OUR WONDERFUL AUTHORS

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Karen S. Barbera met her collaborator, Ellingtonian Randall Keith Horton, in the dining car of a train. Their definitive work on the history and resurrection of Duke Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige will be released when the first public performance of the Ellington-Horton Black, Brown and Beige premiers in January 2022.

Karen is Public Relations professional who has worked with of some of the top consumer product companies, including Wendy’s, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Avon Products, The Campbell Soup Company, Dial, Abbott Laboratories, Junior Achievement and The Ford Motor Company. She is the author of four biographical books on historically significant individuals and a contributing writer to several magazines. She has also conducted investigative journalism for The Wall Street Journal, KVOA-TV (NBC), Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), and the Arizona Attorney General. She and her husband Randy reside in Southern California and enjoy spending time with their six grown children and their expanding families. 

  Randall Keith Horton identifies himself as a “quintessential late bloomer.” His life is traced in these pages from his infancy in Boston, MA (born in 1942) to his presently self-defined identity as an “obscure Ellingtonian.” Between those two identities the reader will engage in the slowly blossoming trajectory toward his self-perceived future. 

In Spring,1964, he received his calling in Cambridge, MA: A light, similar to a laser beam, to which he ascribes the power leading him through all of his Ellington experiences, descended from above him, commanding him  to “Go to San Francisco and study music.” The resulting high point occurred in 1973, when Duke Ellington invited Randall to compose and conduct original music for his orchestra at a concert at Disneyland. Ellington subsequently appointed Randall to serve as his composing and conducting assistant. His leadership of Duke's Sacred Music is unparalleled, including consultation for Jazz at Lincoln Center. His unique concerto grosso orchestration of Ellington's full-length Black, Brown and Beige, commissioned in 1987 by G. Schirmer, Inc. through Mercer Ellington, fulfilled Duke Ellington’s vision for that composition and received standing ovations at each of its performances. He credits the late Ruth Ellington as having mentored his Ellington experiences. 

Randall holds graduate degrees in media studies and in music theory. 

Mark Zides is the founder and CEO of CoreAxis Consulting, an award-winning Learning & Development and Talent Management firm. 

He is also the founder of Katama, an agency specializing in sales strategy, marketing, and customer success for small-to-medium sized businesses. 

Over his 30 years advising clients on building future leaders and talent for organizations of all sizes, Mark brings a thought and impactful coaching model to many aspiring trailblazers.  In The #PACE Process for Early Career Success, he shares a proven system to help young people move forward and upward.

Mark lives in Boston with his wife, three kids, and two labradoodles.

Barbara Steffens, PhD, LPCC, CCPS, CPC specializes in helping women recover from sexual betrayal and is a sought-after speaker and presenter on special issues related to partners of sexual addicts.  She was the founding President of the Association for Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists – an organization that provides training and certification of Clinical Partner Specialists and Partner Trauma Coaches. 

She has counseled and coached betrayed spouses/partners for over twenty years and her research on trauma after betrayal has changed the field. Barbara also consults with other professionals and provides training for those who want to help partners heal. She is co-author of Your Sexually Addicted Spouse:  How Partners Can Cope and Heal (2009), which has dramatically affected change in the lives of those who are victims and the professionals who are trained to serve them.   

  Marsha Means, MA, founder and director of A Circle of Joy Ministries, is trained as a Marriage and Family Therapist, and writes and speaks on the topic of betrayal trauma and sex addiction. 

Marsha's work is based on both her personal and professional experience. She has written several books on the topic, and together with coauthor, Barb Steffens, PhD, she wrote Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal. 

Marsha and her team of coaches offer individual and group support for partners of sex addicts. In addition, Marsha facilitates couple’s groups to help them learn to heal the damage done by betrayal trauma.

 Mike Ashenfelder has written over 180 articles and reports about digital preservation for the Library of Congress and the American Library Association. He is the author of “The Library of Congress and Personal Digital Archiving,” from Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage. Information Today, Inc. (October 28, 2013). 

Mike has two degrees in music, and he has written music-related articles for newspapers and scholarly journals. 

He worked in both Washington DC and Silicon Valley, and he is adept at translating academese, bureaucratese, and engineer-speak into plain English. Mike is also an amateur mushroom hunter. He lives in Northern California with his family. 

