Nick Otten taught literature and writing in high school for more than 50 years and in graduate school for more than 35 years, and he pretends to have ‘retired’ completely. He has published many journal articles, written two books on reading, and several produced plays, reviewed books and movies online, translated Chinese poetry and Mexican stories, and written poetry for little magazines (most of them now defunct) in several English-speaking countries.
Nick currently is working on rewriting an existing educational game for print and researching a series of historical programs for long-form television. He also has unpublished plays, a novel, multi-genre book manuscripts, and multiple, endless journals, if you happen to be interested.

Kelley Weber is an actor, teacher, spiritual director, and knitter. Originally from Connecticut, she has been teaching theater and acting professionally in St. Louis for the last 25 years. She was a founding member of St. Louis' Mustard Seed Theater, which explored our relationship with God and our ethical responsibility to the world.
​Most recently she won the St. Louis Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her role as Bodie in Tennessee Williams' A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur for The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. As kids grow and move off to college and beyond, Kelley is looking toward second-half-of-life work outside the theater, helping bring to life people's sacred stories as a spiritual director. She recently graduated from Aquinas Institute of Theology. 

Instagram: @kells_shwell
and @a_spiral_space
Kelley's website: www.aspiral.space 
Kelley's Substack: A Spiral Space​
​
Listen to Kelley + Nick talk about sacred friendship and mentoring HERE. 

Karen Walrond is a writer, photographer, lawyer, author, and leadership and activism coach—a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator trained in Brené Brown's work on vulnerability, courage, shame-resilience and worthiness, as well as in positive psychology coaching from the Wholebeing Institute.
She is a bestselling author on the subjects of tapping into your superpowers and how to work for change in the world without losing your joy. Karen's latest book, The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy, will be published by Broadleaf Books in November 2021. She also has contributed both photographs and essays to books on self expression and faith, including Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels, a compendium co-edited by Cathleen Falsani. Find Karen's Books HERE

​Karen is a sought-after keynote and TEDx speaker, who has spoken to small groups, as well as audiences comprised of thousands. Karen has spoken throughout the United States and abroad  on the topic of thriving through leadership development, the magic of creativity, the value of cultural and racial diversity and inclusion, and the power of social media. She has appeared on both local and national television and in other news media, including PBS, Huffington Post, CNN.com and The Oprah Winfrey Show.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from Texas A&M University, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Houston Law Center, and remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas. Karen was one of 2016's 40 over 40 Women to Watch, as well as one of YWCA-Houston's 2016 Outstanding Women of the Year.

Karen's website: Chookooloonks.com
Karen on Twitter: @Chookooloonks
Karen on Instagram: @HeyChookooloonks
Karen's Podcast: The Make Light Show

Barbara Mahany spent nearly three decades as a reporter and writer at the Chicago Tribune. She is now a freelance journalist and author of four collections of essays. Her first, Slowing Time: Seeing the Sacred Outside Your Kitchen Door, has been called “balm for the hurried heart,” and “a field guide into your holiest hours.” Her second book, Motherprayer: Lessons in Loving, explores the sacred mysteries of mothering—its sorrows, joys, trembles, hallelujahs, and the tumble of questions without answers.
Her latest, which debuted earlier this autumn, The Stillness of Winter: Sacred Blessings of the Season, is a "gift book," which basically means a pretty little book you might delight in holding in your hand, or tucking in your pocket, or slipping onto your bedside table. It's a lovely, fetchingly-compact tome and we have done just that with it in Bellingham and Laguna Beach, respectively. 
A pediatric oncology nurse before taking up journalism, Barb ever is drawn to deeply human stories, where she has displayed a nurse’s knack for tapping into the hearts of those whose story she is telling.
She counts among her life’s treasures the hundreds of letters she’s received from readers who tell her they’ve clipped one of her stories and tucked it in a wallet, a bedroom drawer, or slipped it in a plastic sleeve and carried it wherever they’ve gone. One such fellow, the Pigeon Man of Lincoln Square, who was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver one cold December’s eve, died clutching a laminated copy of the story she had written about him three years earlier. 
Barb still writes regularly on her longtime blog, Pull Up A Chair. We suggest you do.

