the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared widely since 1999, including The American Journal of Poetry, Ascent, Cimarron Review, Hunger Mountain Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Palabra, Parabola, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Verse Daily, and read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac. www.tinaschumann.com

Elvina is a mother, writer, and athlete. She has two children, one of whom is disabled and has intractable epilepsy. This parenting experience informs her writing and advocacy work. Elvina is in the Memoir Incubator at Grubstreet. She is a certified Wild Writing teacher and offers classes in Brave Writing, a generative free write practice. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a graduate of Smith College.

Candy’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Cut, Longreads, Oldster, Brevity, among others. She is a creative writing professor at The New School in Greenwich Village and a private writing coach. One of her favorite John Lennon songs is “Jealous Guy.”

Fran’s poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in various sections of The New York Times; also, Vogue, The Nation, The North American Review, and other publications. She is the co-writer of the New York Times bestselling Powerplay (Simon and Schuster) and the author of Most Likely to Succeed (Random House). Her poetry chapbook, Weight, was published in 2022. She wrote the Underground Gourmet column for New York Magazine, and the restaurant reviews for the New Jersey Section of the New York Times.

Lynda is a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal who worked in Central and South America, the Middle East and Africa. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Granta, and Utne Reader, among others. She is also the author of two books, most recently the memoir, Dirty Wars and Polished Silver. You can read more than you’d ever want to know about her and her writing at her website with the very original name of https://lyndaschuster.com/ . She is currently working on a book about a scandalous and fabulously wealthy heiress passed over by history, a story with all the makings of a juicy bodice-ripper: sex, money, forbidden love—and, of course, a trans-Atlantic boat chase.

Maude was born in Greenwood, Mississippi. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the National Museum for Women in the Arts, among others. In 1999, the University Press of Mississippi published Delta Land, which received the Mississippi Arts and Letters Award. Her book, Mississippi History, was published by Steidl in 2015. Clay was the photography editor of the Oxford American from 1998 to 2002. She continues to reside in the Mississippi Delta with her husband, photographer Langdon Clay.

Natalie is the author of Shout Her Lovely Name, a New York Times Notable Book, and Community Chest, a memoir of her experience with breast cancer. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Zyzzyva Magazine, and others. Essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Today Show, San Francisco Chronicle, The Rumpus, Oldster, Salon, and Fourth Genre. She’s currently working on a novel in stories, Must be Nice, and a memoir about growing up with a single mother in the 60s, Go Back to Sleep. Find more of her work, as well her newsletter read.write.eat. at www.natalieserber.com

Barbara writes memoirs and creative non-fiction but started her writing life as a poet. She holds an MFA in poetry from Johns Hopkins. She stepped away from creative writing for many years and now, through the auspices of Grub Street Boston, the tutelage of Dorian Fox, and the generative community gathered by author Diane Zinna, she has returned to writing and to creative non-fiction. She is working on a memoir about her immigrant family and growing up in Northwest Connecticut, as well as a collection of essays about her mother. The Sun published a Reader's Write piece in 2019.

Stephanie lives a more wonderful life than she realizes in Baltimore, USA. She’s a former feature writer for the Baltimore Sun and currently a sporadic freelancer and writing teacher. A Fulbright-Nehru fellowship took her to India as a journalism instructor seven years ago, and she has often returned to teach, travel and visit friends. In Baltimore, Stephanie paints, writes, gardens, reads, walks, cooks and revels in her family, which now includes her first grandchild. As the pandemic wanes, she’s hankering for a road trip.

Michele is a high school dropout, hepatitis C survivor, adoptee, and former trial attorney. Her essays appear in venues including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Witness, and Poets & Writers. She lives in North Florida.

Sandy is a writer and a psychotherapist. She is currently writing a memoir about the connections between her work as a psychotherapist, her family history of loss and her experiences as a queer parent. She lives with her partner in the Hudson Valley and has a psychotherapy practice based in New York City.

Sue’s most recent book is Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul. Her previous book, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, won the gold star in Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Award and the 2021 Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. Other works include Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, made into a Lifetime TV movie; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which won the AWP Award; and The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. She’s co-chair of the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Lizzie is a screenwriter, developmental editor and the author of a mental health memoir, Detour (Atria Books). Her Substack, Lizzie's Letter, is a weekly delight of humor, solace, observation and recommendation.

