Judith Stone is the author of the nonfiction books When She Was White and Light Elements. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O, Smithsonian, and many other publications. She was on the founding board of The Moth, and is a storytelling instructor in its community outreach program.

Sally Steenland is a writer and consultant. She worked at the Center for American Progress, a national think tank, and before that was an op-ed columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has written two best-selling books, The Magnetic Poetry Book of Poetry and the award-winning Kids’ Magnetic Book of Poetry. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and been anthologized. She received a BA from Calvin College and an M.Ed. from Howard Universit

Madelon Sprengnether is Regents Professor Emerita of the University of Minnesota, where she taught literature and creative writing. Her recent books include: Great River Road: A Memoir (New Rivers Press, 2015), Near Solstice: Prose Poems (Holy Cow! Press, 2015), and Mourning Freud (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

Janna Malamud Smith is a writer, a psychotherapist, and an experienced writing workshop leader. She has lectured and published widely nationally and internationally. She is the author of four books, including An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make their way to Mastery (2013). She has recently finished a book about fishing and fishermen on an island off the coast of Maine.

Susan Shreve is the author of 15 novels, a memoir, 5 anthologies and 30 books for children. She founded the MFA in Creative Writing program at George Mason University and taught at Columbia School of the Arts, Princeton University, and Goucher College. She’s received a Guggenheim Award and a National Endowment grant for fiction, the Jenny Moore Chair in Creative Writing, and the Grub Street Prize for non-fiction. She is the co-founder and former chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

Linda B Sherby, Ph.D. is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in practice in Boca Raton, Florida. She is the author of the book Love and Loss in Life and in Treatment written from the perspective of both a widow and a psychotherapist. The book interweaves memoir with her work with patients.

Laura Scalzo,is a graduate of Syracuse University. Her short fiction has appeared in journals and online literary magazines, including Hobart, Ellipsis Zine, Reflex Fiction, Grace in Darkness, Grace & Gravity Series Vol. VIII, and as a finalist in the 18th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition Collection. Her YA novel, THE SPEED OF LIGHT IN AIR, WATER, AND GLASS (One One Two Press, 2018) was a five-star, #1 Amazon Bestseller in Literary Fiction and Kirkus Review called it, “An enjoyable story of teen independence and exploration.”

Christie Platt, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist. In addition to seeing clients in private practice, she provides pro bono psychotherapy to veterans and psychological evaluations for asylum seekers. She is a practitioner of mindfulness meditation and is interested in contemplative care for those with serious illnesses and persons facing death. She has published a number of essays. She is looking forward the opportunity to support this writing project.

Billie Pivnick, Ph.D. is a psychoanalytic psychologist in private practice in NYC, specializing in treating individuals and families suffering from traumatic loss. She is faculty/supervisor in the William Alanson White Institute Child/Adolescent Psychotherapy Program and the New Directions Writing Program. Co-creator/co-host of the Couched podcast, she also won APA’s 2015 Schillinger Award for her essay “Spaces to Stand In: Applying Clinical Psychoanalysis to the Relational Design of the National September 11 Memorial Museum”.

Judith Pitlick, MA, LPCC is a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in private practice, Shaker Heights, Ohio, who works with individuals, couples, parents, families, and supervises psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. A graduate in psychoanalysis from the Hanna Perkins Center and the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, she is on the faculty of both programs. She a recipient of the Edith Sabshin Teaching Award of APsaA, and a Clinical Instructor, CWRU School of Medicine.

Jenifer Nields, MD is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine where she supervises residents in the long-term psychotherapy program. She teaches psychoanalytic psychotherapy at WNEPS and has published on the neuropsychiatric effects of Lyme Disease, psychotherapy with medically ill patients and psychoanalysis and religion. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, she volunteered as part of the 1:1 counseling program for Yale-affiliated frontline healthcare workers.

Ruth Neubauer, LCSW, is a teacher, a writer, and a long time psychotherapist. She graduated New Directions in 2003, remains on the faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry, and teaches lifelong learning at OLLI-DU in Denver, Colorado where she currently lives. She also maintains a private practice, and facilitates groups for Women Over 65 using impromptu writing as a tool to explore relevant issues. Ruth looks forward to being part of the Things They Carry Project.

Marc Nemiroff, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who has worked with a variety of groups in clinical, professional, religious, cross-cultural and community settings. He is the author of a text on working in groups, as well as a memoir of his decade of work with disenfranchised children and families in the Mumbai slums. He also served as a consultant to Global Roots, a non-profit providing assistance to impoverished children and families in Asia and Africa. 

Elizabeth McKamy, MSW was trained and worked with individuals and groups at the Professionals in Crisis Program at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas and led multiple Physicians in Transition groups at the Menninger Center for Applied Behavioral Science. Since retirement from private psychotherapy practice, and particularly during the Covid pandemic, she provides consultation to senior colleagues as they navigate complex practice and personal challenges that impact their own retirement considerations.

Molly McCloskey is the author of 5 books - a memoir and 4 works of fiction - and is currently collaborating on a book about early intervention in treating schizophrenia. She has taught workshops at various universities in the US and Ireland, and has been a teacher at New Directions for 3 years.

Kerry Malawista, Ph.D., a writer and psychoanalyst and co-chair of The New Directions in Writing program. Her essays have appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Zone 3, Washingtonian Magazine, The Huffington Post, Bethesda Magazine, Arlington Magazine, The Account Magazine, and Zone3. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the Kraken Book Prize. She is co-author of four psychology books. Her novel, Meet the Moon, in press for 2022.

Marion Maclean is a retired teacher of high school literature and writing. In 1981, she trained to become a teacher of writing and writing consultant through the Northern Va. Writing Project. She has led many workshops around the country, published a book about classroom research co-written with another teacher, and has overseen production of in-house publications. She attended New Directions from 2005-2008, returning regularly as participant or faculty since 2014

Barbara Lovenheim, Ph.D. taught for 17 years in the English Department at Monroe Community College where she created the courses Literature of the Holocaust and Witchcraft. She has taught in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Dartmouth College and Nazareth College. She has an MFA in Creative Writing poetry, publishing in miller’s pond, Hazmat, Scapegoat Review and A Handful of Dust, plus two books of poetry.

Ona Lindquist, LCSW is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Brooklyn, NY. Her published and presented works include: What a Blackbird Told Me is Real and Alive - the relationship between poetry and the use of language in psychoanalysis; Swimming in Space - fragments of a therapy in verse; A Barter to Be - a psychoanalysis in art and verse; One Glorious Noise - how the voice of Bruce Springsteen entered my consulting room.

Annette Leavy, LCSW is a psychoanalyst, writer and teacher. She is the former editor of the journal, Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. A graduate of the New Directions program, she is a member of the Philadelphia Wordshop Studio. Her lyric essay, “COVID Dreaming” will appear in the spring issue of Caveat Lector. Her story, “The Walnut Queen,” will be published in the forthcoming issue of The Capra Review.