ASJA 2018 Annual Writers Conference
 
 
Ben Adams
Ben Adams is an Executive Editor at PublicAffairs Books. Works he’s published include the New York Times bestseller The Phenomenon by Rick Ankiel, Garry Kasparov’s Winter is Coming, David Sax’s The Revenge of Analog, and Peter Pomerantsev’s Nothing is True and Everything is Possible. Other authors he has worked with include Gregg Easterbrook, Anya Kamenetz, Katherine Lewis, Juan Williams, and Martin Seligman. In his career, Ben has acquired and published books in a wide variety of categories, including sports, science, current affairs, economics, history, food, humor, memoir and more.
 
Cheryl Alkon
Cheryl Alkon is a seasoned writer who has covered health, medicine, wellness, parenting, business and more for various publications over many years. She is the author of the book "Balancing Pregnancy With Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby," and her work has appeared in the ASCO Daily News, EverydayHealth.com, Quest magazine, USA Today, Boston magazine, Woman's Day, and the New York Times, among many others. She and her husband David live and parent their two kids, Ethan, 10, and Hannah, 6, in Massachusetts.
 
Sherry Amatenstein
Sherry Amatenstein is a former magazine editor and author of four books including the anthology, HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL? True Confessions from Both Sides of the Therapy Couch. She has written for many publications, including Washington Post, New York, Playboy, Vox, Reader's Digest, Woman's Day and Dame. @sherapynyc
 
Lisa Armstrong
Lisa Armstrong is an award-winning journalist with credits in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Intercept, The Daily Beast, The New Yorker among others. She has reported from several countries, including Sierra Leone, Kenya, the Philippines, Haiti. She reports on juvenile incarceration and is associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
 
Candy Arrington
Candy Arrington speaks on challenging topics to diverse audiences. Her ability to provide practical applications and employ the power of story to get her message across elicits audience connection. Candy especially enjoys teaching writers to optimize their message to reach readers and hone their ideas to spark the interest of editors, agents, and publishers.
 
Hannah Babcock
Hannah Babcock is Assistant Manager of Subsidiary Rights for New York-based Abrams publishing company. Previously she was assistant scout for Baker Literary Scouting.
 
Sherry Beck Paprocki
ASJA President Sherry Beck Paprocki is an award winning journalist and author. Her company. R.S. Rock Media, Inc., creates print and digital products for clients. A recent project involved 38 short stories, both fiction and nonfiction, for professors at Drexel University who are developing a reading comprehension app for middle schoolers.
 
Cara Bedick
Cara Bedick is a Senior Editor at Touchstone, where she acquires and edits non-fiction titles with a focus in health and wellness, lifestyle, self-help, business, parenting, education, and science. Spring 2018 titles include PRESCHOOL CLUES by Angela C. Santomero, M.A. and illustrated memoir MANY LOVE by Sophie Johnson.
 
Terena Bell
Terena Bell is winner of this year's Arlene Award for her The Atlantic article on translation and Hurricane Irma evacuation. Other clips include Playboy, Marie Claire, Washington Post, Fast Company, etc. In addition to translation, she reports on tech, ADHD, and rural America. Bell has founded two startups and served on President Obama's White House Business Roundtable.
 
Stuart Bernstein
Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists is a literary and lecture agency based in New York City. A former bookseller, Bernstein has represented writers, translators, artists and photographers. Agency authors with recent and forthcoming books include Julia Alvarez, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, Mark Beauregard, Beverly Gray and Cherríe Moraga.
 
Michelle Blankenship
Michelle Blankenship worked 16 years as a publicist at John Wiley & Sons, Picador USA, Harcourt, and Bloomsbury. Her former in-house authors included Günter Grass, Jesmyn Ward, Umberto Eco, Kaye Gibbons, Roger Angell, Emma Donoghue, Mohsin Hamid, and Ursula K. Le Guin. She founded Blankenship Public Relations in April 2013.
 
Sari Botton
Sari Botton is a writer living in Kingston, New York. She's the Essays Editor for Longreads, and edited of the award-winning anthology Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NY and its New York Times-Bestselling follow-up, Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for NY. @saribotton
 
Suzanne Bowness
Suzanne (Sue) Bowness is a Toronto-based, generalist writer/editor with 17 years of experience. Her byline has appeared in national publications and she has written for organizations in the higher education, technology, and business sectors. After earning a PhD in English with a research focus on nineteenth-century Canadian magazines, Sue also teaches writing, currently in a one-year post-graduate writing program she helped to create at Humber College in Toronto.
 
Amy Brecount White
Amy Brecount White’s (www.amybrecountwhite.com) travel pieces — covering everything from plein air painting festivals to whale watching — have appeared in The Washington Post, Arlington magazine, Bethesda magazine, and Chesapeake Views. She’s focused mostly on mid-Atlantic travel but plans to expand her wanderings now that she’s an empty nester.
 