Website: BarbaraMahany.com
Instagram: @barbara.ann.mahany
Twitter: @BarbaraMahany

Greta Chapin-McGill is a Black feminist artist who believes the narrative of her art is a living document, evolving in phases. The most important lesson she says she has learned has been "to get out of my own way and let the art lead me.” She is  drawn to artists, male and female, whose sensibilities are able to look intimately at the feminine mystic. 
“Women express openly among themselves and in every venue they inhabit emotion and spirituality," Greta says. To her, feminism means having the unparalleled physical strength literally to push humanity forward. "Feminism silently and most profoundly influences my work, she says.
"Women are the species I know best.” 
 
Reared in Washington, D.C., Greta has lived in New York, New Mexico, and Firenze, Italy. 
“My work is abstractly real. The techniques are driven by classical art 'isms,' indigenous tribal art, and my own unique ancestral DNA. I spend time reading, studying, and collecting mentors to further my art," she says. Her great influences include Wilfredo Lam, Picasso, Matisse, Leon Berkowitz, Alma Thomas, and contemporary artists with whom she converses with about art, politics, and concepts of life, such as  Lillian Burwell,  the late Jack Whitten, Oliver Lee Jackson, Akili Anderson, Alonzo Davis, and Indigenous  artist Patricia Michaels. 
“I am driven to tell the story of my time through the eyes of a Black American woman, a feminist and global citizen,” Greta says. 
 
Instagram: ChapinMcGill (where many of her works pictured are for sale—DM her!)
Facebook: Greta Chapin-McGill

Teri Hansen is an actress, singer and writer. Her film and TV credits include Into the Water, Street Scene, FBI: Most Wanted, The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, and Orange is the New Black. On stage, she’s performed in An American in Paris, The Sound Of Music, Camelot (opposite Robert Goulet), The Music Man, Boys From Syracuse, and Show Boat, as well as in concert as a soloist with Marvin Hamlisch, the Boston Pops, the National Symphony, and multiple operatic roles throughout North America and Europe.
Her writing credits include Into the Water (screenplay) and CHÉRI (music & book, adaptation of Colette’s CHÉRI). Teri also holds an honorary PdD (doctor of fine arts) from Central Michigan University. 

Teri's website: TeriDaleHansen.com
Teri on Facebook: TeriDHansen
Into the Water on Facebook
IndieGogo for Into the Water

Kaitlyn Barrett (L) and Cathleen Falsani (R)
are co-hosts of
the Artist Care and Feeding Podcast.

Kaitlyn Insta: @kaitlynfaebarrett
Kaitlyn LinkedIn: Kaitlyn Barrett
ACAF Twitter: @ArtistCareNFeed
ACAF Insta: @ArtistCareFeed
Cathleen Twitter: @godgrrl
Cathleen Insta: @godgrrl
​Cathleen's LinkTree: @GodGrrl
Cathleen's Latest: Look for the Light

Kaitlyn Barrett (L) and Cathleen Falsani (R)
are co-hosts of
the Artist Care and Feeding Podcast.

Kaitlyn Insta: @kaitlynfaebarrett
Kaitlyn LinkedIn: Kaitlyn Barrett
ACAF Twitter: @ArtistCareNFeed
ACAF Insta: @ArtistCareFeed
Cathleen Twitter: @godgrrl
Cathleen Insta: @godgrrl
​Cathleen's LinkTree: @GodGrrl
Cathleen's Latest: Look for the Light

Robyn Henderson-Espinoza is an author, writer, speaker, Transqueer activist, Latinx scholar, and public theologian. They are the author of Activist Theology, published in 2019 by Fortress Press, and are presently busy writing their next book Becoming (Em)bodied, forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in late 2021. They live in Nashville, with their partner, Erin, and their two cats, Frida and Diego.

Website: iRobyn.com
Twitter: @irobyn
Insta: @irobyn
Soundcloud:iRobyn
Vimeo: Activist Theology