Jane teaches high school, hoping that by catching them young she can inspire her students to enjoy writing imaginatively and riskily. She is a street photographer and has had short stories published in Australian literary journals. She also contributes to mETAphor, the English Teacher's Association magazine, mostly articles about craft and creativity, including 'Discursive Writing: How Not to Tame the Shaggy Beast', which explores the wildness of creative non-fiction.

Susan is a grateful brain tumor survivor whose watch and wait medical protocol has morphed into her spiritual practice. She has published a memoir (out of print) called Keep Calm, It’s Just a Brain Tumor; My Year of Wabi Sabi Healing. Her essays have been published in Brevity’s Non-Fiction Blog, Jewish Literary Journal and The Jewish Writing Project. She is currently dabbling in making art, a project called Pinena’s Pentimento, adding color and lines in neuro art style to emit light from the original dark canvases of grainy gray and black images of her brain scans.

Janyce has published two novels: The Detective's Garden and Hollywood Boulevard (Unbridled Books). Story or essays appear in: The Adirondack Review, Sandstorm Journal of Arts & Letters, Rattapallax Magazine, The Broadkill Review, The Laurel Review, The Open Space, Pank. "Conversation with a Tree" won Knock Literary Magazine’s Eco-lit prize. Anthologies include: Being Human; Editions Bibliotekos, The Healing Muse; Upstate Medical University, Dick for a Day; Villard Books. She is a visiting novelist at Texas University of the Permian Basin. janycestefan-cole.com

Jessica writes creative nonfiction focusing on travel, music, sex, and loss in our ever-changing world. Her stories have recently been featured in the Music Museum of New England, the Hosmer Gallery at Forbes Library, and selected for Valley Love Letters Project: Live on Stage at the Academy of Music, Northampton, MA. Her first book, For Better And Worse: Short Stories and Tantalizing Tales—From Coast to Coast, was published in 2016. She’s a vegan cook living in Western Massachusetts.

Beverley is a writer of creative nonfiction by night and a web writer by day. Her work has recently been published in leading New Zealand literary journals, Landfall and Headland, and in the Longridge Review. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand where she’s been developing her creative writing skills through workshops and courses over the last several years. You can follow her on Twitter @beverleystevens

Deanne is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. Her books include Twentynine Palms, an LA Times "best book of the year" which Hunter Thompson called "A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer" and Mustang, an LA Times "best book of the year."
Her essays have appeared in the LA Review of Books, Rolling Stone, Tin House, the Independent, NY Times, lithub, and elsewhere. Her plays have been produced and won prizes around the country and her latest is "Reflections in a D'Back's Eye," directed by Darrell Larson at Highways Performance Space in LA shortly before the pandemic. She's currently writing American Confidential about Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother for Melville House Press.

Photo by Cat Gwynn

Eileen is at work on It's Always A Secret, a book about her year-long experience emptying out the house of hoarders (to be published by Rowman & Littlefield). She is also the author of Running on Two Different Tracks, a 2015 e-book memoir (https://amazon.to/2SbGgbV), and from time to time, you might see her on assignment in downtown Manhattan covering local political and community issues as a reporter for ChelseaCommunityNews.com.

Alexandra is the author of a novel and two non-fiction books, including the bestselling memoir Reading My Father. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair among other publications.

Jennifer’s articles and essays have appeared in ADDitude, Adoptive Families, Whole Life Times, and Chicken Soup anthologies, among other publications. She is the co-author of Any Way I Can; 50 Years in Show Business, written in collaboration with her father, screenwriter, John Gay. She is currently writing a memoir about parenting a neurodivergent child based on her long-running blog for ADDitude. You can follow her at www.jennifergaysummers.com

J.C. was born in Flushing Hospital, uprooted at four, replanted in St. Louis, Delaware, and south Jersey. J.C.’s New Yorker subscriptions have been delivered to many addresses. Discovering Dorothy Parker on library prose and poetry shelves fed the desire to become a “real writer” of both. This led to a diverse writing life, from arts reviewing, ghost and copy writing to a freelance business, plenty of spoken word, and, on retiring from bookselling, a pair of novels. Additional detail at J.C.’s self-publisher website www.wordsworthpublications.com

Christie lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore after 40+ years owning an art gallery in North Carolina. Poems have appeared in orangepeel literary magazine; the tide rises, the tide falls: an oceanic literary magazine; Still Point Arts Quarterly; Milk and Cake Press, Dead of Winter III Anthology: and forthcoming in Songs for Eretz Poetry Review. She always searches for the edge in her writing and artwork.Taylor has been awarded visual artist residences at The Ballinglen Arts Foundation (Ireland), Cove Park (Scotland) and Tyrone Guthrie Center (Ireland).  She enjoys romping through fields with her dogs.

