Marcella Allison has over two decades of experience as an A-list copywriter, in-demand copy chief, entrepreneur, and mentor. Her copy has generated over $200 million in sales for some of the top direct-response companies in the industry including financial trading services, alternative health supplements, and information products. In 2022, she sold her Mentoress Collective membership to Silicon Valley start-up MentorCloud.
In 2018, Marcella was awarded Copywriter of the Year by American Writers and Artists Inc. for her outstanding performance record and impact on the copywriting industry. Today she is thrilled to lead the COS Monthly Mastermind and COS Onboarding.
Marcella is also the co-author of, Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me This Sh*t Before? a collection of wit and wisdom from women in business. You can learn more at MarcellaAllison.com.
Daisy Alpert Florin is the author of My Last Innocent Year (Holt, 2023), which was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Washington Post Staff Pick and an Indie Next pick. Her essays have appeared online in Cup of Jo, Motherwell and Full Grown People, among other publications. Her essay “Crash” was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2016.
Daisy attended Dartmouth College and received graduate degrees from Columbia University and Bank Street Graduate School of Education. She was a recipient of the 2016 Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College and was a 2019–20 fellow in the BookEnds novel revision fellowship. Since 2015, she has worked with high school students on their college essays. Daisy has been involved with Gateless since 2014 and in 2021, she became a Gateless-trained teacher. A native New Yorker, she lives in Connecticut with her family.
Kelly Anderson: "I’m an academic HIV physician, but I've always been drawn to intuitives and naturalists – people who understand something deeper about the world we live in, and can help unshackle the rest of us from the hustle and grind. I love to write elements, myth and literary love stories. I’ve guided thousands of women doctors through writing experiences at Understory (understory.me), my non-profit designed to bring women doctors back into their instincts. My writing has appeared in many books, including The Surprising Lives of Small-town Doctors (2016) and Pursuing Health (2018). I’ve published in Academic Medicine (2012), the Journal of Adolescent Health (2013), Social Medicine (2014), the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (2014) and the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine (2012 and 2018), amongst others. I’m an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, teaching about community, ethics and belonging for over a decade. I spent my childhood on the beaches of British Columbia where most of my stories unfold."
Rose Andrez is a dynamic trainer and inspirational speaker bringing over 20 years of experience to her clients. She has conducted her programs in holistic centers, major corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations and women’s groups across the Northeast. Rose’s expertise is in presentation/communication skills, self-care/stress management and emotional intelligence. She combines her extensive experience in body-mind integration and alternative healing with supporting other’s in understanding their life story to cultivate an authentic life. She was trained by Ilana Rubenfeld in a three-year professional training program, The Rubenfeld Synergy Method. Rose’s story was published in the book, Healing Journeys – The Power of Rubenfeld Synergy edited by Vicki Mechner.
Rose has written her first solo show, Lost In Suburbia: The Demise of the Domestic Diva. It’s about one woman’s risky adventure with the heart of suburbia and the surprising revelation she makes along the way, both about herself, and what is really means to be “home”.
Rose loves to sing! She has performed in a variety of NYC venues and has recorded two CD’s, “Lucky Woman” and “I Got A Man” with Verex Entertainment. She had the privilege of working with Grammy award winning engineer, Dae Bennett who recorded and mixed the single “Wonderful”.
Rose resides in Edgewater, NJ with her wonderful husband, Greg. They enjoy travel, music and spending time with their 17 nieces and nephews! She is an advocate for mental illness and has been involved in fundraising efforts and connecting with policymakers with the National Association on Mental Illness in NYC. Rose is looking forward to writing her first memoir about almost losing her life to mental illness. She is thrilled to be a part of the Gateless Academy.
Leah Campbell Badertscher, J.D., is an artist, writer, and life coach. She's the founder of Renascence Co., The Art School, and host of The Art School Podcast. Leah lives on a farm in Michigan with her husband and three children.
Kate Baldwin works as a Gateless book editor, specializing in young adult and children’s literature as well as poetry, and leads Gateless salons in her hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her own poems and essays have appeared in The Maine Review, Hunger Mountain, Soundings East, and The Larcom Review. She is a Gateless Certified Teacher, has an MFA from Vermont College, an MEd from Lesley University, and is an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, but her deepest education comes from a lifetime of reading beautiful books.
Jennifer Barrett is the SVP of Content at Fidelity Investments and the author of “Think Like a Breadwinner,” a wealth-building manifesto for women published by Penguin Random House in 2021. She's co-authored two other best-selling personal finance books and has written about money for publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Newsweek, where she was a staff writer and editor for 7 years.