Damon Brown
Damon Brown is a former ASJA Board Member and author of several books, most recently The Ultimate Bite-Sized Entrepreneur, the latest in the self-published best-selling series. Damon also writes a daily Inc. Magazine online column. He focuses on helping solopreneurs and side hustlers through his popular self-guided bootcamp at JoinDamon.me. @browndamon
 
Jill Caryl Weiner
Jill Caryl Weiner is a journalist and author. She's written articles and essays for The New York Times and New York Magazine among other publications and websites. Her best-selling memory book for new parents, When We Became Three, led to her new book, When We Became Four, which welcomes Baby #2.
 
Peter Catapano
Peter Catapano has been an opinion editor at The New York Times since 2005, where he has developed and edited several online series, including The Stone, Home Fires-which featured writing by US military veterans-and Anxiety, a multidimensional exploration of panic, worry and fear. Currently he is the editor for the Disability column. He was recognized for his work in pioneering blogs and series for The New York Times with a Publisher's Award in 2008. His books include Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments: A Stone Reader, and The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments. @petercatapano.
 
Lenora Chu
Lenora Chu is an American journalist and author of the award-winning Little Soldiers, a narrative account of China’s education system. Lenora focuses on the cross-section of business, politics, education and culture, and her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and The Cut/NYMag. A former management consultant to Fortune 500 companies, Lenora graduated from Stanford University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism with degrees in engineering and journalism.
 
Beth Conway
Beth Conway has worked in book selling and publishing for close to 20 years and is based in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in Australia and graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney, and also attended the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France. She has worked in international rights and sales for HarperCollins Australia and, in the US, at Sterling Publishing. Beth is currently Foreign and Subsidiary Rights Manager at Sounds True Inc.
 
Danielle Corcione
Danielle Corcione is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Esquire, Playboy, Vice, and more. They are the founder of The Millennial Freelancer. To learn more about their work, visit daniellecorcione.com.
 
Carolyn Crist
Carolyn Crist is a freelance journalist with stories that have appeared in AARP, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, Anesthesiology News, Reuters, Tales of the Cocktail, U.S. News & World Report and WIRED. She is also an adjunct journalism professor (of convergence journalism, photojournalism and travel writing) at the University of Georgia and co-owner of Pixel & Ink Studio in Athens, Georgia.
 
Lilly Dancyger
Lilly Dancyger is the Deputy Editor of Narratively and a freelance journalist and essayist with bylines in Psychology Today, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Glamour, and more. She is the editor of the anthology BURN IT DOWN, forthcoming from Seal Press in 2019, and teaches personal essay writing at Catapult. @lillydancyger
 
Anita Darcel Taylor
Anita Darcel Taylor’s essay “Summer Storm" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. “By My Own Hand,” was featured in the Massachusetts General Hospital symposiums. Her essay published in the Bellevue Literary Review’s Landscapes of the Mind was highlighted in The New York Times. She received an MFA from Bennington College.
 
Laurel Davis Huber
Laurel Davis Huber grew up in Rhode Island and Oklahoma and graduated from Smith College. Her debut novel, The Velveteen Daughter, won the 2017 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize for American Historical Fiction. Library Journal’s starred review calls the book “a masterpiece.” The author now lives in New Jersey.
 
Cecilia de la Campa
Cecilia de la Campa is the Executive Director, Global Licensing and Domestic Partnerships at Writers House, a New York City-based literary agency. She focuses on children's and young-adult books for global licensing and oversees the complete list of authors and titles for domestic rights channels including audio, theater, film & television, and educational reprinting. Cecilia regularly attends the major international book fairs and has taken part in various conferences including the Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC), the historic US Publishing Mission to Cuba in 2016 lead by Publishers Weekly, and Global Kids Connect. A graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, Cecilia worked for several years at Simon & Schuster before joining Writers House in 2009.
 
Katie Devine
Katie Devine has worked on the publishing side of beauty and fashion magazines for fifteen years. She recently completed a sabbatical spent traveling, moving across the country and writing two books, a memoir and a novel. Her work has appeared on Huffington Post, Role Reboot and The Manifest-Station, among others.
 
Seema Dhawan
Seema Dhawan is a journalist and media strategist. She has contributed to publications including USA TODAY, WestJet Airline's Magazine, and The Huffington Post Alberta, where she was one of three founding editors. Seema has used her digital media expertise to help clients increase revenue and readership. @seemaddhawan
 
Randy Dotinga
Former ASJA president Randy Dotinga is a former newspaper reporter and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1999. He specializes in health/medicine, politics, history, and the odd and unusual. Dotinga has written for dozens of publications from the L.A. Times to U.S. News & World Report, and he's a longtime book critic with The Christian Science Monitor.
 