Wayne Smart is a licensed Emergency Medical Technician and an active hiker, climber, biker and skier. 

Based in Denver, Colorado, he has extensive experience in teaching wilderness and remote first aid across the state. 

Prior to becoming an EMT he practiced law for many years in Illinois and Colorado and taught at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins. 

In addition to teaching courses for his company, Far Out First Aid (FOFA), Wayne has an active mediation business helping individuals resolve divorce and workplace disputes. Since 1980, Wayne has made his home in Colorado, where he lives with his little dog, Buddy.

Brad Buchanan holds degrees in English Literature from McGill University, the University of Toronto, and earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He taught at Sacramento State University (where he also served as English Department Chair) until his retirement in 2016. His poetry, fiction, and scholarly articles have appeared in more than 200 journals. His first two  book-length collections of poetry (The Miracle Shirker, Poet’s Corner, 2005) and Swimming the Mirror: Poems for My Daughter, (Roan , 2009), received Writer’s Digest awards. 

Brad was diagnosed with a rare form of T-cell lymphoma in February 2015 and, after chemotherapy and radiation treatments, underwent a stem cell transplant, which resulted in an acute case of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and a near-total loss of vision.  In late 2016 he was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma; after participating in a clinical trial, he was declared cancer-free and he is currently still in remission. He has also recovered his eyesight after having corneal transplants and cataract surgery in each eye. He still suffers from chronic GvHD, which has prevented him from returning to teaching, and now devotes his time to writing, as well as to facilitating workshops for writers dealing with issues related to illness, disability, and recovery. He lives in California with his wife, Kate Washington, and their two daughters. 

Caren Laverty is a native Ohioan, born in an industrial, blue-collar city located about an hour southeast of Cleveland. When her mother passed away at the young age of 34, her father was left to raise four children by himself. 

After graduating from Miami University with a BS in Business Administration, she was hired by Humana, soon becoming a Statistical Analyst. She moved up to Financial Representative for Fidelity Investments, where she rose through the ranks, working in Private Client Group, Stock Plan Services, and finishing her career as an Account Executive. Her book of business included 500+ mass affluent households (clients with >$250k in investable assets. She worked directly with clients for all their investment, planning, and guidance needs and created retirement income plans, constructed investment portfolios, and positioned appropriate products such as annuities, charitable gift funds, and active trader services. She received many awards, including their most prestigious award, President’s Circle. 

Her financial blog dedicated to women led to writing two financial books for women including The Little Black Dress of Finance. 

Jerry Yellin was on his first mission as a young man entering combat in WW II. His last mission was in the decades before he died, just shy of his 94th birthday. Jerry  was the  author of four books.

Two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl

Harbor, on his 18th birthday, Jerry enlisted in

the United States Army Air Forces. He started his aviation training at Thunderbird Field II in

Scottsdale, Arizona and later graduated from Luke Field, Arizona as a fighter pilot in August 1943.  He fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima and then, on April 7, 1945, he participated in the first land based fighter mission over Japan. During WWII, he flew 19 Very Long Range (VLR) combat missions over Japan, and has been credited with flying the final combat mission of World War II in a North American P-51 Mustang

against a military airfield near Tokyo on August 14, 194 (August 15 Tokyo time).

In his later years, Jerry became well known for his reconciliation with the Japanese, with his son Robert marrying into a Japanese family and raising his own family with his wife in Japan.

He is also known for his work in helping

veterans with PTSD.

Cynthia Zayn draws from her 20 years’ experience as a researcher and educator to exposes the carefully constructed narratives of the narcissist, as well as the confusion and chaos often experienced by those unwittingly “playing their role.” Her familiar conversation-style of composition, and less-clinical approach of explanation puts readers at ease, allowing them to absorb new information with better clarity and understanding. 

Cynthia Zayn is the mother of three children and the grandmother of three grandchildren. She lives outside of Atlanta, Georgia and is a frequent contributor to the Chicken soup for the Soul series. Her other works include the first edition of Narcissistic Lovers: How to Cope Recover and Move On, Finding the Rest: A Guide to Discovering Emotional Peace Amid the Turmoil, and To Have and to Hold: Til’ Rest Do You Part. Before retiring to pursue a full-time writing career, Cynthia taught English, Literature, and Composition inside and outside of the United States. Other past careers include event-planner, pageant director, writing tutor, and free-lance editor. She is currently working on a book to aid students with study techniques. 