Before joining Fidelity in 2021, Jennifer was Chief Education Officer at the investing app Acorns. She's also been Personal Finance Editor at CNBC, General Manager at Hearst Digital, and Editor in Chief and SVP at DailyWorth, a financial media startup targeting women. Jennifer lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two boys. Read more at jenniferbarrett.com.
Heather Bartos is a gynecologist, podcaster, author, speaker and everyday gal who's considered a go-to voice for menopause, sexuality + women in the media:Shape,Glamour,Refinery, ABC News, Jenny McCarthy’s radio show, etc. Cosmo magazine has called her a “supremely badass gyno’ and Poosh has named her their “resident vaginacologist”.
She has a knack for making taboo or uncomfortable material feel approachable with her own podcast, the SEX podcast and offers DFW’s only menopause concierge program, #menopauserocks. Not many women can work Charles Dickens, Tiffany Amber Thiessen, and queefs into the same conversation. (She really wants to buy an old lighthouse on the coast and write page-turning fiction about amazing women in their 50s+.)
Laura Belgray, founder of Talking Shrimp, is an award-winning copywriting expert and unapologetic lazy person. She's written TV spots for clients like NBC, Fandango, and Bravo, and now helps entrepreneurs and creatives to cash in on their unique personalities, become binge-worthy, and get paid to be 100% themselves. The Copy Cure, her course with Marie Forleo, has helped thousands of creative pros to master and even fall in love with copywriting.
Karen Joy Brown spent her childhood in Pennsylvania and upstate New York, but has lived in Northern California her whole adult life. A singer/songwriter first, her literate lyrics focus on love, loss, and a deep affection for the beauty in mundane life that have found new expression in poetry and creative nonfiction. As a recovering high school Spanish teacher and religious fundamentalist, her current memoir project seeks to understand and overcome the challenges of knowing one’s own mind and forging a truer life with compassion, humor, and grace.
Kate Chaney: I’m a writer of life. An emotional sponge that needs a place to wring myself out and make room for more. I pour my truest self onto the page - the one I keep veiled just enough to give the appearance of “having it all together.” Through writing, I explore the twists and turns of life that play out in my anxious mind.
A list of just the facts: Katie, Kansas City, grieving mother, wife, daughter, friend, survivor, education junkie, multi-career collector, including life coach, fitness trainer, and aspiring writer.
Denise Soler Cox is an award-winning activist filmmaker, top podcaster, speaker and author. She has spoken on hundreds of stages and worked with major brands like Microsoft, Starbucks and L’Oreal to name a few. Denise's work with Project Eñye has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Forbes.com, and CNN, among others. She is a distinguished member of the Stanford Latino Leaders Entrepreneur Program and was honored with the 2018 "Bridge Builder Award in Education" from the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Denise is currently producing her second feature-length documentary and writing a book on Belonging.
Randi Crawford is a life coach with a passion for coaching and educating young adults and their parents. She started her career as the co-founder of a public healthcare company for midlife women, and after a long hiatus, found her purpose when she was introduced to the Jay Shetty Life Coach certification program. She found a way to funnel her passion for helping others and has been coaching, giving workshops, and keynote speaking through her company, Randi Crawford Coaching ever since. She can be found at: www.randicrawfordcoaching.com.
Melanie DeCarolis has an MFA, an expired stockbroker’s license, and a few fancy-sounding wine professional certifications. She’s dined with an Oscar winner, knocked a Nobel Prize-winning author down the stairs, lived with a convicted art forger, been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, and published in literary magazines and anthologized. She plays guitar for the world’s #1 menopause metal band, Girl Sküll. She has been thanked in several books’ acknowledgements and acknowledges it’s long past time for her to finish writing her own.
Christina Dexter is a freelance communicator who helps social advocacy groups talk about their priorities by telling the stories of the people they impact. She is most proud of her non-professional life, where she weaves fierce fictional and non-fictional tales and works to make writing accessible to voices that society says are small. She has worked with cooperatives of rural cocoa farmers in Ecuador and has lived in North India, working with groups of women and girls. In 2021, she became a certified instructor of the Gateless Writing Method and used the method as an empowerment tool during workshops with women and girls on her most recent trip to India. Christina is a South Dakota State University graduate and resides in a tiny house on her family’s farm near Kansas City, Missouri.
Melissa Dugan Hello. I'm a Southern California native (I absolutely miss the beach), lived in Boston for many years and have now made a pit stop in Texas for a time. I have worked in various industries from media to hospiality to goverment. I am so ready for something new (or many somethings) in my life so being in the Academy last year was a wonderful discovery. I am glad to be back and looking forward to what's ahead.
