Ann Kirschner is author of Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp, published by HarperCollins. A member of the Jewish Women's Archive Board of Directors and University Dean of Macaulay Honors College of The City University of New York, she is also the author of Sala's Gift.

Award-winning journalist Lisa Alcalay Klug has reported for a wide variety of media outlets including the New York Times, Jerusalem Post, Shape, Self and many others. Her book, Cool Jew, was a No. 1 Amazon bestseller and National Jewish Book Awards Finalist. A humorist, slam poet, and popular public speaker, Lisa has presented at more than 100 venues throughout North America, Europe, and Israel. The daughter of an Ashkenazi Holocaust survivor, Lisa’s books express her exuberance, joie de vivre, and passion for Jewish culture. Visit her online at www.lisaklug.com 
Twitter @lisaklug; Facebook.com/lisaalcalayklug.

After a nomadic childhood (seven moves by age 18) of living in various communities throughout Connecticut and Texas, Sheena spent two years studying at seminary in Israel then graduated with a BA in English-Communication from the Lander College for Women in Manhattan. After a few years working in college admissions, then the long term care industry, Sheena started working with the bat mitzvah population in the non-profit sector. In her free time she is a photographer and aspiring writer. Sheena lives in New Jersey with her husband of five years.

Vanessa Zoltan is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School. She is a proud Valley Girl/Los Angelean. She graduated with her BA in English Lit and Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and her MS in Nonprofit Management from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught high school English and has worked at a National Education nonprofit in a variety of capacities. She co-runs a tiny nonprofit, which works with people who are trying to live their most liberated lives.

Donna Swarthout is the editor and co-author of A Place They Called Home: Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany (2018). She has been writing about Jewish life in Germany since moving from the US to Berlin in 2010.

Doreen Rappaport is an award-winning author known to educators, parents, children and young adult readers for thirty-eight fiction and non-fiction books that celebrate multiculturalism, the retelling of folktales and myths, history, the lives of world leaders and the stories of those she calls “not-yet-celebrated.”

Her books have received critical acclaim and awards for her unique ability to combine historical facts with intimate storytelling as in her trilogy on black history and for finding “new ways to present the lives of well-known heroes” including Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, Helen Keller, Johan F. Kennedy, John Lennon and the Statue of Liberty.

BEYOND COURAGE: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust (Candlewick Press, Sept. 2012) her most ambitious project to date has been a six-year journey. Her first crossover book for young adults and adults, it was written to inspire a wider public with the stories of the heroic resisters and the defiance of countless numbers of Jews across eleven Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. The book has been honored on seven “Best Children’s Book Lists for 2012,” including The Washington Post, The New York Times and Publishers Weekly.

Among her numerous honors, she is the recipient of The Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement for the writing of non-fiction. Her book, Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., illustrated by Bryan Collier, received a Caldecott Honor Award, a Coretta Scott King Award, the Jane Addams Book Award, and an Orbis Pictus Honor Book. It is the seminal children’s book on Dr. King’s non-violent philosophy and has been read to children in New York schools by Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Senator Hillary Clinton.

Doreen Rappaport and her husband Bob Rosegarten, an artist, divide their time between New York City and the upstate village of Copake Falls. Children, including her own eight smart, funny, tech-savvy grandchildren, continue to inspire and enrich her life and writing.

www.doreenrappaport.com