Brains Behind It with Dave Farrow

Wendy Thomas Russell is an award-winning journalist, author and publisher. A native Midwesterner, Russell spent the bulk of her career in Southern California, writing and editing for newspapers and magazines. For 10 years, she covered criminal justice and special projects for the Long Beach Press-Telegram — for which she won dozens of awards and honors, including being named Journalist of the Year by the Society for Professional Journalists’ Greater Los Angeles Chapter. After leaving newspapers in 2008, she went on to write three books for the Girls Scouts of the USA centered on media literacy for adolescent girls.

In 2011, after becoming inspired by her own experience as a secular mother raising a young daughter, Russell launched a blog that later became a book, Relax, It’s Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You’re Not Religious. In 2014, she founded Brown Paper Press, which publishes progressive nonfiction in Long Beach, Calif. In addition to running her small press, she writes an occasional parenting column for the PBS NewsHour and, in 2019, co-authored a second book, ParentShift: Ten Universal Truths That Will Change the Way You Raise Your Kids.

Website: http://www.brownpaperpress.com/

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Samantha Atzeni is a writer of prose, comics, and academic scholarship. She has a BA in Professional Writing and MA in English from The College of New Jersey. Her most recent work include the graphic novel series The MOTHER Principle, the first volume of which, MOTHER Knows Best, was released in August 2015 with the second volume, MOTHER May I, slated for release in 2019. She is a regular contributor to Read Furiously’s One ‘n Done series which has featured her stories Breath, The Legend of David Bradley, and the upcoming Beauty. S. Atzeni has been a writer for The Mary Sue and for Bustle. Her scholarly work has been published by the Sequart Organization, and she has been a presenter and panel chair at academic conferences throughout the East Coast. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Read Furiously and currently teaches post-modernism, Holocaust studies, superheroes, and pop culture at The College of New Jersey. website: http://www.readfuriously.com/

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Adam Lerner began his publishing career in 1991, working for Barnes & Noble and a number of New York publishing houses. In the late 1990s, while working as a rights manager and director at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, he was instrumental in negotiating and contracting the film rights of the picture book SHREK to Dreamworks. Adam returned to Minneapolis in 1998 to take a leadership role within Lerner Publishing Group Inc. In 2001 he was appointed president and publisher and in 2007 became chief executive officer of Lerner Publishing Group. Under Adam Lerner’s leadership, Lerner Publishing Group enhanced its market presence through increased production and imprints, revamped designs, launched numerous digital products and platforms and made several acquisitions including Millbrook Press, Kar-Ben Publishing, Darby Creek and Egmont’s US publishing assets. Adam Lerner holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Minnesota and currently serves as the chairman of the advisory board to the university’s English Department. He has also served on the boards of the Children’s Book Council, Coffee House Press, Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable, and the Minnesota Library Association Foundation. Website: https://lernerbooks.com/

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Jo Wilkins started out writing poetry and her first poem won third place in a countywide poetry contest in Orange County, CA, judged by professors from Orange Coast College. Many of her 150 poems were published in local collections in both California and Nevada in the ’80’s and ’90’s. She has had 15 or so short stories published in as many anthologies since then. Her Essay, Just one More Thrill, aired on KNPR, the local Las Vegas NPR station in their Making Nevada Home program. The station also requested her to write, and aired, a survivor’s story covering the Pepcon explosion in 1988. Both can be found online at KNPR.org, in the station’s archive section. Just One More Thrill, was also published in a book titled, Collected Emotions, By Centennial Press. Website: www.mysticpublishersinc.com

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Michael Morgan LMT, CST-D is a leader in the neurophysiology of transformation-using mind body processes to change the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical states of an individual to attain a state of inner being and growth toward enlightenment.

He has been an instructor of CranioSacral Therapy for the Upledger Institute for over 12 years, and been involved in mind body work over two decades. He has taught this technique extensively in the US and Internationally over this period of time.

Most recently, he has pioneered and coordinated research in the application of Craniosacral Therapy to Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and was instrumental in publishing research in the American Journal of Gerertolocical Nursing, as well as ongoing research in this area. He developed two classes for therapists and laypersons entitled CranioSacral Therapy and Longevity- applications for the treatment of Dementia and Alzheimer’s and CranioSacral Therapy and Longevity- Reversal of the Aging Process-for advanced practioners of CranioSacral Therapy (CST).

In addition, Michael has worked in the area of Pediatrics and Child development, supporting children and parents with Autism, Down’s Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and related dysfunctions. He has also been instrumental in pioneering regional programs where a number of therapists (multihands therapy) come together for 3-5 days to treat patients in an intensive program format.

Michael earned a BA degree in Physics and Philosophy from UC Berkeley and an MA degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Maharishi International University in Fairfield Iowa. He has studied extensively with the Upledger Institute over the past 20 years in the application of CST in a variety of settings. His vision is to apply a lifetime of knowledge in support of causing individual, economic, social, and global change.

Website: https://preventingalzheimers.com/

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Dr. Cicero spent the last 11 years of his 35 year career as superintendent of schools on Long Island. He was previously a teacher and department administrator. During his retirement, he was an adjunct professor and author (Seven Deadly Sins of the K-12 Education System)

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Amanda holds a Doctorate in Holistic Life Coaching, a Master of Divinity in Metaphysics, and various certifications in other holistic modalities. Her belief is that when everyone on the planet sees themselves as both a spiritual and physical being, loves themselves, and can express their true gifts with passion and authenticity, we will all thrive. Website: http://www.itsasyoulikeit.com

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Sarena Ulibarri is the editor-in-chief of World Weaver Press, a small speculative fiction publishing company founded in 2012. She compiled and edited the anthologies Speculative Story Bites (2016), and Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers (2018). She is a graduate of the Clarion Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop at UCSD, and earned an MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and now resides in New Mexico.

Website: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/

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Kathleen Aharoni is a passionate facilitator of transformation and embodiment. Through the modalities of movement, life coaching and writing, Kathleen helps people seed and grow their dreaming through curiosity, deep conversation, presence and truth. She is author of the award-winning children’s book, “I breathe my own breath!” Website:

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ELÆ [Lynne DeSilva-Johnson] is an interdisciplinary artist and performer, cultural scholar and educator. They are an Assistant Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute, as well as Founder and Creative Director of The Operating System, a radical open source arts organization and independent press. Their work addresses, in particular, the somatic impact of trauma on persons, forms of language, and systems, as well as the study of resilient, open source strategies for ecological and social change. Website: https://squareup.com/

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