Christina Dexter is a communicator and writer whose passion is uplifting the voices of underrepresented people through her work with non-profits and NGOs. She has worked with women and girls in India, cacao farmers in Ecuador, asylum seekers fleeing North Africa and the Middle East, and family farmers and ranchers struggling in the heartland. Currently, she is the communications director for the Iowa Farmers Union, a grassroots advocacy organization representing family farmers and ranchers. Through her work, she unites the voices of Iowa producers so that they can collectively advocate and be reflected in legislative policies that influence their operations.
Christina receives great joy from writing personal story after story about her childhood on her family's Missouri farm and creating watercolor illustrations.
Annette Drewes: "Climbing trees or wading in water were my childhood occupations. Educated in the fields of Wildlife and Fisheries Management and Environmental Studies, I have worked most of my life introducing others to the natural world. I currently work for the Nature Conservancy. Beginning in 2010, after returning to school to understand the harvest and management of wild rice, I began writing seriously. I published two essays on wild rice harvesting in our state conservation magazine, wrote a blog while undergoing chemo, and participated in several writing retreats and online classes from The Loft to develop my writing. My experience with Gateless has been under Kate Gray and included weekly salons for the past four years and two Gateless Retreats. I write mostly creative non-fiction and am working on a book about wild rice harvesting stories. I live in the northern woodlands of Minnesota, near the headwaters of the Mississippi River."
Daisy Alpert Florin was first introduced to Gateless in 2014 and has been on numerous retreats and taken part in the Gateless Writing Academy. Since joining the Gateless community, she has published many personal essays, including “Crash," which was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2016. Daisy is a recipient of the 2016 Gurfein Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College and was a 2019-2020 fellow in the BookEnds mentorship program. She began her novel, My Last Innocent Year, on a Gateless retreat in 2015; it sold last spring to Henry Holt and will be published in 2023. Daisy is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has master’s degrees from Columbia and Bank Street College of Education. She is represented by Margaret Riley King at WME. Daisy lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children.
Cameran Hebb is an actor and comedian who lived in NYC for the last decade and was introduced to Gateless by the legendary Terri Trespicio. Cameran was a member of the acting residency at the Flea Theatre (The Bats) where she performed at the Whitney Museum. She was the lead in a play about a young woman’s struggle with breast cancer: Keepingabreast by Jackie Rosenfeld. The show debuted at the New York Fringe Festival.
In 2016, she won the New Talent Competition at Gotham Comedy Club, landing a TV spot on Gotham Comedy Live. She has written and performed her comedic solo show, “Is it Still the Year of the Woman?” at the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston. During the pandemic, she was in the Women’s Theatre Festival (virtually) and started a platform on Instagram and Youtube with parody songs called Just Jinglez.
Rebecca Jennings is an entrepreneur who enjoys growing, building and creating – and helping other women do the same. Whether building a business, changing a career, or pursuing any meaningful project or endeavor, going it alone can be tricky. Through her online groups Rebecca supports women who want to step into their fullest, most meaningful lives by creating a sacred space to dream, discover and explore.
Jeanne Layne holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and is the founder of Summit Psychology PLLC, a private psychotherapy practice that assists highly functioning but highly anxious women slay the inner critic, reduce indecision, calm self-doubt and actively develop joy, real meaning and authenticity in their lives.
She is a wife and mother, delights in a delicious sense of humor, loves a good coincidence, always chooses black coffee over tea and is something of an artisan baker. She has over twenty-five years of clinical experience treating folks struggling with severe and chronic mental illness, juvenile offenders, adult correctional populations, traumatic brain injuries, victims of violent crime/acute trauma, advanced dementia and geriatric populations with serious medical complications. In the last year, she has experienced an overwhelmingly intuitive call to reconnect with a sense of play and wonder, expansiveness and ease, which led her to begin her journey with the Gateless methodology.