Heather Johnson Durocher has been writing for national and statewide newspapers, magazines and organizations for more than 25 years, specializing in parenting, health and wellness, business/financial services, and travel/outdoor recreation. She writes from a beautiful small town on Lake Michigan in the state’s northern lower peninsula, where she and her husband Joe raised their three kids, ages 23, 21 and 18. Heather is the publisher of the lifestyle website Michigan Runner Girl and through this has hosted a weekly podcast and created an annual women’s winter retreat that brings more than 50 women together for an active and restorative weekend in the woods. She is a contributor to an anthology about women and running and writes the Moving Through newsletter on Substack, where she explores midlife, marriage, parenting adult children, and how to keep moving through it all. She is at work on her first book.
Stacey Duran grew up in New Jersey, studied at the University of Rhode Island and called New York City home until moving to Dallas in 2014. Stacey worked in Finance after college raising money for hedge funds until becoming the Founder and CEO of Portfolios with Purpose (“PwP”), an annual fantasy stock competition where all money raised went to charity. Stacey and her PwP team harnessed the participation of stock investor legends, stock market enthusiasts worldwide and all major finance news outlets to raise millions of dollars for non-profits in need of funding.
Since transitioning her role as CEO to PwP Board Member she dedicates her time to writing, yoga, spiritual development work, a student/teacher of A Course in Miracles and raising her four young daughters. Stacey is a Certified Gateless Writing Teacher and a soon-to-be certified meditation teacher from the Deepka Chopra Institute.
Stacey has been writing and journalling since middle school and this continues to be her most treasured pastime.
Jackie Falla serves as a member of Elaine Construction’s Leadership Team as Director of Client Services. With more than 25 years in the A/E/C industry she brings to bear her skills in relationship and visibility building, technical and creative writing, and strategic growth planning in the areas of commercial and corporate real estate, and the institutional and academic market places. Jackie is active in a number of industry organizations including SCUP where she serves on the regional council, IFMA serving as the Former Host, and currently as Producer of the FM Forward Podcast, and CoreNet where she serves on the Executive Board as Secretary and leads the Ambassador Initiative for the Chapter. She is a frequent public speaker, pens the blog: www.questforthenest.com, and is working on her book, Sawdust to Gold: A Gals Guide to Building Wealth Through Real Estate. She holds a BS in Political Science from Boston University, and a Certificate in Business Administration from Harvard University, and is a graduate of CoreNet Global NE’s Leadership 2.0 inaugural class.
Heather Lee Farrell lives in the mountains and open spaces of New Mexico and has a professional background that melds healthcare, wilderness and emodied practices. Creative expression has helped me heal on many levels as I navigated through about 9 years of surgery and recvoery from a severe accident; which I am in the tail-end of! Especially writing. I wasn’t able to speak well for more than three years and realized how powerful our words are. I am now navigating what arises this upcoming year as I create my new normal-for-me life. I first applied to Gateless as an act of bravery to become a writer. I am excited to continue to learn, connect, and be part of this community of writers. Website: Heatherleefarrell.com
Stephanie Foy: If our bodies are autobiographies, then so may we heal by the telling of our stories. Writing has been my primary healer, and I’m only now understanding it is an imperative pull to purpose. The other ways I have made sense of the world is through wilderness guiding, healing, and painting. Once upon a time, I burned the candle at both ends. dimensionsinhealing.org
I live in New Mexico, and Vermont feels like home. Fresh from epic surrender, I’m in the goo of metamorphic reshaping. It’s dark in here and I’m following the click of the keys to find my way to the gate.
Farrah Haidar: My siblings tell me I acted out commercials in the mirror when we were young. Today, that long-held passion has evolved into a penchant for telling great stories in many formats. As a creative, I am working on a memoir and run a podcast called Tales She Told Me. I also co-own Seven Sister Scones and Kitchen with my sister, an ecommerce brand and cafe.
My goal for my writing is to challenge the way people think about gender roles, life goals, and my Arab heritage. I write as a war survivor, a woman, and a Muslim, each identity takes a turn informing my work. I want people to walk away from my writing with questions that make them curious about the world around them and how they can defy it to find more joy and freedom.
I am passionate about community, good food, women’s issues and children. I’ve helped several non-profits expand programs and fundraising. My goal is simple – to leave the world a better place, and to use my voice and experience to help organizations tell compelling stories that inspire their audiences to act!
I’m Sarah Halko and I’m from Cleveland, OH. I left the education profession over 15 years ago, struggled to find my place, and then did the big life re-evaluation during the pandemic. I’m happy with the changes I’ve made, and my life is now more aligned with who I am, which feels great. I live with my best friend and her 11-year-old son (it’s a blast), I manage a local wine bar, and I’m FINALLY writing again. I’m excited for what’s next and am thrilled to join all of you on this journey! Holler if you need wine recommendations!