Jim McCormick is founder of The Research Institute for Risk Intelligence and author of the bestselling book First-Time Manager (HarperCollins Leadership). He holds 15 skydiving world records and was a member of an international expedition that skydived to the North Pole.

.Jim  is an expert in organizational risk and a risk practitioner. In addition to his bestselling First-Time Manager, and his current book with Armin Lear, The Power of Risk, he is also the author of Business Lessons from the Edge (McGraw-Hill).

Jim has been a full-time advisor to organizations and an executive coach since 1996. He previously held various executive level positions in the real estate, construction, and architecture industries, is a former corporate Chief Operating Officer and served in Washington, D.C. in a Presidential administration. He earned a degree in engineering from the University of Southern California and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine.

Yaniv Zaid is known around the world by organizations and sales professionals as "Doctor Persuasion." An economist and attorney, Yaniv acts as a business consultant to government departments, private firms, and public organizations. He holds a PhD in law and utilizes his rich knowledge and experience to help other achieve success.

Yaniv is recognized worldwide as an expert in the fields of public speaking, marketing, sales, negotiation, and persuasion, and placed 3rd in the 2003 world ranking of public speakers.

Following his 20 years of success in Israel, he now also gives workshops and lectures around the world and is particularly sought after in the Far East. The 21st Century Sales Bible bring his practical, actionable advice to North American audiences.

Lynne Azarchi is the executive director of Kidsbridge Tolerance Center outside of Trenton, New Jersey, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering bullying prevention, diversity appreciation, empathy, and empowerment for youth. She is a tireless advocate for improving the lives of at-risk youth in communities across New Jersey. Kidsbridge is the only evidence-based tolerance center in the United States dedicated to youth, with more than twenty-three hundred preschool, elementary, and middle school students improving their social-emotional skills each year. 

Lynne introduced readers to her successful strategies and techniques in Rowman & Littlefield's hardcover edition of THE EMPATHY ADVANTAGE and Armin Lear Press is thrilled to bring the paperback edition to readers worldwide.

Lynne graduated from Penn State University (BA in anthropology) and has an MBA in marketing/market research from Columbia University. She has won many awards and is a frequent speaker at major educational group meetings, including the American Alliance of Museums, National Association for Media Literacy Association, and National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Brian Ladyman is a Managing Director at Slalom Consulting and an Adjunct Professor at Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University—where he teaches Strategic Brand Management. He has an MBA from Dartmouth, and a BS from Pepperdine University. His leadership career has been an immersive learning journey across a plethora of industries and roles—with heavy emphasis in the technology sector and marketing functions.

He chronicles his corporate journey as a way to illustrate key points in his very practical guide to career building for college students.

While the Pacific Northwest is his base, he has also called the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West all home, as well as London and Sydney. He currently lives in a suburb of Seattle with his wife, Tracy, and their Cocker Spaniel, Oscar.

Kevin Ball found his way in the humanitarian world because he felt the need for change. Hollywood’s materialistic temperament was wearing on him. His career as a professional stuntman spanned over thirty years and it helped to prepare his mind and body for the hurdles of filming NGOs in developing nations, as well as giving him years of experience both in front of and behind the camera. Kevin decided to take his skills and advocate for those doing great things in the name of humanity. 

Since his first trip in 2007 to the K-5 minebelt in Cambodia with Freedom Fields USA and the international humanitarian demining group, The HALO Trust, he hasn’t looked back. As of 2022, Kevin has had boots on the ground supporting NGOs in over thirty-five countries and has worked with the World Food Program, Operation Smile, The HALO Trust, International Health Emissaries, GUA Africa, Global Action for Children, and more. Acting as the personal film crew for Cindy McCain on her humanitarian missions, Kevin, with the assistance of his stunt buddy, John Evanko, accompanied her to Southeast Asia to document segments to be used during John McCain’s run for Presidency of the United States in 2008. They then continued to travel with her, documenting her benevolent actions. 

