Rita Mock-Pike (she/her) is the granddaughter of aviation pioneer Jerrie Mock, the first woman to pilot an airplane solo around the world. Rita has found inspiration from her grandmother’s life and flight and pursued many of her own dreams in theatre, podcasting, novel writing, and cooking up delicious food from across the planet. She is a freelance journalist and content writer with many bylines (CNN, Al-Jazeera, Tor.com, Wandering Educators, Paradise Magazine, Travel Awaits, others). She is an author with Simon & Schuster’s imprint Ulysses Press, with The Unofficial Hogwarts for the Holidays and I Love Trader Joe’s Air Fryer cookbooks.

Rita is the co-founding Editor-in-Chief of the MockingOwl Roost, a literary and art magazine, and director/producer of the performing arts branch of the MockingOwl Creatives, and the head of forthcoming MockingOwl Publishing. Rita gives lectures and speeches on Jerrie Mock, is an acting coach, wellness/fitness coach, personal fitness trainer, writing mentor, voice actor, performance artist, and stage and film director. She uses these many skills and life experiences to assist in her writing work and studies as a seminarian at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. She’s happily married to Matt and faithfully serves the very fluffy kitten queen, Lady Stardust.

Topic – Writing as spiritual practice (non-specific spirituality/religion focus), writing family stories, and how to write 10,000+ words a day!

C. Hope Clark wears a lot of hats as a writer. She’s known for her award-winning mysteries consisting of 16 books in three series, but then, again, in other circles she’s known for her website FundsforWriters.com and the newsletter that reaches 24,000 writers/readers. Writer’s Digest selected FundsforWriters for its 101 Best Websites for Writers recognition for the past 20+ years, and she often writes for the Writer’s Digest family in terms of blog, articles, and presentations. She lives in South Carolina on the banks of Lake Murray, with her best selling series being the Edisto Island Mysteries, published by Bell Bridge Books, set on one of the state’s most secluded beaches. She speaks often to conferences, book clubs, service organizations, and writers groups.

Topic – Writing as careeer: pitfalls and pinnacles

Sara Connell is a bestselling author and founder of Thought Leader Academy where she helps coaches, writers and entrepreneurs become successful, published authors and in-demand speakers. She has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The View, FOX Chicago, TEDx, The Today Show, and Katie Couric. Her writing has appeared in: The New York Times, Forbes, Good Housekeeping, and Parenting. Her first book Bringing In Finn was nominated for ELLE magazine Book of the Year.

Topic – Writing books that change lives

Jennie Nash is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company that trains, certifies, and supports book coaches so they can help writers do their best work. They’ve certified more than 130 coaches in fiction and nonfiction and are on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry. Jennie’s own coaching clients have landed top New York agents and six-figure book deals with traditional publishing houses such as Penguin, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette, and won dozens of national indie book awards. Client KJ Dell’Antonia’s novel, The Chicken Sisters, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Client Jenn Lim’s business book, Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and People for Growth and Impact, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Jennie is the author of 11 books in 3 genres, including Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book: Plan and Pitch Your Idea and Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel from the Inside Out. 

Topic – Writing Coaches: Why to Hire One, How to Choose One, and How to Become One

Stacey Graham has worked both sides of the literary door as an agent and as a humor writer with the wickedly funny Zombie Tarot. She is also a screenwriter, ghostwriter, short story writer, and specializes in offbeat nonfiction. She loves working with writers at all stages of their careers, representing talented authors and illustrators from around the globe in picture books, middle grade, romance, graphic novels, YA, and nonfiction. She is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents.Her current wish list includes:

• YA: Lite horror, thriller, spooky, or humorous.
• Spooky and/or hilarious middle grade.
• Nonfiction — I’m looking for fun, quirky, fascinating topics with strong commercial appeal and a great platform. Specifically looking for how-to books, antiques, and craft books.
• Graphic novels — MG/YA/Adult.

Topic – Next steps after you’ve written a manuscript

Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story. He has published two books on writing, Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo, and Brave the Page, a teen writing guide. He’s also published All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, a collection of short stories, Fissures, a collection of 100-word stories, and Nothing Short of 100: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story. His stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including Tin House, The Southwest Review, and The Gettysburg Review, and he has been  anthologized in collections such as Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction and Best Small Fictions. His essays on creativity have been published in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Lit Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. He serves on the National Writing Project’s Writer’s Council, Lit Camp’s Advisory Council, and Aspen Words’ Creative Council. He’s also the co-host of the podcast Write-minded.

Topic – The Art of Brevity

Topic – Dealing with the unruly past in fiction and non-fiction.

Victoria Andersen is the host of the Leap Into Your Story Podcast that features authors who share their insights and expertise. She has written and published three paranormal memoirs: “Touched“, “Trial by Fire,” and “Mastering the Paradox.” Her latest book is: “The Leap Into Your Story~30 Day Writers Journal.” In addition to writing and podcasting, she coaches, develops online courses, and is an international speaker. Her mission is to inspire writers to tell their story and feel empowered to publish their book.

Topic – Someone Needs to Hear Your Story

Paulette Perhach’s writing has been published in the New York Times, Vox, Elle, Slate, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, Yoga Journal, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hobart, and Vice. She’s the author of two million-reader viral essays.

Her book, Welcome to the Writer’s Life, was published in 2018 by Sasquatch Books, part of the Penguin Random House publishing family, and was selected as one of Poets & Writers‘ Best Books for Writers. 

She blogs about a writer’s craft, business, personal finance, and joy at welcometothewriterslife.com and leads meditation and writing sessions through A Very Important Meeting.

She serves writers as a coach, helping them figure out how to make a life and career out of being a writer while making the money work (as she figures it all out herself.) She’s also a speaker on the topics of creativity, writing, and business. 

Hugo House, a nationally recognized writing center in Seattle, awarded her the Made at Hugo House fellowship in 2013. In 2016, she was nominated for the BlogHer Voices of the Year award for her essay, “A Story of a Fuck Off Fund,” which is anthologized in The Future is Feminist from Chronicle Books, along with work by Roxane Gay, Mindy Kaling, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Caitlin Moran, and Audre Lorde. In 2021, she was selected as a Jack Straw Fellow. In 2022 she celebrated a nomination from Barrelhouse for Best of the Net.

She shared the honor of a 2021 Washington State Book Award for the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of Covid-19 as a contributor.

After a decade in Seattle, she moved across the street from her best friend back in Florida.

Topic – Choose the right words

Cami Ostman is the founder of The Narrative Project, a nine-month program that helps writers get their books done. She is also author of the book Second Wind: One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents, and the editor of several anthologies. Cami believes that words are powerful that we CREATE our identities with words—we tell our truths with words.

She holds a B.Ed. in English from Western Washington University and an M. S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seattle Pacific University. She has been profiled in Fitness Magazine and her books have been reviewed in O Magazine, The Atlantic, and Washington Post.

Topic – Why your story really does matter

Lisa Dailey is the publisher at Sidekick Press, website designer at Silent Sidekick, and author of Square Up: 50,000 Miles in Search of a Way Home. Her mission is to guide authors through their publishing journey. With more than twenty years of writing and publishing experience in the technology arena, Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge to help her clients promote their big idea with everything from formatting manuscripts to full book production, website maintenance to new website design and automation.

Topic – Making the mindshift from private writer to public author