Beth Dreher
Beth Dreher is the Features Director at Woman's Day magazine, a publication that reaches millions of readers each month. As a nearly 20-year veteran of the media industry, Beth knows how to craft compelling, inspiring stories and essays that capture the attention of a diverse audience. Her writing has appeared on BuzzFeed and in Reader's Digest, Runner's World, and more. Beth holds a master's degree in English from the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
 
Nancy Dunham
Nancy Dunham is a freelance writer whose clients include People magazine, AARP, Automotive News, USA Today, MoneyTalksNews/MSN, Woman’s World, A&E Real Crime blog and other national publications. Dunham was a newspaper reporter, magazine editor and publisher. She is also a founding board member of the Association of Healthcare Journalists and lives in Alexandria, Va.
 
Richard Eisenberg
Richard Eisenberg is managing editor of PBS' Nextavenue.org, a site for people 50+, and editor of its Money and Work channels. He writes book reviews for People magazine and freelances for numerous outlets. He is author of How to Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis and The Money Book of Personal Finance.
 
Leigh Eisenman
Leigh Eisenman is an agent with Hannigan Salky Getzler, where she has worked since 2015. She represents and is actively seeking writers of literary and upmarket commercial fiction and nonfiction authors in the spaces of food, health/wellness, pop culture, animals, humor, and illustrated books of all stripes. Leigh is also an attorney and counsel with Lyons & Salky Law, LLP. She graduated from Dartmouth College (English major) and the University of Virginia School of Law.
 
Jack El-Hai
Former ASJA president Jack El-Hai is a writer of books and articles who covers medicine, science, and history. He has contributed more than 500 articles and essays to publications such as The Atlantic, Scientific American Mind, Wired, The Saturday Evening Post, The History Channel Magazine and The Washington Post Magazine.
 
Molly Elizalde
Molly Elizalde is an editor at Lenny Letter working with personal essays, arts and culture stories, fiction, and poetry. She also serves as Lenny’s art director. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Otto. @mollyelizalde on Instagram.
 
Anjali Enjeti
Anjali Enjeti is Vice President of Membership for the National Book Critics Circle, and a creative nonfiction instructor in the MFA program at Reinhardt University. Her work has appeared most recently in The Paris Review, Al Jazeera, The Georgia Review, The Atlantic, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, NPR, Vice, and elsewhere.
 
Estelle Erasmus
Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist, writing coach and former magazine editor-in-chief. She was the ASJA NYC 2017 conference chair, hosts/ curates the ASJA Direct podcast, and teaches pitching and personal essay writing for Writer’s Digest. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Brain, Child and more. See her writing tips and editor interviews at EstelleSErasmus.com and @EstelleSErasmus.
 
Jennifer L.W. Fink
Jennifer L.W. Fink is a writer, editor, podcaster & mother of four boys. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Parents, Boys' Life , FOX News, U. S. News and World Report and Parade. Jennifer is also the creator of BuildingBoys.net and a member of ASJA's Board of Directors.
 
Lynya Floyd
Lynya Floyd is the health director at Family Circle and has been an editor at Glamour, Essence, Seventeen, Heart & Soul, Parenting and more. She's also a life coach and wellness expert who has been on the Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show, Fox News, The Doctors, NPR and more.
 
Rae Padilla Francoeur
Rae Padilla Francoeur wrote the erotic literary memoir Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair (freefallrae.blogspot.com), published by Seal Press/Hachette. A former managing editor of newspapers and magazines, she publishes articles, essays and short stories, and twice-monthly book reviews for GateHouse Media that run in newspapers nationally. She worked as Manager of Editorial at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Creative Director at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. She founded New Arts Collaborative, an arts/nonprofit marketing and publicity business, and has conducted marketing and publicity campaigns for the tourism industry in Massachusetts, as well as museums and artists. She has run well-received and well-attended ASJA conference workshops for the last three years. In 2017 Rae was awarded “Best Blog” by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
 
Laura Fredricks, JD
Laura Fredricks, JD is the Billion Dollar A$K Maker Powerhouse, who as CEO and Founder of THE A$K© trains and coaches nonprofits and businesses on How to A$K for Money…and More of It. She is the first to combine the most trusted professions, law and philanthropy, to show how any person, charity or business can raise money to unprecedented levels. For over 27 years, she has advised organizations around the globe on current trends that impact and influence the for-profit and nonprofit world. Her five books, including THE A$K©, are the international industry leading go-to guides. Her latest book: "THE ASK: For Business, For Philanthropy, and EveryDay Living" just came out this October 2017 and has sold close to 1,000 copies.
 