Theresa Haney is a writer and licensed creative arts therapist living in the Hudson Valley NY a few miles from Omega Institute. She has been in private practice for 30 years currently with somatic-based trauma focus. She took a brief hiatus to heal childhood wounds and write her memoir in 2020 while sheltering in place at home with her wife of 30 years. She received a degree in modern dance as a young 20 something, performed off-off-off broadway in NYC and received her masters in dance/movement therapy at Hunter College where she met her wife. She loves to write, cook, read, watch romantic movies and romp with their two cattle dogs on the 22 acres they call home. She met Suzanne in a serendipitous manner through an article in Bustle about the divine feminine while in search for a writing coach. She joined Gateless Academy in 2020. It was an angelic meeting.
Jill Harris: I received my formal education at Mount Holyoke College and in the MFA in Creative Writing program at UMass Amherst.
For me, writing has been my way of navigating a life filled with moments that defy language, and so, in private, I have worked them over. I have connected them to one another, separated them, framed the choices in a variety of ways, and revised my interpretations. I have told them from different points of view and plumbed the depths of the characters’ motivations. Doing this has led me to a richer and richer experience of life. It has made me more compassionate, more courageous, and hopefully, a little wiser.
My family is my great love story, my great joy, my great work of art. For them, I have studied peace and nonviolence, for it is the best way I know to leave them a legacy of kindness.
Along the way, I wrote a novel, Stairs, about a disabled woman’s struggle to love, and I also wrote a nonfiction book proposal, The Secrets of Singing. Both received contracts and lots of praise from agents, but for very different reasons, they didn’t grow up to be books.
Along the way, I also taught English classes and College Skills classes. My students often wrote to me, telling me what my classes meant to them. Some said my class was the only place they knew where racism didn’t exist. One high school girl told me how my classes on Thoreau had transformed the way she walks through nature. A man in his sixties who had put off his own education until he made sure all of his kids received the best education he had the power to give them wrote me a letter at the end of his first semester of college, telling me that I was the single best educator he had ever encountered. These are my five star reviews. They are not on Amazon, but they make me very happy.
Ritu Hasan is a practicing attorney, who has specialized in Banking & Financial Law, for prestigious law firms and Fortune 500 companies. Throughout her life, she has been keenly aware of the challenges of the human journey and the importance of healing. Her personal commitment to healing and affinity for human potential to spiritually awaken led her to become a Reiki Master, Reconnective Healer and meditation practitioner. Her book, Awaken Your Quantum Self, shares her journey, insights and guidance.
Jean Haynes writes at the intersection of family history and fiction. Recent research into her family’s roots revealed stories of courageous female ancestors overcoming hardship, searching for identity, and developing agency in a man’s world. Set against a backdrop of family, faith, hope, and resilience, she believes their legacy can empower today’s women and girls as they create their own life stories.
Jean is a life-long learner, book lover, and history nerd. When she is not reading, writing, and researching, you’re likely to find her walking the beach, doing yoga, or playing with her grandchildren.
Daintry Jensen is the author of The Hidden Forest, her debut middle grade fantasy adventure novel set on Nantucket Island and named twice as one of Huff Posts top 10 books for middle graders. She has a background in dramatic writing from Skidmore College and the UCLA Professional Screenwriting Program and before that, she was acting professionally in Los Angeles and NYC. She is currently at work on her second novel and two screenplay projects, two of which are set on Nantucket as well, her home away from home. She is thrilled to be back at the Gateless Academy, and in the throws of the Suzanne Kingsbury magic and singular genius of this community.
Dr. Sarah Johnson is an American historian with twenty years of teaching experience in higher education and over ten years of experience in public history. She currently serves on the steering committee of a European Union research group, ACORSO through the University of Brighton, and is working on a manuscript project about the history of American mail order. She is an author and speaker on topics at the intersection of material culture, design/mass production history, and women's labor history. She has worked and consulted for nonprofits, museum collections, and historical societies, and is about to launch a content creation business.
Dr. Kelly K. Knox is a retired clinical social worker and a retired veteran of the U.S. Army and Air Force. She is a nationally recognized expert in effective treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and has trained hundreds of mental health professionals throughout the country. Kelly has remained very active in educating the public about a variety of veterans’ issues, especially those related to the “veteran-civilian divide,” veteran mental health, and women veterans. Kelly was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame in 2016. In her retirement, Kelly enjoys public speaking, hosting concerts on her Backyard Stage, pottery, blacksmithing, making music with friends, and hiking with her service dog, Amber.
Polly Kreisman: I am a writer, producer and 15-time Emmy winning former investigative reporter. I also tell stories as an actor (when SAG is not on strike!)