Crystal is, a native Texan, is fascinated by how we respond to change in our lives and how our responses shape our futures. You will find her with many dogs, cats, binoculars and a pencil with a well-worn eraser.

Abigail has four children, twelve grandchildren, one great-grandchild, two dogs, and a high school education. Her books include Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; and What Comes Next and How to Like It. Her new book, Still Life At Eighty, is out now on The Golden Notebook Press. She lives in Woodstock, NY.
Photograph by Jennifer Waddell

Eliza is a piano teacher and accompanist. In a former life she published a short memoir, “The Road Home" and a children’s picture book, “The Red Blanket”. That was ages ago, however. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont with her dog Mario and recent puppy Olivia.

Gail owns and runs a dog coat company with her husband in rural Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of NYU and Le Cordon Bleu London culinary school. A neophyte in the writing world, Gail has had stories in Motherwell Magazine and Synchronized Chaos. She homeschooled her children, and is working on a memoir, weaving a blissful farm-life past with the horrors life delivered as mid-life settled in. She lives back on her childhood farm with her husband, elderly mom, four dogs, and a boatload of pet farm animals.

Denise, 58, has built a life she loves after many twists, roadblocks, and windows she opened. She's happily divorced, and a mom of two successful, kind sons in their mid-twenties, both of which are her friends. Nannying part time keeps her young at heart, and she occasionally dates twice in one day.

Rebecca teaches sociology at Middlebury College and in jails in Vermont. She's written a book and articles about drug policy, addiction and celebrity. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Bending Genres, BULL, Emerge Literary, Mom Egg Review, Peatsmoke, Tiny Molecules and Zig Zag Lit. She divides her time between Vermont and the Lower East Side of NYC and spends a month every summer in Athens and Crete studying Modern Greek and staring at the sea.

Lauren is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Moroccan Holiday (winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize), a full-length collection, Traveler in the Sunset Clouds, and hybrid collaboration, Fire Carousel. Her work appears in Connotation Press, LETTERS, and Grimoire. She teaches at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.

Lori is the author of the novella The Word Next to the One I Want, the collaborative memoir Still Here Thinking of You, and the novel Three Children. Her stories and essays have appeared in literary journals including Inkwell Journal, The Antioch Review, and The Del Sol Review. Toppel, the mother of twin sons, grew up in Puerto Rico and lives in New York with her husband. More at loritoppel.com.

Danielle is a former poet, journalist, newspaper and book editor who currently divides her time between New York City and upstate New York. She is the author of a forthcoming memoir. When she’s not writing or taking care of daily operations, she boxes, swims, takes long walks, reads, and spends as much time as she can with her busy, adventurous teenage son, Dash.

Verleen has been published in Blue Lake Review. Her work in Summerset Review was nominated for Best American Essays. Her novelette, “The Trail to Cloud City” was published in the anthology, The Mountain Pass.

Retired, Tucker lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado four blocks away from one of the best ski mountains in the world. Her favorite time is spent with her two grown sons and their families, the Arts, and anything that involves the Great Outdoors.

Katherine is a Los Angeles native who currently resides in Brooklyn. She’s co-author of the critically acclaimed book Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, published by HarperCollins. Her articles have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, the Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Billboard, Variety, ‘TEEN, Mother Jones, and many other outlets.

Reba is an artist based in New York City. Contact. rebakittredgetyson@gmail.com for sales, commissions, and inquiries.

Gerry is a Dutch poet, writer and artist. Alongside her twelve collections of poetry to date, she has published three books of fiction. She teaches Poetry and Creative Writing at the Amsterdam School of Writing and is a writing coach. See here for more info.

