Sheila Bender publishes Writing it Real, an online instructional magazine for those who write from personal experience. Her books include Creative Writing DeMystified, Writing and Publishing Personal Essays, Writing Personal Poetry, A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery, and Keeping a Journal You Love. She wrote content for LifeJournal for Writers software and published a prose memoir, Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. She teaches in-person around the country and is a frequent guest blogger and interviewee for writing sites. Visit her website. Currently teaching: Build Your Creative Writing Muscle Kendra Bonnett is co-creator with Matilda Butler of the Women's Memoirs website—the popular resource for writing prompts, recorded author conversations, book reviews, ScrapMoirs, marketing and publishing advice, and more. She is also co-author of the collective memoir, Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story, winner of four book awards, including a 2008 IPPY. Their new book teaching the Writing Alchemy method will be available in early 2011. has enjoyed a 30-year career as a writer, editor, publisher and writing coach. She has published 8 books, some 300-plus magazine articles and founded 3 magazines. regularly works with writers and aspiring authors through workshops (several taught through Story Circle Network, East of Eden and Association of Personal Historians), coaching sessions, manuscript evaluations and regular critique sessions (group and solo) with women writing their first books. In addition, uses her years as a marketing communications executive to understand, apply and teach writers to navigate the worlds of social media, ebooks, blogs, online marketing and publishing in the 21st century. She helps authors and small business owners market (and sell) online. Visit their website. Currently teaching: Writing Fast, Writing Deep Matilda Butler is co-creator with Kendra Bonnett of the Women's Memoirs website—the popular resource for writing prompts, recorded author conversations, book reviews, ScrapMoirs, marketing and publishing advice, and more. She is also co-author of the collective memoir, Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story, winner of four book awards, including a 2008 IPPY. Their new book teaching the Writing Alchemy method will be available in early 2011. has trained more than 300 women in memoir writing. Her comprehensive workshop is the basis for the 5-DVD set, "The [Essential] Women's Memoir Writing Workshop: 21 Steps from Planning to Publication." regularly works with writers and aspiring authors through workshops (several taught through Story Circle Network, East of Eden and Association of Personal Historians), coaching sessions, manuscript evaluations and regular critique sessions (group and solo) with women writing their first books. Her All-Day Women's Memoir Writing Workshop is popular as both a live event and the 8-hour DVD version. has published more than 50 articles, contributed chapters to several anthologies, including The New Papyrus (Microsoft Press, 1986), co-authored the award-winning Women and the Mass Media. Visit their website. Currently teaching: Writing Fast, Writing Deep Joyce Chapman is a best-selling author, speaker, and professional and personal coach. A pioneer in the field of journal keeping she provides step-by-step journaling techniques for actualizing dreams to individuals, groups and companies through her books, newsletters, workshops, training programs, coaching sessions and online classes. She is known for her landmark books, and their companion workbooks: Journaling For Joy: Writing Your Way to Personal Growth and Freedom, Live Your Dream: Discover and Achieve Your Life Purpose, and Celebrate Your Dream: Fulfill Your Destiny One Wish at a Time and Notice: The Art Of Observation. Visit her website & her blog. Currently teaching: Capture Your Life Experiences and Learn from Them: Keep a Journal Dana Curtin has been studying, participating in and leading women's life writing groups for the past decade. A credentialed teacher, she switched to training students in desktop publishing and using computers for creativity and connection. She still offers such classes, but focuses now on helping women share the stories of their lives through inperson and online groups. After working with small educational publishers, Dana embraced writing in the non-judgmental methods of Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron. She quickly discovered Susan Wittig Albert, her Writing From Life, and subsequently Story Circle Network. This year she became a certified GAB Instructor using the method developed by Dr. James Birren at USC. She finds the two-pages a week on a guided theme and class structure a very helpful and positive environment for helping people share their life stories. Visit her website. Currently teaching: Guided Autobiography to Get Started Now! Kate Farrell has been a storyteller and a language arts teacher in high schools, colleges, universities, and given professional development trainings for over 40 years. She earned a Masters degree from UC-Berkeley; founded the Word Weaving storytelling project and currently is founder of Wisdom Has a Voice: Daughters Remember Mothers, a memoir project, conducting workshops in this project since 2007. Visit her website & her blog. Currently teaching: Keepsake Memoir about Mother Lynn Goodwin is a freelance writer, editor, teacher, former caregiver, and the author of You Want Me To Do What? Journaling for Caregivers (Tate Publishing). She is published in Voices of Caregivers; Hip Mama; the Oakland Tribune; the Contra Costa Times; the Danville Weekly; Staying Sane When You're Dieting; Small Press Review; Dramatics Magazine; Career; We Care; Families of Loved Ones Magazine; The Sun and numerous e-zines and blogs. She's