Amy Gash
Amy Gash is an Executive Editor at Algonquin Books. Bestselling and award-winning books she has worked on include Ariel Sabar's My Father's Paradise, Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods, B.A. Shapiro's The Art Forger, as well as Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb and Seduced by Mrs. Robinson by Beverly Gray.
 
Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Jennifer Goforth Gregory has been writing professionally for over 20 years and specializes in content marketing writing. Her clients include IBM, Adobe, Samsung, Verizon, Salesforce, AT&T, and Allstate. She also writes a popular blog for content marketing writers, The Content Marketing Writer.
 
Beverly Gray
Beverly Gray (@bev_movieland, www.beverlygray.com), once developed 170 low-budget features for B-movie legend Roger Corman, while also surveying the entertainment industry for the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter. She is the author of two showbiz biographies, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers (now in its 3rd edition) and Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon...and Beyond. Her blog, “Beverly in Movieland” (www.beverlyinmovieland.com) covers movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent. In celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary, Algonquin has just published Beverly’s latest book, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation."
 
Wendy Helfenbaum
Wendy Helfenbaum, an ASJA Board Member, is a Montreal-based writer and TV producer, and mother of one. She is adamant about taking six weeks off every summer for unplugged family time, and never brings a laptop on vacation. @WendyHelfenbaum
 
Victoria R. Hester
Victoria R. Hester is an award-winning and accomplished author of three true crime books with a concentration on cold cases. A Registered Nurse by night, author and investigator by day, she co-authors with her father, making them the only father-daughter duo writing in the true crime genre.
 
Wayne Hoffman
Wayne Hoffman is the Executive Editor at Tablet Magazine, who also oversees Tablet's Life & Religion section. He previously served as managing editor at The Forward and Billboard. Hoffman is the author of three novels: An Older Man; Hard; and the Stonewall Book Award-winning Sweet Like Sugar. He is also a contributor to several anthologies and editor of What We Brought Back: Jewish Life After Birthright. In addition, he is a journalist whose cultural reporting has appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, The Nation, The Forward, and The Advocate. 
 
Jeanette Hurt
Jeanette Hurt is an award-winning journalist and author of nine culinary and drink books, most recently Drink Like a Woman on the history of the female bartender. She has written about spirits, wine, and food for The Kitchn, Wine Enthusiasts, and Esquire, and has done extensive recipe development and ghostwriting. @ByJeanetteHurt
 
Andrea Jarrell
Andrea Jarrell’s debut memoir “I’m the One Who Got Away” was named one of the Best Books of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews. In addition it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a 2017 “book pick” by The Today Show, Redbook, Town & Country, BuzzFeed, and The Rumpus among others. Jarrell’s essays have appeared in the New York Times “Modern Love” column, the Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Literary Hub, Narrative Magazine and other sites, journals, and anthologies. She is a Scripps College, Bennington MFA, and Hedgebrook alumna and the recipient of a Martin Dibner Fellowship.
 
Dean Jobb
Dean Jobb is part of the Creative Nonfiction program faculty at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The author of seven books, his work has appeared in major publications in Canada, the U.S. and Britain and he reviews true crime for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His latest book, Empire of Deception, was the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for true crime and was a finalist for Canada's top nonfiction award, the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize.
 
Christopher Johnston
Christopher Johnston has published more than 3,000 articles in numerous regional and national publications, including American Theatre, Christian Science Monitor, History Magazine and Scientific American. His book, Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice (Skyhorse) was published on May 1st. @seechriswrite
 
Lottie Joiner
Lottie Joiner is the editor of The Crisis magazine, the official publication of the NAACP, and a board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She is an award-winning journalist who covers social justice, civil rights, race and ethnicity. She writes frequently about the Civil Rights Movement and has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Daily Beast and Time.com.
 
Daniel Jones
Dan Jones has edited the Modern Love column in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times since its inception in 2004. His books include “Love Illuminated: Exploring Life’s Most Mystifying Subject (with the Help of 50,000 Strangers),” two essay anthologies—“Modern Love” and “The Bastard on the Couch”—and the novel “After Lucy,” which was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. Jones appears weekly on the Modern Love Podcast, a joint production of WBUR-Boston and The New York Times, which had 20 million downloads in its first year. He has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, CBS This Morning, ABC News, CNN and NPR, and his writing can be found in The Times, Elle, Parade, Harper’s Bazaar and elsewhere. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and New York City.
 
Megy Karydes
Megy Karydes is a Chicago-based writer whose byline has appeared in Rodale's Organic Life, USA Today, The Atlantic's CityLab, National Geographic's The Plate, Politico.com, Fortune.com, Forbes.com, Chicago Tribune and other outlets. She regularly writes about health, entrepreneurship, marketing, food, travel, and sustainability.
 
