Authors

Jon Bond is one of the advertising and marketing industry’s most recognized thought leaders and entrepreneurs. He has developed several significant companies and marketing concepts over his 30-year career. Bond co-authored “Under the Radar,” which has been published in 5 languages. He is a keynote speaker and has lectured at Harvard Business School, Columbia, NYU, The University of Texas and his alma mater, Washington University (St. Louis). Bond has appeared on CNN, 20/20, CNBC, 20/20, Barbara Walters, Deborah Norville and Piers Morgan, and in 2010 was voted number 4 in Adweek’s “Executive of the Decade” poll.

Meagan Church is a writer, wordsmith and storyteller by trade. She has a degree in English with a focus on creative writing from Indiana University, and works as a freelance writer/storyteller for brands, blogs and organizations. A Midwesterner by birth, she now lives in North Carolina with her high school sweetheart, three children and a plethora of pets. To learn more about her writing, visit www.MeaganChurch.com, or follow her on Instagram and Twitter @mchurchwriter. 

Marian Dealy is a filmmaker and an award winning Ph.D. in Biology. Before doing her thesis at UCSD in molecular genetics, she worked on deciphering the human genome at Human Genome Sciences and as an AIDS researcher at the National Institutes of Health in a Biosafety Level 2/3 lab. 

Sam DeMase is a Career Confidence Coach and Self-Advocacy Expert with a community of 375,000+ followers on social media (@apowermood).  She has helped thousands of women advocate for themselves at work, land their dream job, and earn what they're worth.  Her best-selling resume guide and online courses have been purchased in 25+ countries worldwide.  

https://www.tiktok.com/@apowermood

Jimmy Harney is a New York Times-published essayist and leading music industry communications executive. An NYU graduate with a concentration in creative writing, Harney’s writing about his own life has garnered international attention. His 2020 personal essay “In Defense of My Emu Tattoo” was published by The New York Times for the outlet's internationally acclaimed "Modern Love" column and has since been translated into multiple languages and published for readers across the globe. For over ten years, he’s also crafted messaging and compelling editorials alongside some of the biggest names in entertainment - from Oscar-winning actors and influential athletes to Grammy-winners and global music legends like Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Motley Crue, and Janet Jackson, to name a few. FOr more information, visit his site: www.jimmyharney.com

Chenel King is a poet, fiction writer, and Emmy winner from Walnut, California. King has dedicated her writing to exploring, expanding, complicating, and acknowledging Black people's everyday lives, losses, and victories. King has such a deep sense of duty to explore the different worlds of Black women and men in the most intimate, endearing, and honest ways. Regardless of their ultimate objective, the aim is to tell their story. 

King has a few degrees but the best learning has come from the Black women and her father--before and around her. King's work has been featured in Shondaland.com, Every Other literary collective, Cultural Daily, and Ginger the Zine.  King has attended The Hurston/Wright Weekend Writer's Session and Tin House's Writer's Workshop. 

Cyril Manning’s fiction explores the fragile beauty and weird contradictions of human existence. A former adventure travel writer and environmental advocate, he is currently the executive director of fundraising communications at UC San Francisco, where he leads writing and design teams and oversees an award-winning health science magazine. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes most people are pretty awesome and things just might turn out OK. 

Joe Moore co-founded Psychedelics Today in 2016 with Kyle Buller. As CEO, Joe has co-created one of the planet's best-known psychedelic podcasts and training platforms. He combines over 20 years of avid psychedelic study and training with over 20 years of experience in software and multinational project management. Joe is a leading expert in transpersonal breathwork, a board member of the Psychedelic and Pain Association and the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition, and a sought-after international speaker on the intersecting subjects of psychedelic medicine and healing, breathwork, drug policy, medical innovation, international justice, and environmentalism. Learn more at psychedelicstoday.com

  J. Palmer is an author and high school teacher from Perth, Western Australia. He writes in the literary weird fiction space, and won an Aurealis award for his short story, ‘Follow the Water’. After graduating from the University of Western Australia with a bachelor’s degree in Japanese studies, he moved to London and stayed there for five years until the screeches of galahs and the scent of eucalypt called him home. He now teaches English in Western Australia, where he lives with his wife and two rescue cats. You can follow him on Twitter @Palmerwriting

David Key Parrish was a semi-retired technical writer and first-time author of the non-fiction book, Losing Jon  (Spring 2020 from Kensington). After growing up in a blue-collar family near Durham, North Carolina, attending college, marrying his Ohio-raised wife, and following a public health job to Jackson, Mississippi, David switched careers and moved with his wife and sons to Maryland, halfway between their Ohio and North Carolina families. 

www.davidkparrish.com 

Edward J. Cembal is the Canadian author of the highly anticipated literary horror novel The Monsters in our Shadows. Born in Toronto, he wrote his first story in grade one, featuring the night terrors that would plague him all his life. Needless to say, teachers were “concerned.” Growing up a storyteller, he toured as a musician before a diagnosis of Muscular Dystrophy took him from the road. Diving back into writing that explores existential horrors, his work has quickly received an enlivened response. When he’s not hunched over putting pen to paper or adrift in his mind on stormy days, he can be found in his library playing piano and orchestrating sound design for film and television. If it weren’t for his marvellous wife or big softy of a pup Juno, he surely would have fallen to madness. However, he’s not ruling the descent out entirely.

Marc Landas is the author of Cold War Resistance: Antibiotics and the War Against Communism (University of Nebraska Press, 2020) and The Fallen: A True Story of American POWs and Japanese Wartime Atrocities (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). He was a contributor to an anthology about Queens, New York, The Forgotten Borough (SUNY Press, 2011). His short stories have been published in literary journals such as Crack the Spine, In Stereo, the Commonline Journal, Conclave, Thrice, and the Grey Sparrow Journal.

Kim Masson is a native New Yorker and novelist who writes humorous tales about the Big Apple's quirkiest residents. As an urban pioneer, she's survived tourist seasons and hipster invasions. From her crumbly Brooklyn loft which she shares with her artist husband and tough-as-nails kitty, Masson dishes out New York adventures with a hearty dose of humor and cheeky flavor. 

Check her out at 

www.kimmassonwrites.com 

Pamela Todd is the author of THE BLIND FAITH HOTEL (Simon and Schuster, 2008), a novel about a young girl who is sentenced to community service at a prairie preserve.  THE BLIND FAITH HOTEL was a recipient of the Midwest Booksellers Award, a co-winner of the 2009 National Green Earth Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, an ALAN pick for December 2008, and was awarded an Illinois Arts Council grant.  Her first novel, PIG AND THE SHRINK (Delacorte 1999) was awarded a grant for contemporary fiction for young people from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  She is a speaker at schools, libraries, and conferences, served as a core teaching artist for the Ragdale Foundation, and has taught writing and journaling in a women’s prison.  During her free-time Todd’s passion is gardening with native plants to increase biodiversity. She co-founded a local chapter of Wild Ones, a national organization devoted to increasing populations of birds, bees and butterflies by creating habitat in our own backyards.  She currently lives and writes in Oak Park, IL.