Currently, I publish one of the oldest community news sites in the country (larchmontloop.com )and am a Contributing Writer for Westchester Magazine.
In Broadcast Journalism, I reported for WPIX-TV, WNBC-TV and WWOR-TV in New York and worked as a Capitol Correspondent in Washington, DC. I also produced pieces for ABC News, MSNBC and other stations.
I was was born in New York City (so I’m told), grew up in Westport, CT. & Washington, DC, (that part I remember) and graduated from Cornell University.
I play Mom to two kids in college. And to two dogs, a badly-behaved Standard Poodle puppy and a foster fail. I like riding horses (English), Barre, yoga and hiking almost anywhere in the world.
More about me at pollykreisman.com
Helen Kweskin was born in England, raised in Colombia and Venezuela, and eventually settled down in Connecticut. She devoted 45 years to teaching high school English—a fulfilling career—and now looks forward to focusing on her own writing. She has collaborated on a screenplay titled By The North Star (based on a slave narrative) and recently completed a first draft of a memoir/creative non-fiction piece with the working title of Ubumuntu [Humanity Toward Others].
In 2008 she founded an NGO designed to support educational opportunities for students and teachers in Rwanda, after the genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 decimated the educational system in that country.
Helen and her husband Ed are blessed with two adult children and six grandchildren. Helen divides her time between coastal Connecticut and jaunts to Switzerland (where three of those grandkids are growing up, and she doesn’t want to miss their milestones). She is grateful to be part of the Gateless Academy community.
Maggie Langrick is the CEO and Publisher at Wonderwell, a hybrid publisher of nonfiction books that help, heal, and inspire. A lifelong passionate fan of nonfiction books, Maggie founded Wonderwell with a simple yet bold mission: to uplevel humanity through purposeful publishing. Wonderwell's innovative publishing model is designed to make publishing a book more rewarding for authors, with deep editorial and marketing support, greater ownership and creative control, and richer royalties. Wonderwell's award-winning books have ranked on national bestseller lists, been translated into a dozen languages, and changed countless lives. As Publisher, Maggie directs Wonderwell's publishing focus, and leads immersive book concept development workshops and luxurious retreats for authors.
Her greatest passion is having big, deep conversations with inspiring individuals, which she does weekly on her podcast The Selfish Gift: Go Public with Your Purpose. She served for five years as a Board Director at the Independent Book Publishers' Association, where she helped to draft the association's official criteria for hybrid publishers. She is a passionate public speaker on writing as an act of service, growth, and healing. Maggie writes personal essays on her Substack, The Underwire.
Caroline Mays is the author of Bio Like Beyoncé and the creator of Switchblade Lemonade - a vitally unorthodox image crafting and biography salon. She bullheadedly insists that any paragraph crammed with titles, accolades, vapid musings, and arbitrary facts is not only a boring square professionals attempt to squeeze themselves into.
It's a (coffin-shaped) box they've agreed to lie down in.
This explains why writing about the self is so difficult: conformity is ill-fitting. Stiff. Dead on the inside. But a story like the robust, complicated, often feral thing we pack around?
It's very much alive. It hates the confines of tight spaces. And it will open doors…if we open the lid we keep on it.
With aggressive creativity, intelligent observation, and practical audacity, Caroline's work uncages the wisdom of one's history. The truth behind their work. And the revelations within their story via beautiful biographical art.
Janice O'Leary has worked as a magazine editor and writer for the last 20 years. Beyond writing for consumer magazines and newspapers about everything from home design, real estate, wine and spirits, and the luxury universe, she's published poetry and short stories. She has an MFA in fiction and an MS in journalism. Her hobbies include hiking, cooking, napping, knitting, and ceramics, but she has exactly zero time for them now that she's a single mom. She lives with her toddler son in Malibu, Calif.
Elise Lorimer tends to dive deep and explore wide—within the mysterious, the manifest, and everything in between. She’s driven to create spaces where narratives can be explored and rewritten, so as to collectively vision a better future for all. She is an igniter—working with other creatives whose projects strive to broaden and evolve us seated in our interconnectedness with this planet.
She began her career as a performer, writer, and business professional in the banking world in New York City; became a prominent yoga instructor, documentarian, photographer, and event producer in San Francisco; and lives now as an author, screenwriter, oral storyteller, and consultant for creatives in California and beyond. She is writing her first book to be published.
Fueled by the natural beauty of Vermont, and the love and care of friends and family (2- and 4-legged), Jill Lyons leads a life filled with new adventures and learning opportunities. She is passionate about the self-awareness that equine experiences provide, and she endeavors to become more skillful and subtle in all her communications.