Kasey Mathews is a book-writing and transformational life coach, an inspirational speaker and the author of Preemie: Lessons in Love, Life and Motherhood and A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Magical Life: 8 Practical Steps to Feel Happier, Inspired, and More Relaxed. Both books won the Mom's Choice Gold Award, and Preemie won the New Hampshire Non-Fiction Reader’s Choice Award. As a Reiki Master, Certified Happiness Trainer and with a Master's Degree in Education and advanced training in ancestral clearing, Kasey helps women around the world find more balance, magic and purpose in their lives. Kasey has written for Thrive Global, Grown and Flown, Preemie Babies 101 and been a featured guest on Yahoo, NBC Tonight, NHPR, Doctor Radio and many more. She calls Wilton, New Hampshire home, where she lives with her husband, two children, their Bernese Mountain dog, Georgie Girl and kitty cat, Lulu.
Undergrad = St. Lawrence University
Masters = Boston College
Kimberly Nagy has written for Scientific American, the New York Daily News, and Ravishly among other publications. A member of the American Society for Journalists and Authors (ASJA) Nagy’s writing ranges from parenting to women in science. She’s particularly obsessed with the untold stories and perspectives of women in history and mythology. In her creative nonfiction, Nagy retells mythological tales from Medusa to Persephone from a feminist 21st century stance. Nagy’s day job is currently devoted to serving higher education institutions for whom she crafts strategic website content, conducts interviews with incredibly smart GenZ students, and tells impactful stories about remarkable faculty and trailblazing research.In the field of higher ed, Nagy has worked in virtually every aspect of marketing, publicity and communications including work on press campaigns, web content, viewbooks, radio and TV ads, emails and brochures as well as full length academic manuscripts.
Alysa Osvog often jotted "writer" on medical forms under the blank space for occupation. Perhaps as a secret ambition, fantasy persona and mere conversation for her new doctor. Yet, besides scribbling in a journal since she was a child, did not seriously put pen to paper until she embarked on a Writer's Retreat Oct 2016. Part of her soul began to pour on the pages, and she found the power of her written word as an expression of art, creative joy, and cathartic therapy. Alysa describes her adventure into the literary world like embarking on a journey to a very foreign land, learning a brand new language; thrilling, daunting and a little bit scary all in a Divine way. Balancing her full time career as Certified Yoga Therapist in California, writing became more than a pastime, she choose to pursue deeper while living in Bali 2019. Alysa has completed three manuscripts while intentions to publish and continue her series, titled A Few Lifetimes Away.
Meghan Sylvester's mission is to uplift the planet by making spiritual practices accessible for modern, radical women. Meg draws from her experience as a multi-talented spiritual mentor, energy healer, and author to powerfully advocate for body acceptance, self-love, and soulful living. She is the founder of The Lotus Collective, which is an online portal to Kundalini and meditation classes focused on authentic alignment and vibrant expression of one’s soul. Meg’s work has supported thousands of women worldwide in finding their truest voice and highest, most authentic expression, leading to lives filled with more passion, fulfillment, and creativity. Meg’s passion is serving others who wish to alchemize oppressive patriarchal narratives into expansive and liberated ways of being. She is here to catalyze “the great softening” of our world through awakening the energy of the Divine Feminine. She continuously brings her wisdom of manifestation, meditation, and soul activation to wellness publications, podcasts, and mindfulness-based events around the globe. Listen to her podcast, Manifest Miracles, and learn more at megsylvester.com.
My name is Allison Turner and I live in Nashville, TN. I have worked with Suzanne and other Gateless teachers for 5 years and have attended many weekend and week-long Gateless retreats and countless salons. I am currently working on a book that kind of wrote itself in 2014 but now has Gateless written and inspired “interstitials” sprinkled throughout. My career has been a 30 year stretch as an Executive Producer, owning my own production company for the last 21 years. Producing “live” events around the world for decades now, when Covid shut the business down, it was the first real break I have had in over 20 years. This time has been sacred and healing in many ways, including getting back to the page! Although I am not retired officially, I have made the hard decision to not return to the corporate career that has defined me for so long. I am looking at part 2 of my life now and finding ways to shape the journey differently than part 1!