Jamie Morin, PhD is a former corporate-operations executive and a current organizational psychologist, leadership coach, consultant, and teacher. She’s on the faculty of the Gestalt International Study Center where she teaches in the leadership and coach training programs. Jamie facilitates a writing group for students at the Asian University for Women and has experienced the power of reflection and writing in forging connections between people from different backgrounds.

Anne Golomb Hoffman, PhD, is interested in the therapeutic dimensions of narrative experience. Her essays on trauma, narrative, and embodiment have appeared in literary and psychoanalytic journals. She teaches literature at Fordham University, with research affiliations at the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and the Institute for Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Andrea Hansell studied creative writing at Princeton University and earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan. She was a practicing psychotherapist for many years with a focus on coping with trauma. She is now a consultant and scriptwriter for The Glowmedia Project’s mental health education films. Her memoir pieces and short stories have appeared in publications and anthologies including Lilith, Intima, Minerva Rising, and Lascaux Review.

Gail Boldt, Ph.D. is a Distinguished Professor of Eduction at Penn State University, where she prepares preservice teacher to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. She was a 3rd and 4th grade teacher for many years in California and Hawai’i and is also a licensed counselor, with a child psychotherapy practice. She is the Senior Editor of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, a journal published for teachers. The Occasional Papers: https://www.bankstreet.edu/research-publications-policy/occasional-paper-series/

Libby Bachhuber, LCSW provides psychoanalytic psychotherapy and supervision through her independent practice in Chicago, and serves as Clinical Associate Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. Her work engages with the social, political, and spiritual concerns that run through patients’ lives, including issues involving gender, race, and climate. She has also provided participatory consultation in schools, nonprofits, and grassroots organizations.

Brian John Rink, MSW, is a psychotherapist specializing in work with the LGBTQIA+ as well as trauma. A survivor himself, Brian believes therapy is a healing process that allows one to reestablish connectedness with loved ones and one’s environment. Brian lives in the Greater Washington, DC area with his husband and their two dogs, Katydid and Phineas.

F. Diane Barth, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. She works with individuals and couples (including adult parent/adult child couples) and runs private study and supervision groups. Her articles for therapists have been published in numerous professional journals. She has published three books, freelances for NBC Think, and writes a popular blog for Psychology Today.

Andrea Nicki, PhD, is a bioethicist and author of three poetry books on themes such as healing from trauma, isolation, and spirituality. Her poetry has appeared in the collection Stories of Illness and Healing and at www.poetryandcovid.com. She teaches courses in bioethics and narrative medicine and facilitates workshops in applied poetry in Vancouver, Canada. She is working on a multidisciplinary book, under contract with Roman and Littlefield Publishers.

Ilana Giannini is a television writer turned psychotherapist who works with trauma survivors, individually and in groups. She established Voices of Warriors, a trauma group therapy program at Wright Institute Los Angeles and consults with Women in Film, establishing groups for women subject to predators in the workplace. Ilana believes creative work, coupled with a supportive group process, are powerful antidotes to the isolation and shame attendant to trauma.

Susan Katz is a clinical social worker and hypnotherapist. She has worked with clients who have struggled with addiction, trauma, and illness, at times utilizing journal writing and vision boards to help clients express the unspeakable. Susan also writes short stories and graduated from the New Directions Writing Program. She was a Fiction Fellow at The Writers’ Institute, and a Contributor in Fiction at the Bread Loaf’s Writers’ Conference.

Jessica Leader is the author of Nice and Mean (Simon & Schuster), a middle-grade novel about seventh-grade girls. A long-time English teacher, she has coached students to write award-winning pieces for contests such as GLSEN’s No Name-Calling Week, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and DC’s One World Foundation. She earned her BA from Brown University and her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Judith Ruskay Rabinor, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City and a consultant to the Renfrew Center Foundation.  Judy teaches writing classes, coaches writers,  has published dozens of articles and three books, most recently: The Girl in the Red Boots: Making Peace with My Mother (2021).

Susan Jaffe, M.D., Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst; Residency Training Supervisor, New York University School of Medicine and Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Graduate and Faculty, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute; Member, New Directions Writing Program; Private Practice, Midtown Manhattan; Working on first novel.

Michael (Micheál) Dowling, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with a private practice in New York City. He grew up in Ireland. Before college he traveled and worked in a variety of occupations in different countries for over ten years, including factories, computer operations, roofing, carpentry, and nursery school teaching. His areas of interest include immigration, diversity, resilience, and wellness. He has written on the migrant experience.

Emily Simmons received an MFA in Creative Writing poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She taught creative writing to at-risk youth, then created a riding program specializing in neurodivergent students. She lives with her spouse, two children, four horses and alpacas, three dogs and cats, along with a ridiculous number of chickens.

Tammi Markowitz-Inscho is a reformed lawyer turned freelance writer. She is currently working on her first novel and teaching creative writing workshops. Her personal essays have been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the online magazine Manifest-Station. Tammi is an Amherst Writers and Artists certified creative writing workshop leader.

Tesa Conlin feels fortunate to have taught writing and literary and film analysis for the last 40 years. She loves the magic of sharing the written word.

Nancy Peltzman is a Chicago psychoanalyst who graduated from the New Directions in Writing Project. She has taught small groups of therapists at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis for the past 13 years. Over the last two decades she has worked with many highly traumatized individuals, and repeatedly seen the healing properties of self-expression.

Sybil Houlding, MSW, graduate of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, where she is Faculty Dean. Private practice in New Haven, treating individuals, couples, and families. Teaching interests include unrepresented states, and trauma.  2009 graduate of New Directions, published journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews. Editorial Board member of JAPA.

Elizabeth Bales Frank is a novelist and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Sun, Lit Hub, Barrelhouse, and other publications. Her novel Censorettes was released in 2020. She earned a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MLIS from the Pratt Institute. She lives in Astoria, NY.