Caitlin Kelly
Caitlin Kelly is a National Magazine Award-winning freelance writer and winner of five journalism fellowships. A former journalism professor at New York University and Concordia University, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, and Glamour. @caitlinkellynyc.
 
Dan Kennedy
Dan Kennedy is a journalism professor at Northeastern University and a nationally known media commentator. He is a panelist on WGBH-TV's "Beat the Press" and writes on the news media for WGBHNews.org, the Nieman Journalism Lab, among others. His new book is The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century.
 
Eugenia Kim
Eugenia Kim’s debut novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, won the Borders Original Voices Award, was shortlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was a Washington Post Best Historical Novel and Critic’s Pick. Her second novel, The Kinship of Secrets, is forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in fall 2018. She is an adjunct professor at Fairfield University’s MFA Creative Writing Program.
 
Linsey Knerl
Linsey Knerl is a Nebraska native with 10 years experience as a full-time freelance blogger, author, and public speaker. Her experience managing online communities for brands has given her a unique perspective on social media and has allowed her to create digital content for startups across the United States.
 
Christine Koubek
Christine Koubek is an award-winning writer, author, and writing teacher. Her nonfiction work has appeared in The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Coastal Living, Porthole, and many other publications. In addition, she writes the Get Away column for Bethesda and Arlington magazines, and is a regular contributor for TripAdvisor subsidiaries CruiseCritic and FamilyVacationCritic.com. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, and has taught essay and travel writing at The Writer’s Center in DC.
 
Amy Kraft
Amy Kraft is a senior editor at Everyday Health, a digital health publication with 18 M unique monthly visitors, more than 1.2 M Facebook followers, 521K Twitter followers, and 36K Instagram followers. She covers gastrointestinal disorders and heart health. Prior to EH.com, Amy worked on the science and health desk at CBSNews.com where several of her stories ranked as the site's most popular. She is a digital media expert eager to share her skills and experience with other writers. @akraft22.
 
Karen Kroll
 
Albert LaFarge PhD
Albert LaFarge, PhD, is the founder of The Albert LaFarge Literary Agency, which focuses deeply informed, accessible nonfiction — biography, history, memoir, essays and reportage in the areas of art and design, business, music, science, sports, travel, and urbanism.
 
Laura Laing
Laura Laing is the author of three books and many long-form narrative pieces, including those about the trans community, teenagers with HIV/AIDS, and the oldest gay bar in Baltimore. Her recent, long-form essays have appeared in The Rumpus Full Grown People, Creative Non-Fiction, and Consequence. She is currently working on a fractured memoir about love and mathematics and will graduate this year with an MFA in creative non-fiction from Goucher College.
 
Janine Latus
Janine Latus is the author of If I Am Missing or Dead, which is a New York Times bestselling memoir that tells the story of two sisters who grow up to choose angry and controlling men. One breaks free and thrives, the other is murdered by her live-in boyfriend. Janine is the sister who survived, and she wrote her book to shine a light on the many facets of relationship abuse. The book was challenging both in terms of emotion and craft, and for this panel she'll be addressing both.
 
Mary Shannon Little
Mary Shannon Little is a former federal prosecutor turned private investigator. She is working on her memoir and has published in Visible Ink, an anthology published by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and op-eds in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Wired.com.
 
Mary-Kate Mackey
Mary-Kate Mackey is the author of Write Better Right Now: The Reluctant Writer’s Guide to Confident Communication and Self-assured Style. She honed her signature teaching tools during her 14 years at the University of Oregon’s Journalism School. She has conducted her popular writing workshops at conferences around the U.S.
 
Carolyn Malcoun
Carolyn Malcoun is the senior food editor at EatingWell Magazine, where she splits her time between cooking and writing and editing content. Her culinary interest is rooted in her childhood: baking thousands of Christmas cookies every year with her mom, picking leaves off bunches of parsley to make tabbouleh with her Lebanese dad, and churning out Beef Bourguignon and French Silk Pie at age 10. Carolyn has also been published in SevenFifty Daily, Cooking Light, Women's Health, Fitness, DRAFT Magazine and Vegetarian Times, helped create a healthy school lunch cookbook for the Vermont Farm-to-School, and was a consultant for Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters program. She has a journalism degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a graduate of New England Culinary Institute. @cmalcoun.
 
Doreen McGettigan
As the president of Intrepid Marketing, Inc., Doreen McGettigan coaches on all things writing, publishing and marketing. She has written for numerous Philadelphia newspapers and magazines and is a best-selling author, sought-after ghostwriter and award-winning blogger.
 