Kevin’s soapbox message, which he preaches often, is that “Humanity is simple one hand reaching out to help another hand in need, nothing more, nothing less.” With this message as his guiding light, he continues to speak out in the darkness and to be a voice for those silenced by unfortunate worldly circumstance and for those that are just trying to do what is right. 

Bruce Westrate teaches history at a prep school in Dallas, Texas, but was born and raised in rural southwest lower Michigan. He holds three degrees in History from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and is the author of the very well-received The Arab Bureau (Penn State Press, 1992), which is still in print.  

Apotheosis is his debut novel, which builds on his unique expertise with the banned ritual known as Sati.

In addition to authoring book reviews and a column for the National Review, Bruce contributed a chapter on the subject at the center of this novel to Rediscovering the British Empire (Krieger, 2002), titled Acknowledged Truths: Lord Bentinck and the Abolition of Sati.  

Bruce lives in Dallas with Sally, his wife of more than four decades.  

Dr. Elizabeth Kagan Arleo is a Board-Certified radiologist specializing in Women’s Imaging and a Fellow of the Society of Breast Imaging. She is a Professor of Radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College and an Attending Radiologist at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Clinical Imaging. She a graduate of Yale College and Yale University Medical School. After an internship year at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Elizabeth completed her Radiology residency in Diagnostic Radiology at New York- Presbyterian Hospital / Weill Cornell Medical Center. After staying on for a Fellowship year in Women’s Imaging, she was invited to join the radiology faculty at Weill Cornell Medicine. She was selected by the Department of Radiology for the Distinguished House Staff Award in 2007.

And there are other big parts of her life, the most important of which is her family—which includes three growing children.

With First, Eat Your Frog, Elizabeth adds “author” to her list of amazing accomplishments and, in the book, she is explicit in offering guidance to all working mothers on how to managing time and other resources to enjoy work-life balance.  

Steve Weinberg has spent his life selling and helping others sell better, more and faster. At the height of his career, Steve led the Accuity sales team to new sales accomplishments for twelve years. Accuity is a British-Dutch technology company that provides anti-money laundering and electronic payment solutions to financial institutions and corporations. While at Accuity as a salesperson and simultaneously as a manager of a team of salespeople, Steve closed the largest sale in the company’s history. 

Steve has over three decades of leadership experience in sales, including Vice Presidencies at Dun & Bradstreet Software, AC Nielsen, and as a Senior Manager at Deloitte and Touche. During his career, he has earned numerous awards and recognitions for his sales expertise and track record.

Steve earned a BA with a major in Economics / Business Administration from North Park University, Chicago and an MBA from the Loyola University of Chicago in the evenings while working full-time. Steve has taught Economics as an adjunct professor in the MBA programs at North Park University in Chicago and Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

Thomas McKenna is an anthropologist and a leading authority on the Moros, the indigenous Muslims of the Philippines. He has lived and worked for years in Moro communities and has spent decades writing and conducting research on their culture and history. He has published widely on the Moros, including a well-received  book, Muslim Rulers and Rebels (1998, University of California Press) and a chapter in the Routledge Handbook on Political Islam (2020). 

Tom has presented his work on the Moros at a wide range of scholarly institutions, including Oxford University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the Asia Society.

Tom has been interviewed about the Moros many times, for example, on CNN, NPR, Voice of America, USA Today, Boston Herald, and Knight-Ridder and was the featured speaker at a US State Department seminar devoted to his work. 

He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of California at Davis.

Tom lives with his wife in San Francisco.

Charles A. Lowenhaupt is a recognized leader and wealth counselor for ultra-high net worth individuals and families around the world. He is Chairman and Partner of Lowenhaupt & Chasnoff, LLC, the first US law firm to concentrate in tax law and established by his grandfather in 1908. Charles is also Founder and Director of Lowenhaupt Global Advisors Australia, a family office based in Sydney.

Charles is a Founding Advisory Faculty member of the Institute for Private Investors. He is also a co-founder of the Leadership Center for Investment Stewards, President of the Board of Commissioners of the Saint Louis Art Museum, a director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and a Director of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. He has been President of Temple Emanuel in St. Louis, of the Harvard Club of St. Louis. 

Charles has a Bachelor of Arts degree (cum laude) from Harvard University. He also has a Juris Doctorate (Order of the Coif) from the University of Michigan Law School. 