Joy is the Managing Editor for HealthyHearing.com and was named a finalist in the 2022 Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest. She writes professionally as a health journalist and personally as an essayist and memoirist. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in publications both commercial and literary, including The Sun Magazine, Cosmopolitan, VICE News, ABCNEWS.com, 3Elements Literary Review, YourTango, San Antonio Review, and Montana Mouthful.

Eleanor’s memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother’s Story (Dream of Things, 2013), is a New York Times e-book bestseller that explores love, loss, and resilience following the death of her daughter. Vincent’s essays appear in several collections, including Creative Nonfiction’s anthology, At the End of Life: True Stories About How We Die and This I Believe: On Motherhood. She holds an MFA from Mills College and is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, Left Margin Lit, and The Author’s Guild. She lives in Walnut Creek, California, and has a new memoir forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press in 2024.

Kirsten is a writer with essays in Sonora Review, Superstition Review, Hippocampus, Knicknackery and other fine places. She is the co-creator of the Trauma Sensitive Yoga Deck for Kids and is hard at work on the biography of a Vaudeville-era stage psychic. Check in with her on IG: @thebubbleator or Twitter: @bubbleate

Sarah is a writer living and working in Woodstock, NY.

Kate is the author of two memoirs, Looking for a Kiss and Behind the Mask, and many personal essays. She taught writing at NYU and CUNY for three decades. She has documented her life in downtown Manhattan since 1975. She now teaches memoir writing at a senior center in Greenwich Village. Kate lives in the legendary Westbeth Artists Housing and divides her time between Manhattan and the Jersey Shore.

Jacquie is an Emmy-nominated writer who has sold five pilots in the last three years. Her projects have found homes at Paramount+, iTV, and ABC. She also wrote for David E. Kelley's Big Shot, NBC's Abby's, and Amazon's Just Add Magic and The Kicks. Jacquie recently completed the Stanford Novel Writing Program and wrote a psychological thriller/horror novel during the writers' strike this summer. She's passionate about layered mysteries, psychological anomalies, and characters with everything to hide.

Amy has been writing for over three decades. Her articles have been published in America, Commonweal, The New York Times, Dappled Things and many other periodicals. She's the author of over thirty books on spirituality and faith and one sadly unpublished novel. She has five kids, the youngest two of whom do not seem to have a lingering fear of trains. She writes from Alabama at the moment and can be found at amywelborn.wordrpress.com.

Laura lives in an Ohio township too small for traffic lights. She works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, and maxes out her library card each week. Laura served as Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. She never once bought lollipops for her kids.

​Judith’s essays and interviews have been published in Writer’s Chronicle, Brevity, Los Angeles Review, Water~Stone Review, and Under the Gum Tree. Her piece “On the Death of A Difficult Parent” was recognized as a notable essay in The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses 2017.

She lives in Portland, Oregon, and is writing a memoir about an opera singer’s daughter who loses both her mother and artistic ambitions, and has no choice but to discover who she is on her own.

Judith freelanced for Time Warner, Conde Nast, Disney, and PBS. Then was hit by a drunk with a truck, which put a few things on hold. She now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she makes art for humans and homes for birds.

Post-truck work has appeared on NBC News, The Washington Post, Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Creative Nonfiction, Intima, The Narrative Medicine Journal of Columbia University, Bellevue Literary Review, Salmagundi, Oldster and is upcoming this fall in Pulse. In addition, she has received these and other commendations: finalist for The Iowa Review’s Nonfiction Book Prize, winner of the 44th and 45th New Millennium Writing Awards. www.judithhannahweiss.com https://judithhannahweiss.substack.com/

Sheila is the author of eight well-received books, several of them NYT bestsellers, the best known of which is Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon -- And The Journey Of A Generation. She has written for (what the hell, let's use the vernacular) a ton of magazines, including Vanity Fair, New York, Glamour, the New Times Book Review, Styles and Opinion pages. She lives in Greenwich Village.

Charlotte is a longtime meditator and retired psychotherapist, currently working on her memoir. Her writing has appeared in Memoir Magazine, Brevity Magazine, and Social Work Today. She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two ridiculously precious cats who do nothing to earn their keep.

Deborah is a writer and literature professor at NYU. Her work has appeared in various publications, including The Common, The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times, and The Rumpus. She is writing a novel about sex, art, and menopause, based on six tumultuous years that transformed Edith Wharton's life.