Kimberley Moran
Kimberley Moran is a senior digital editor for WeAreTeachers, and School Leaders Now. She's also a literacy expert with extensive training and experience in education. She is the author of Hacking Parenthood.
 
Jenn Morson
Jenn Morson is a writer/journalist and ASJA member from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan-area whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, SELF Magazine, Racked.com,  WhattoExpect.com, and many more national and regional publications. Her areas of expertise include health, pregnancy, parenting, adoption,fashion, pop culture, and personal essay. When not writing, Morson enjoys spending time with her husband and five children.
 
Dana Newman
Dana Newman is a Los Angeles based independent literary agent (Dana Newman Literary Agency LLC) who represents authors of practical and narrative non-fiction, and a select number of literary and upmarket fiction. She's also a transactional and intellectual property attorney with Raines Feldman LLP, focusing on publishing law, contracts, copyrights, trademarks, and licensing. Dana is a member of the California State Bar and the Association of Authors' Representatives, and holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco. Information about her agency and law practice is online at dananewman.com.
 
Dorri Olds
Dorri Olds is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in book anthologies, newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Woman’s Day and The Forward. Her social media following includes over a million views on YouTube. As a full-time freelancer she divides her time between writing personal essays, pop culture articles, service pieces, movie reviews and interviewing A-List celebrities. She is currently working on a book about misogyny and rape culture.
 
Blaine L. Pardoe
Blaine L. Pardoe is an award-winning New York Times Bestselling author of true crime, military history, and science fiction books. A graduate of Central Michigan University, he has been a featured speaker at the National Archives, the US Naval Academy, and has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs discussing his work.
 
Christine Parizo
Christine Parizo is a freelance B2B technology copywriter and journalist who got her start in journalism in the days when clouds were still something you'd watch on lazy, breezy days and dial-up Internet was the norm. Now, she delves into Everything as a Service for a variety of technology companies and writes articles for B2B publications. When she's not writing about technology, she can be found drinking copious amounts of coffee, running, or hanging out with her husband and children in the suburbs of Houston.
 
Rudri Patel
Rudri Bhatt Patel is a lawyer turned writer and editor. She is the co-founder and editor of The Sunlight Press and on staff at Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, ESPN, Saveur, Brain,Child Magazine, Role Reboot, Mothers Always Write, Parent.Co, Raising Arizona Kids and elsewhere. She is currently working on a memoir on the Hindu culture.
 
Lisa Rabasca Roepe
Lisa Rabasca Roepe is a full-time freelance writer and a Forbes Contributor, who writes about women in the workplace, business, personal finance, and beer and spirits. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, Ozy.com, Good, The Atlantic's CityLab, Quartz, Eater, Men's Journal, Yahoo Parenting, Arlington Magazine, Costco Connections and Sage Publications. She is an ASJA member.
 
Jeannie Ralston
Jeannie Ralston is the editor of NextTribe.com, an online magazine for smart, engaged women over 45. Ralston's work as a journalist has been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler and many other magazines. She was a contributing editor for Allure for 8 years, for Ladies Home Journal for 3 years and Parenting magazine for 8 years. Her years growing lavender was the subject of her memoir, The Unlikely Lavender Queen, published by Broadway Books; her e-book, The Mother of All Field Trips, was about the three years she homeschooled and traveled with her children. She lives in Austin, Texas.
 
Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning independent journalist, author and speaker based in the Washington D.C. area. Her book, The Good News About Bad Behavior (PublicAffairs, April 2018), grew out of her school discipline story for Mother Jones that became the magazine’s most-read piece ever. Katherine contributes to The Atlantic online, Fortune magazine, USA Today’s magazine group, the Washington Post and Working Mother magazine. Her byline has also appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, MSN Money, Money, the New York Times, Parade, Slate, and the Washington Post Magazine. In two decades as a journalist, Katherine’s work has won recognition from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Chicago Headline Club. She’s received fellowships from the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good, the National Press Foundation, the Poynter Institute/ Association of Opinion Journalists and the University of Maryland’s Casey Journalism Center. Residencies include Moulin à Nef, Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
 
Cari Romm
Cari Romm is an editor at New York magazine's The Cut, where she handles sex and relationship coverage and helps edit health and psychology features for the site's Science of Us section. Previously, she was a digital editor for the health, science, and technology sections at The Atlantic, and has also written for Smithsonian and The Village Voice. Cari holds a Master's degree from the Columbia School of Journalism and currently lives in Philadelphia. @cariromm.
 
Rita Rosenkranz
Rita Rosenkranz is a well-established agent, who began her career as an editor. She represents adult non-fiction on a variety of topics, working with major publishing houses as well as regional niche publishers. Rita is a member of the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR), The Authors Guild, and Women's Media Group.
 