taught workshops and written reviews for Story Circle Network. She currently works for StudySync, and Caregiver Village. She facilitates writing workshops and publishes Writer Advice. Visit her website. Currently teaching: The Next Step Towards Publication Len Leatherwood has been teaching writing privately to students in Beverly Hills for the past eleven years. She has received a national teacher award for the past three years from the Scholastic Artists and Writers Awards, the oldest and most prestigious writing contest for youth in the U.S. She is a published writer of "flash" fiction/memoir with pieces appearing in flashquake, a quarterly journal dedicated to short-shorts, longstoryshort, a weekly e-zine, as well as All Things Girl, a monthly ezine for women. Her work has also appeared in the 2008, 2010, & 2011 editions of Story Circle Network's True Words Anthology, as well as in A Cup of Comfort Cookbook, currently available on Amazon. Currently teaching: The Power of Writing Short Sharon Lippincott, M.S., is a life writing teacher and coach. She has been a published author and workshop leader for over twenty-five years, and her book The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing and its related blog have helped thousands of readers begin and deepen their life writing experience. Her most recent book is Writing With All Your Senses, available in all ebook formats. She teaches life writing classes at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, Gilda's Club, libraries, and Senior Living Communities and co-hosts the LifeWriters Forum on YahooGroups. Visit her website & her blog. Currently teaching: Writing With All Your Senses Born in Minnesota to a Mexican Mother and German American father, Lorraine Mejia became a marathon runner, flamenco dancer, artist, editor, librarian, educator, poet, author, and storyteller. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a MLS in Youth Librarianship. Lorraine's poems have won several awards, and have appeared in anthologies such as Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra: Latina Poets of the Midwest and in literary journals including Willow Springs, Inkwell, and Calyx. She has taught poetry classes to children, teens, and adults all around the country. Visit her website. Currently teaching: There Has Been Love... & Poetry for the Truly Terrified Giulietta Nardone's stories have been published in Flashquake, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Skirt! Magazine, Underwired Magazine, The MetroWest Daily News, Writer's Digest, Common Ties, and on NPR. She describes herself as an "inspirational rebel" whose transformative life shops enable middle-agers to take back their power, their lives, and their selves. She lives in Ashland, Massachusetts, with her husband, pinball machines, and two playful cats. Visit her website & her blog. Currently teaching: Give Your Boring Title the Boot! Carol O'Dell is the author of the bestselling memoir, Mothering Mother: A Daughter's Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir (Amazon/Family, Bio, Caregiving, Alzheimer's). Carol is a creative writing instructor at the University of North Florida/OLLI program. She's taught for the Florida Governor's Honors Program and has presented at many conferences including The International Teaching and Learning Conference, Harriette Austin/Univeristy of Georgia Writer's Conference and for the First Coast Festival Writer's Program. Carol is a graduate of Jacksonville University and the director of Chats Noir and Chats Nuit Writer's Circles in Northeast, Florida. Visit her website. Currently teaching: Finding Your Voice in Memoir and Personal Essays Recent poetry and prose by Tania Pryputniewicz is forthcoming or appeared on-line at Autumn Sky, Blast Furnace, The Blood Orange Review, Connotation Press, In Her Place, and Linebreak. Her photo poem montages (created in collaboration with Robyn Beattie) have been published by The Mom Egg (She Dressed in a Hurry for Lady Di, 2009) and Prairie Wolf Press (Nefertiti on the Astral, 2011). Poetry editor at The Fertile Source, she blogs at Feral Mom, Feral Writer and is currently a member of A Room of Her Own Foundation's 2011 interview team for AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer. She lives in the California redwoods with her husband, three children, kitten, Siberian Husky, and four feral cats. Visit her website. Currently teaching: Transformative Blogging Naomi Sandweiss writes and lives in New Mexico. Her most recent book, Jewish Albuquerque 1860-1960, was published in March 2011. She serves as editor of Legacy, the publication of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society and has articles, essays and poems in numerous publications. She enjoys sharing her love of historic writing with others. Visit her website. Currently teaching: Writing in Sepia Amber Starfire is a teacher, freelance editor, writer, and Program Coordinator for SCN's Online Classes program. Her passion is to help others tell their stories, make meaning of their lives, and access their inner wisdom and creativity through the act of writing. Amber has taught online, as well as at community colleges and businesses for more than twenty years. Author of Week by Week: A Year's Worth of Journaling Prompts & Meditations, she was a previous editor for SCN's True Words Anthology, and her work has appeared in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter's Memories of Mother, Enchanted Spirit, the Conscious Mind Journal, Inner Sanctum, and Voice of Adoptees. She is a member of the California Writers Club in Santa Rosa (Redwood Writers), the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE), the Story Circle Network, and the International Association of Journal Writers (IAJW). Visit Amber's website. Currently teaching: Journaling Through the Chakras