Jill and Heidi Garvey, in partnership with many horses, have co-created Unbridled Ways at Heart and Heritage Stables, where they offer equine-guided sessions and multi-day retreats. Each session demonstrates that we all have, deep within us, the answers to our own questions. Heidi and Jill serve as witnesses who gently ask intuitive questions, while the equines and the universe conspire to ensure the answers are palpable. Each magical interaction helps bring inner clarity to those seeking answers, and information to guide their path forward.
Writing and reading are intertwined for Jill. They stimulate her soul and senses; awaken her to who she is and what she believes in; and give her insight into the person she aspires to be. Her most recent venture is writing a playbook that will provide the same deep zing of understanding people experience in an Unbridled Ways session. In listening to their life, contemplating their histories and re-experiencing their lives through the lenses of others who were present, readers will feel awe for the lives they have created, gratitude for how their challenges have fed their souls, and open them to the person their most profound self is encouraging them to become.
Jill has an extensive background with innovative occupational therapy approaches, including being primary founder and director of the non-profit Philo Center. Profound daily connections with children, their families and care/educational professionals began her immersion into each person’s unique gifts.
Outside of the barns, she loves and learns from Mark, her husband and partner of 40 years, their 2 adult sons and their brilliantly creative wives, and a menagerie of fur-babies and -grandbabies.
I'm Suzie Milkowich, a storyteller, funny gal, motivator, instigator, and action figure. Born under the sun sign of Sagittarius, I have lived an incredible, traumatic, nontraditional, exciting, and passionate life. I live to tell and love inspiring others to rise above, and find the strength to overcome any obstacle. Former Oncology/Hospice RN, massage/ myofascial release therapist, juvenile delinquent, councilwoman, artist, educator, and retired professional thread picker...plus.
I love to make others smile, lifting spirits everywhere I go. My interests include anything outdoors, travel, hiking, camping, singing, exercise, dancing, pickleball, and pysanky art. Currently working on "Twelve Mustard Seeds."
Iyabo Onipede is a facilitator, speaker, and consultant who leads challenging yet compassionate learning experiences which create belonging, and thriving racial and cultural inclusion in organizations. A graduate of Goucher College and Georgetown University Law School, Iyabo self identifies now as a "recovering attorney" after practicing law for 20 years. She also has a Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She also serves as the Co-Director of Compassionate Atlanta, where she delights in loving on her diverse and eclectic community and most comfortable in her own skin. Iyabo's home on the web is www.iamiyabo.com.
Emily Pereira is an international retreat leader, best selling memoirist of The Quest, and Master Coach assisting women in creating the love, business and lifestyles of their dreams. She lives in Santa Teresa, a seaside village along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, with her beloved Manex, and two small children, Saïa Moon & Teo. Together they co-founded The Sunrise Mountain Retreat Center. Her award winning retreats have been featured in Harper's Bazaar and Travel & Leisure.
Jenny Powers finds comfort in being out of her comfort zone. From spending nights in a men's homeless shelter to going undercover as a phone sex operator, her insatiable curiosity and investigative nature coupled with her knack for seamlessly going from stranger to trusted confidant have gained her entry into foreign worlds, allowing her to produce bold and engaging content and capture the attention of readers worldwide.
As the principal writer behind Business Insider’s Job Diaries (118M unique site visitors monthly), her days range from rubbing elbows with Teamsters to hobnobbing with etiquette instructors to being taken under the wing of airplane repo men and private hostage negotiators and sex workers who have bared their souls as she digs into their careers and lives to explore how they got started, what their jobs are really like and what it takes to succeed in their line of work.
Powers has also penned two wildly risqué viral essays- Outsourcing my Orgasm (New York Magazine/The Cut) and I’m a married, middle-aged mom. Here’s what happened when I secretly became a phone sex operator (Huffington Post) as well as an in-depth reported essay on the unexpected realities of the phone sex business in Confessions of a Phone Sex Operator (The Free Press),
She is currently working on a memoir. Her complete writing portfolio can be viewed here.
By day, Amy Purcell is a corporate communications professional with more than 30 years of experience. By night, she writes fiction. Her work has been published in Triquarterly, The Masters Review Volume VI, Third Coast, Beloit Fiction Journal, Bosque Journal and is forthcoming in Passages North and an anthology of writers located in the Southwest. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing, and is currently working on two novels, one for adults and one for middle grade readers. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband and two of the best Australian Shepherds ever. When she isn’t writing, she’s running half marathons, enjoying live music and trying new craft beers. Since childhood, Amy has had a recurring dream about sharks in primary colors. For this reason, you probably won't find her swimming in the ocean but you may find her writing about them.
