Diane Skye Gropper has been a professional writer throughout most of her long career. She spent nearly two decades as a writer and editor at a major financial magazine, where she won several journalism awards, and as a freelance writer/editor. She later worked as a marketing strategist and writer at a financial firm and then formed her own marketing communications company that served some of the leading names in investment management.

I think you should hear this from me. I could write it in the third person and try to make myself sound interesting, but where’s the accountability? Born the second of five children (perfect positioning), I grew up in the house my parents built on my grandparents’ farmhouse front lawn (all the fun of the farm without the stress of having to be a farmer). There’s a picture of me at age six holding a birthday cake with an airplane on it. I started working (for pay) on the farm around age ten, but my head was in the clouds. If I wasn’t watching airplanes fly over, I was daydreaming about them, reading about them, building models and flying balsa airplanes off the top of sixty-foot silos.

My work primarily explores visceral feelings and experiences such as grief, trauma, and emotions that overwhelm the human body. Body’s supreme capabilities fascinate me—the same bodies that hold generations’ worth of grief and trauma can still opt for more vulnerability, whether for intimacy, healing, or profession. Writing helps me comprehend and express the pain, beauty, and meaning embedded in such human experiences.

Marie Lisette Rimer earned an MA in Secondary Education and a BA in Sociology from the University of Connecticut. She was a publicist for the Connecticut legislature and an award-winning English teacher at Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut. Life was shattered by the suicide of her youngest son, Patrick Wood, in 2006.

Mallory M. O’Connor holds degrees in art and art history from Ohio University and taught art history at the University of Florida and at Santa Fe College. She also served for ten years as director of the City of Gainesville’s Thomas Center Gallery. Mallory is the author of eight published novels—the American River Trilogy (historical fiction) and the Psychic Series (paranormal/cli-fi) as well as three non-fiction books, including The Kitchen and the Studio: A Memoir of Food and Art (Atmosphere Press, 2023) co-authored by her husband, artist John A. O’Connor. A Trail in the Woods is the fifth and final book in this series.

Growing up near a reservation in Washington State inspired Colin Kersey to write stories about fairness, underdogs, and spirituality. His first novel, Soul Catcher, featured a legendary, vengeance-seeking Native American spirit wind. His second, Swimming with the Angels, explored themes of loss, betrayal, and the search for an Eden. It won Finalist Awards in the National Indie Excellence Awards and the American Fiction Awards.

Gary Keith is a long-time resident of Austin, Texas. He and his wife walk with their goldendoodle Ivybelle and enjoy Austin’s vibrant music and food scenes. After retiring from teaching and writing academic works, Keith moved to Oregon, where he explored the coast, rivers, and mountains, then to Washington, where he loved riding the ferry back and forth from Seattle to his home on Bainbridge Island.

Margaret Bryden, MBA, CMHC, is a therapist, author, and speaker who is passionate about making mental health more accessible. With degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, San Jose State University, and Westminster University, Margaret brings together expertise in psychology, business, and communication to make mental health concepts engaging and practical. She works in both private practice and psychiatric hospital settings, specializing in helping individuals and couples through trauma, addiction recovery, and life transitions.

I have been a literary critic for several newspapers and magazines such as Times Today: Radio Magazine for the duration of my twenty-year career. Over this time, I have read, analysed, and given my opinions on a wide variety of poets and authors. One in particular always stood out as having potential to me: Charlie Braeburn, or as he is more famously known, Mr. Preston.

I have been a brother in the Capuchin Franciscan Order since 1991. I was born in 1967 and was raised in Wilmington, DE, and pursued music, which was my first passion in my youth. I studied piano and composition and was building a career as a composer until I made a left turn when I felt a call to the consecrated life. I searched for a while and ended up joining the Capuchin Franciscans. I went through formation as a friar and professed vows in August of 1993. Since then, I’ve been living the fraternal and prayer life of the Friars Minor Capuchin and ministering to others.