Aimee Ross
Aimee Ross is the author of Permanent Marker: A Memoir (KiCam Projects, March 2018). She worked as a Regional Educator in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for ten years. In addition, she is a nationally award-winning educator who has been a high school English teacher for the past twenty-five years. Ross completed her MFA in Creative Non-Fiction Writing at Ashland University in 2014, and her writing has been published on www.lifein10minutes.com and www.SixHens.Com, as well as in Beauty around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2017); Scars: An Anthology (Et Alia Press, 2015); Today I Made a Difference: A Collection of Inspirational Stories from America’s Top Educators (Adams Media, 2009); and Teaching Tolerance magazine.
 
Lisa Rowan
Lisa Rowan is a senior writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder, where she covers retail and consumer affairs topics. She also co-hosts Pop Fashion, a weekly podcast at the intersection of fashion, culture, and business. A former full-time freelance writer and vintage shop owner, Lisa is well versed in the gig economy and the small-business landscape. She has a master’s degree from Georgetown University, where she studied the challenges of reshoring American apparel manufacturing, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland.
 
Pat Ryan
Pat Ryan's writing on movies, music and literature has appeared in The New York Times, where she was an editor in the Culture Department. Her book, Marilyn & the New York Itch, won second place in the 2017 Del Sol Press Prize for First Novel. Pat is working on a collection of stories about a small town and a family that holds on to its ethnicity and eccentricity through defiance, singing, off-kilter humor and a measure of forgetfulness. One of those stories will be published in the upcoming issue of American Writers Review/San Fedele Press and another one took third place in the Los Angeles Review literary awards.
 
Miral Sattar
Miral Sattar is founder and CEO of BiblioCrunch and LearnSelfPublishingFast, an award-winning author services marketplace that matches authors with quality, award-winning professionals to get new books and apps to market. The platform brokers between publishers, authors, designers, editors, proofreaders, conversion specialists, marketers and enhanced eBook experts to create exceptional digital books. She has worked in the media industry for 11 years. At TIME Sattar launched digital initiatives including an iPad and mobile site, mobile apps, a video and podcast channel, blogs, and SEO. Her writing has been featured in TIME, CNN, NY Daily News. She has a MS in Publishing (Digital + Print Media) from NYU and a BS from Columbia University in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. @miralsattar.
 
Candy Schulman
Candy Schulman is an award-winning writer whose personal essays, Op-Ed and humor pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Parents, Brain Child, Glamour, Family Circle, Salon, New York Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a writing professor at The New School in New York City and works privately as a writing coach. @candyschulman.
 
Lesley Jane Seymour
Lesley Jane Seymour is a media entrepreneur and founder of CoveyClub, a new club for life-long learners that launched in February 2018. Seymour was editor-in-chief of More, Marie Claire, Redbook, and YM. She is the author of two books: On the Edge, 100 Years of Vogue and I Wish My Parents Understood.
 
Shannon Shelton Miller
Shannon Shelton Miller balances a full-time role as associate director of news and internal communications at the University of Dayton with a part-time freelance career and a 24/7 job raising two active little boys. She has been published in New York Times, the Washington Post, ESPN.com, Marie Claire, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and the Huffington Post.
 
Ellen Sheng
Ellen Sheng is a writer and editor focused on business, finance and US-Asia investment. She was previously a staff reporter at Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal in New York and Hong Kong.
 
Molly Simms
Molly Simms is Senior Editor at O, the Oprah Magazine, and has had stints at Entertainment Weekly, BUST Magazine, and Kirkus Reviews. She lives in Brooklyn and once cried with joy while interviewing Paul Reubens. Yes, she has met Oprah. @themollysimms
 
Jen Simon
Jen Simon writes about addiction, depression, and parenting for The Washington Post, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, Slate, and more. Although she specializes in heavy topics, don't let that fool you - she's also a pretty funny lady; her tweets and memes have been featured repeatedly in "funniest of" round-ups for The Today Show, The Huffington Post, Babble, and more.
 