Fernanda dAvila Melo Sarmento is originally from Brazil and currently lives in California working as a Partner Strategist for one of the biggest Tech companies in the world. Besides her corporate life (workaholic? #guilty), Fernanda has been engaged in the Gateless Method since 2020 retraining her RAS (aka telling the critic to *fudge* himself) and slowly (veeeery slowly LOL) creating more space for writing in her life.
Marla Schultz is a headlining standup comedian, keynote speaker, actor & mental health advocate. For two years she toured with fellow comedian Chelsea Handler & entertained the U.S. Military troops overseas.
She is a sought-after keynoter on mental health awareness & a presenter for ‘NAMI’, the National Alliance of Mental Illness. She was featured in the award-winning documentary, You’re Gorgeous, I Love Your Shirt: A Look Inside the Crisis of Bullying and Mental Health.
TV acting roles: POWER, Men of a Certain Age, FX’s Dirt, Comics Unleashed, Oxygen’s Girls Behaving Badly, E! Entertainment Television the Entertainer with Wayne Newton & featured on The Dr. Oz Show, Good Day New York, WPIX, WCBS-TV, MSNBC, CNBC, KTLA, and KDVR.
Marla is a regular on the New York comedy scene and a comedy festival favorite performed for a second time at the Nantucket Comedy Festival. Other festivals: Lucille Ball, Raleigh’s Oak City, Toyota, Marshalls & Boston’s Women Comedy Festivals.
Eleanor Shannon: "I live in Ojai, CA where I work mostly online with clients using Compassionate Inquiry, Gabor Maté’s body-centered approach to healing trauma. I also practice and teach conscious dance and yoga. My time in Ojai follows fifteen years of mostly living in Italy (Milano, a seaside town called Camogli, and Pienza in the Val D’Orcia of Tuscany) where I was teaching university students, got certified as a professional wine sommelier, wrote a blog about natural wine, and experienced a lot of deliciousness and fun. I had written many iterations of a memoir over more than a decade when one of my clients suggested a Gateless writing retreat. And now, I’m back for more."
Erica Stanulis is the Founder and Design Lead of Follow the Sun, a transformational consulting agency specializing in improving organizational health, efficiency, and sustainability. She has 25 years of combined experience in business operations, leadership development, and consulting. Erica is known for her ability to unlock creativity and tap into the full potential of individuals and teams for exceptional organizational impact.
Prior to Follow the Sun, Erica worked as the Director of Global Corporate Social Responsibility at GoPro, where she championed social and environmental practices across the global supply chain and promoted causes in health, human services, conservation, and environmentalism. She also worked as the Site Head of Operational Excellence at Boehringer Ingelheim.
Erica holds an MBA in Leadership and Managing Organizational Change from Pepperdine University's George L. Graziadio School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.
Nicole Stobart graduated with Honors with her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from University of Connecticut and later earned her Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. For seven years, she dedicated herself to her work as an attorney practicing medical malpractice defense and general civil liability around the greater Hartford area. Due to the demands of motherhood and seeking a better work-life balance, Nicole joined Allied World Insurance company, where she specializes in handling medical malpractice claims, with a recent emphasis on mental health claims.
Outside of her legal career, Nicole leads a fulfilling personal life. She is happily married to a British man and is a proud parent to three wonderful children aged 11.5, 5, and 2.5. Nicole recently embarked on a new chapter by constructing a new home on Boston's scenic south shore. Nicole loves working out, fashion, make-up, singing, and spa trips. Nicole also loves listening to music and has been to all six of Taylor Swift's concert tours.
Nicole's passion for literature and writing has been a lifelong pursuit. From the tender age of 10, she has been an enthusiastic reader and writer, regularly documenting her thoughts in her journal and crafting stories and poems. In 2020, she achieved a significant milestone by completing the first draft of a novel. Currently, Nicole is diligently working on her second novel, a gripping psychological thriller that she aspires to publish, adding a new dimension to her repertoire of achievements.
Shannon Svikhart loves writing fiction and journaling. She holds a degree in English from Xavier University and a Master of Public Health from Tulane University. Originally from Atlanta, she’s lived on both coasts. After a career in dietetics, she cares for medically fragile children, including her daughter. Characters in her notebooks grapple with questions about the value of human life. She prefers fiction but tinkers in memoir. She approaches the Gateless Academy with the humility of a novice and the belief that it's the chance of a lifetime to learn the craft of writing in a joyful community.
Trez Thomas is an award-winning Creative, Executive Creative Director and Brand Strategist, known for turning global media brands into pop culture sensations. With a unique approach to creating addictive, buzz-worthy brands and a track record that includes Bravo, Lifetime, BET and ESPN, Trez has been instrumental in shaping the media and pop culture landscape.
