Susan is president of Big Bite, Inc., an LA-based production firm, and a former TV journalist. A graduate of Stanford, she has anchored and produced several pieces focusing on Jewish women (and men), e.g., a documentary featuring 17 Holocaust survivors, host of the Maccabiah Games in Israel, live reporting from Poland's first museum honoring Polish Jews.

Irina was born in Moscow, and currently divides her time between Pittsburgh and Brooklyn. She is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. Irina Reyn’s new novel The Imperial Wife will be published by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press in the summer of 2016.

Irina’s first novel What Happened to Anna K. was published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster in August 2008. That novel was selected as an IndieBound Next Pick for August. It was also one of “Ten Best Books of the Year” by Entertainment Weekly, one of Amazon.com’s Best books of August 2008, and made both San Francisco Chronicle‘s and Washington Post‘s “Best Books of the Year List.” It won of the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction from the Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Her anthology Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State (Touchstone, 2007) contains incredible essays on New Jersey just as the television show The Sopranos was transforming the state’s reputation. Authors include Jonathan Ames, Dani Shapiro, Lauren Grodstein, Frederick Reiken, Caroline Leavitt, and many others.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, composer, performer and Torah teacher. Her first book of poetry, Divinity School, won the 2015 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Her second poetry collection, Fruit Geode, publishes in October 2018. Alicia tours internationally with her band, Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women. A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, her one-woman chamber-rock opera, was named one of Portland's best theatre performances of 2014 by the Willamette Week. Alicia lives in Portland with her husband and their two small children.

Emily Cataneo is a fiction writer and journalist who’s thrilled to bring her love for history, feminism, and women’s stories to the Jewish Women’s Archive. She holds a BA in European history and a BS in print journalism from Boston University. Prior to joining JWA, she worked as a reporter for eight different newspapers in the Greater Boston Area, then spent two years living in Berlin, Germany and writing her first novel. She also writes feminist speculative fiction short stories, which are available in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Emily’s experience with history, literature, and journalism sparked her interest in questioning male-dominated narratives and celebrating the stories that are too often left out of our books and newspapers.

Cohen is a professional speaker,  presentation coach and the author of 1,000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire and Change Your Life published in 2011 by Seal Press.  Cohen presents to organizations and businesses on how kindness in the workplace improves your bottom line. She was a work-at-home mamaprenuer for a dozen years. She received her BA from American Jewish University and an MA from Brandeis University. She lives in Oregon with her husband of 23 years, their two spirited teenagers and two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Ginger and Remy. She loves yoga, meditation, keeping a gratitude journal and will never pass up a good cup of Earl Grey tea.

Mikki Pugh is a Boston native, born and raised in the small but mighty Jewish community of West Roxbury. An alumna of Solomon Schechter Day School and Boston Latin, Mikki went on to earn a BA in Psychology and Women’s Studies at Skidmore College, ultimately receiving her MSW from UNC Chapel Hill. Mikki has over ten years of experience in program design and management, focusing on gender-specific mentoring, curriculum development, and women’s health. She is also a licensed yoga teacher and long-time meditation practitioner, serving as a volunteer in underserved communities throughout Greater Boston.