Sree Sreenivasan
Sree Sreenivasan is a leading social and digital media consultant, working with nonprofits, startups and companies around the world. He has served as Chief Digital Officer of New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University (where he was a full-time professor of journalism for 20+ years). In 2015, Fast Company named him one of the 100 most creative people in business and in 2010, he was named one of the 35 most influential people in social media by the Poynter Institute. In 2014, he was named most influential CDO by CDO Club. His new social media guide for the NYT is at http://bit.ly/nyt2017. His five TEDx talks: http://bit.ly/sreetedxvideos. @sree
 
Court Stroud
Court Stroud is a writer and a longtime media executive who has worked for Univision, Telemundo, CBS, and several digital startups, including the leading content marketing software and services company, Skyword. He is founder and managing partner of the Cledor Group, a boutique consulting practice focused on entertainment, media and storytelling, with clients that include NBCU, Sony Entertainment Pictures and NGL Studios, a branded entertainment production house co-founded by John Leguizamo. Stroud holds degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Spanish Literature from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He serves as an adjunct faculty member in the NYU Steinhardt School's media department. He has worked on diverse campaigns, such as for Fortune 500 companies like MasterCard (in Portuguese and English)and even celebrity-drive projects like Ricky Martin's parenting website, PiccoloUniverse.com (English, Spanish, Portuguese.)
 
Hilary Sutton
Hilary Sutton is a Washington D.C. based writer, entrepreneur, and actor who is passionate about telling stories that are begging to be told. She runs HSL Creative Enterprises where she works as a consultant, coach, writer, and speaker. In 2013 Hilary started a blog on her website, hilarysutton.com to explore social media, creativity, personal development, and writing. In 2015 she launched HSL Enterprises Courses to provide workshop-style teaching around concepts that had grown popular on her blog. She is the author of three courses and two eBooks including More in Less: 21 Productivity Hacks for Creatives, Blogging: Grow Your Business with Content, Going Freelance: How to Launch, Market, and Build Your Creative Career, and Get Your Dream Off the Ground.
 
Lauren Taylor Shute
Lauren Taylor Shute is the founder of Lauren Taylor Shute Editorial, a full-service editorial firm based in New York City that works with writers to perfect their manuscripts and find representation or publication. She has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and Glamour magazine.
 
Marilyn W Thompson
Marilyn W. Thompson is deputy national enterprise and Sunday editor at The Washington Post. At the Post, she has been Assistant Managing Editor for Investigations, National Editor and Metro Projects Editor. She's worked on projects for Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Kaiser Health News. She is the author or co-author of four non-fiction books.
 
Milt Toby
ASJA Vice President Milt Toby is an attorney and award-winning author who writes about Thoroughbred racing. His books include Dancer's Image, winner of the $10,000 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award honoring the best book about racing published in 2011, and Noor, winner of an adult non-fiction book award at the 2016 EQUUS Film Festival. He parlayed a longform article that won an ASJA award in 2017 into a contract for his current book project, Taking Shergar: Thoroughbred Racing's Most Famous Cold Case. Published by the University Press of Kentucky,Taking Shergar is scheduled for a fall release.
 
Sharon Van Epps
Sharon Van Epps is a Seattle-based freelancer who writes about parenting, adoption, family, food and travel, and youth sports. Her work has appeared online at Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Brain, Child, espnW, The Kitchn, The Washington Post, The New York Times and many more publications. She is on twitter @sharonvanepps
 
Beth Vesel
Beth Vesel founded The Beth Vesel Literary Agency in 2003. She is known for her work with academics, psychiatrists, psychologists and other professionals in helping them transition to authors of landmark books. Her areas of specialty include narrative nonfiction, literary fiction, cultural criticism, psychology, psychiatry, science, health and memoir.
 
Debra Wallace
Debra Wallace has more than 30 years as an award-winning journalist, author, online content provider, and public speaker. Debra has published more than 5,000 articles in major magazines and newspapers in the US, Canada and 35 countries. Her work was prominently featured in Family Circle, Fitness, Good Housekeeping, & elsewhere.
 
Jan Yager
Jan Yager, PhD, moderator, is the Director of Foreign Rights for Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. She began her foreign rights career as Director of Subsidiary and Foreign Rights at Grove Press, Inc. at the age of 25. Over the years, for her own books, as well as for her authors and selected additional clients, Jan has sold foreign rights into 32 languages with 2 more in preparation. For her own relationship self-help book, When Friendship Hurts, published by Simon & Schuster, Jan has sold 33 foreign rights including translations in 31 languages. She is the author of 45 award-winning books in a range of genres including the just-released Foreign Rights and Wrongs, the first step-by-step guide to selling or buying foreign rights. For more on Jan, go to her Linkedin profile: www.linkedin.com/in/drjanyager or contact her at 203-550-6023 (cell phone/text messages) or jyager@aol.com.
 
Lina Zeldovich
Lina Zeldovich is the editor of sustainability and the environment at JSTOR Daily. She has edited science features at Nautilus Magazine, won several awards for a story about poo, and covered topics ranging from an illegal orca trade in China to a toilet revolution in Madagascar. She holds a master degree from Columbia J-School and has written for many publications including Smithsonian, Newsweek and Popular Mechanics. She is looking for stories on how sustainable technologies and scientific breakthroughs can improve our environment, health, and life. @LinaZeldovich.