Trez uses her entertainment-based method to show businesses how to build a cohesive, larger-than-life, binge-worthy brand that captivates audiences, connects digitally, IRL and experientially, converts fans into obsessed brand evangelists who are eager to buy and make sure the buzz around a brand never ends.
Terri Trespicio is an award-winning writer, speaker, and brand advisor. Her TEDx talk, “Stop Searching for Your Passion,” has surpassed 6.5 million views. She was named by Hubspot as one of the “Top 18 female speakers who are killing it," and one of the world’s leading creatives by Creative Boom magazine.
A former magazine editor and radio host at Martha Stewart, she has appeared on the Today show, Dr. Oz, The Early Show, The Martha Stewart Show and The Anderson Cooper Show. Her work has been featured in Oprah magazine, Marie Claire, Prevention, Business Insider, Forbes.com, and Inc.com. An in-demand speaker who presents at conferences across the country, she was rated the #1 speaker at Barron’s Top Independent Women Advisors Summit and How Design Live.
Terri is also a stand-up comic and has performed at famous Manhattan venues including Caroline’s, Dangerfield’s, Gotham, and New York Comedy Club, and was a quarter finalist in the She Devil Comedy Competition.
Terri earned her BA in English from Boston College and a MFA in Creative Writing in 2002 from Emerson College, where her thesis, a collection of poetry, won the Graduate Dean Award. A finalist for the Iowa Award and Glimmer Train, her literary work has appeared in The Greensboro Review, New Millenium Writings, and The Baltimore Review, where she won first place in their 2016 creative nonfiction contest. Certified in the Gateless method for capturing creative genius, she's the creator of the Six Week Sprint, a dynamic program for generating new work, and leads workshops and retreats all over the country.
She's represented by Johanna Castillo at Writers House, and her forthcoming book, tentatively titled Stop Searching for Your Passion, will be published in spring 2022 by Atria Books / Simon & Schuster.
Rishma Walji: Professionally, I'm trained as a Naturopathic Doctor and also have a PhD. I spent about 20 years in clinical practice working with hormones and fertility (none of which prepared me to raise my two teen daughters!). For the past few years, I've transitioned away from clinical practice and into looking at intentional decision making (which is the topic of the book I'm researching and writing). I spent a long time helping people make huge decisions in their life (related to family planning, IVF, etc) and I'm deeply curious about psychology and neuroscience. A lot of my work is related to self-awareness and emotion that often guides (or misleads) our life choices. I opened up vulnerably on a TEDx stage (thankfully, I survived!), and now I host a narrative style, personal growth podcast called XO Conversations. Personally, I love to dance (I'm not great at it and mostly just dance around my kitchen - but it brings a kind of freedom I don't find anywhere else, with the possible exception of traveling). Please feel free to reach out, I love connecting with people.
Jen Whetham is a Gateless Trained Teacher. She holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University and an MA in Literature from Western Washington University. She currently serves as an Associate Dean at Reed College in Portland Oregon as an educational developer for equity, inclusion, and belonging in the Office of Institutional Diversity. One of her passions is working with educators to create anti racist learning environments for students in higher education across departments and disciplines. Jen is also deeply committed to communities of practice that foster relational trust between practitioners committed to the ever-evolving journey of becoming an antiracist educator.
Casey Erin Wood created the Ruby Slipper School of Magic to help women get really good at being themselves — so they can shamelessly change the world. Her work’s appeared in HuffPost, Scary Mommy, Rebelle Society and The New York Times. When she’s not bingeing her latest television addiction (hint: anything with crackerjack character development), or spoiling her two very badly behaved French Bulldogs (Gus & Mabel), you’ll find her killing her darlings in her (oh-so-soon-to-be finished) memoir about her struggle to find belonging at the intersection of magic, music and misogyny. Find her at caseyerinwood.com.
Shannon Woodruff, known as a "Human Sparkler," brings a burst of creativity to everything she does. At the helm of Guidely, she expertly juggles her career with being a mom to three amazing, albeit occasionally maddening, teenage daughters. Shannon's world is a canvas of vibrant hobbies: from crafting poetry, splashing paint, stitching fabrics, whipping up culinary delights, to sketching and exploring trails. Surrounded by books in her childhood home, she taught herself to read at 3, and has been madly in love with words ever since.
Christine Young spent 24 years working in high tech as a User Experience Design Researcher. She’s been laid off eight times. In 2016, she thought she was at the top of her game, she checked herself into a psych ward, where they kept her for a week. She’s writing about how, in America, workaholism is a dangerous badge of honor when we over-identify with our professions, as illustrated by de-identifying enough, (going crazy to stay sane!) told in memoir. Family and friends who intervened on her behalf are relieved that she’s been in therapy ever since. Connect with her here.