Marjorie was a columnist for The Washington Post and a contributor to Vanity Fair. This piece was published posthumously in her book, The Woman at the Washington Zoo (2004). We gratefully acknowledge her husband, Timothy Noah, for giving us the rights to run one of the all time best pieces ever written about a mother.

University of Baltimore professor Marion is the author of First Comes Love, The Big Book of the Dead and many other books. Her award-winning column appears monthly at Baltimore Fishbowl and her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere. A board member of the National Book Critics Circle, she reviews for People, Newsday, The Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews; she hosts The Weekly Reader podcast at WYPR. More info at marionwinik.com.

Martha grew up in both New York and North Carolina. She has been an acting student, a dancer and choreographer, and an editor. She retired in 2020 from her position teaching literature and writing in the English Department and running the writing center at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.

The Georgia Review has published four essays of hers, the latest in Fall 2019. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, and White Eagle Coffee Store Press brought out a long story, Double Vision (2004), as a chapbook. Her “Dreams of Foreign Cities,” a prize-winner in Fish Publishing’s Short Memoir Contest, was published in Fish Anthology 2021, and essays are out or forthcoming from Ponder Review, Under the Sun, and The Bookends Review. She has also published an essay on Proust, book reviews, and translations from French, and she has collaborated on dance-theater pieces at the University of Michigan.

Angie has always liked starting trouble—good trouble, as John Lewis called it. She has spent her life fighting against hate in the South as an activist and pastor, while trying to avoid the temptation of hating the haters. Angie has written a book, Loving My Enemies: A Memoir Of Outlandish Pursuits, which she hopes to see on bookstore shelves in the not-too-distant future. Angie was the editor and lead contributor to Love Has No Borders, a book about the struggle for immigrant rights in Alabama. Her essays have been published in Santa Fe Writers' Project Quarterly, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Wraparound South and others.

Daphne’s short story “Screw Worm: Larva of the American Blowfly” was published in the Wisconsin Review and her prize-winning play “Bleaching Liver With the Company Man” was produced by E.A.T (the English Alternative Theater at the University of Kansas). She has been an investigative journalist, college instructor, academic department head, and is currently on the senior leadership team of a national nonprofit for abused and neglected children, but she has consistently maintained the wardrobe of an intergalactic cocktail waitress throughout her professional career.

LESLIE (L.A.) lives in Southern California with her wife and miniature poodle. She was a public school educator for 27 years and upon retirement, has returned to her other love –writing –as well as training the next generation of educators. She is a bonafide Francophile and lived in France in the 1980s. She has published autobiographical narratives in Orange Coast magazine, the California Educator, Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters, and Liaison, and is currently writing a memoir about her life in France. She is thrilled to see her work in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes.

Mimi is an OB/GYN, author of 16 editions of a medical guide, Managing Contraception, and an advocate for women’s reproductive rights. She is working on a memoir about her journey from N.Y.C. to becoming the doctor and only woman on an Everest expedition in Tibet, while she was a medical student in the Bronx (in 1988). You can subscribe to her women’s health newsletter at www.mimiziemanmd.com, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Gloria lives in New York City with her husband in their empty nest. She teaches English as a Second Language at Lehman College. Her essays have appeared in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, Borderline Stories and Beach Reads. Her piece, “Multitudes” was set to music for a concert series in New Ulm, Minnesota and she directed her stage play, “The Negative Space,” at Town and Village Synagogue on the Lower East Side.

Marcia's eclectic career as a writer spans several decades. Starting as a songwriter in Woodstock, New York, she signed with United Artists Music, and co-wrote "Once in a Lifetime," recorded by Bonnie Raitt. Moving to Los Angeles, Marcia segued into television to develop projects with Steve Martin at his company 40 Share Productions, at Universal Studios. Several years later, she was hired by Lorimar as Vice President of Current Programming, where she worked creatively with writers and producers. Wanting to focus solely on writing, Marcia moved to Austin, to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Marcia has authored numerous featured articles, essays, and six screenplays.

Jane writes and lives in Portland, Oregon, where she has almost always lived. She worked as a librarian in Oregon, Alaska, and California for many years, and spends her time walking, volunteering for Write Around Portland, gardening and talking to her small grandson. She has published in Street Roots, Ruminate, Desert Call and Pensive.