Charles is the author of two books: Freedom From Wealth (with Don Trone) and The Wise Inheritor’s Guide to Freedom from Wealth. 

In 2011, Private Asset Management named Charles one of the 25 most influential people in wealth management and family office services.

  Jefferson Hane Weaver is a transactional attorney who specializes in corporate law, real estate law and estate planning in Coral Springs, Florida.  He received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He also received his J.D. and his Ph.D from Columbia University. 

He is the author or co-author of numerous books including The World of Physics, The Story of Physics, The Concepts of Science, The Atomic Scientists, The Story of Mathematics, The Unfolding Universe, Conquering Statistics, Conquering Mathematics, The Compact Guide to Contract Law, The Compact Guide to Tort Law, The Compact Guide to Property Law, and What are the Odds?  He and his wife, Shelley, have 5 children and 3 grandchildren.  He is also the co-host of the Omaha Bugle podcast.

Mathius Mack Gertz has been a life-long collector of experiences. Whether good, indifferent or bad, he has always preferred them to material gifts and enjoyed them all. . . one way or another. Wearing a catheter was not one of his favorites, but it was one experience that gave him a-lot of material and the motivation to share it with the world. The entertaining and practical result is the pocket-sized manual Men and Suprapubic Catheter Survival Tips.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he lives with his family in Los Angeles, California. Marc, as he is known professionally in the mortgage business, holds an MBA, an Accreditation as a Financial Counselor, is a PADI SCUBA Divemaster and President of SayWhyNot, Inc. 

He is a member of the Producers Guild of America and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association among others. He enjoys history, theater, film, writing and a good book.  

  Peter Rowe, writer and filmmaker, has been involved with music throughout his life. In 1966 he made what was once called “the world’s first rock video.” He filmed the Isle of Wight Rock Festival, John and Yoko’s Bed-in for Peace, and performers such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell.

He has made over 180 films including the acclaimed 49 part television series Angry Planet and feature films like Treasure Island, starring Jack Palance, and The Best Bad Thing, starring George Takei. 

The harrowing and outrageous stories of Peter Rowe’s films are described in his first book Adventures in Filmmaking. As Publishers Weekly described him in the review of this 2013 book, "He has traveled the world and filmed in the most extreme conditions." 

Carole Brody Fleet is a multi-award winning author and media contributor. 

Winner of the Books for a Better Life Award, one of the top national awards in publishing; a regular contributor to the iconic Chicken Soup for the Soul book series; and widely recognized as an expert in grief and life-adversity recovery, Carole is a popular international speaker and expert on numerous television and radio programs nationally and internationally, as well as in national and international print media. As a onetime widow who brings her messages of hope, promise and "What Now and What Next" to audiences worldwide, Carole provides practical, emotional and humorous guidance to the millions who have experienced the loss of a spouse; as well as any life-challenge. 

  Steven Yellin is the founder of the revolutionary Fluid Motion Factor program, a mental sports training program not based on sports psychology. 

Steven has produced DVDs in golf and bowling. He has worked with professional golfers that have won over $70 million dollars in prize money. He has also worked with the woman’s French Olympic team, the Danish national team and the 2016 University of Washington women’s national NCAA championship team. His program is endorsed by some of the leading golf professionals around the world, including legendary teaching pro David Leadbetter. 

Steven taught his program for five years at the Leadbetter Golf Academy in Orlando.  

Because fluid motion is produced identically in every sport, he has worked with top athletes in other sports as well, including 2017 US Open bowling champion, Rhino Page.  

  Linda Sones Feinberg, M.S.W., founded the first non-profit statewide organization for young widowed people in Massachusetts in 1983. It began in Andover, Massachusetts, and spread throughout the State. She served as director for six years. 

She published the first edition of I'm Grieving as Fast as I Can with New Horizon Press in 1994 and, after that,  continued to run weekly support group meetings for young widowed people as well as middle-aged widowed people, and had a private psychotherapy practice. 

Previously, Linda directed the foster home program for children in Boston.  

Linda is now retired from her private practice and continues working as a writer and artist.

  Janet Levine was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and has lived in the US since 1984. Her first work Inside Apartheid (Contemporary Books 1988) earned national attention in the US from The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, NPR’s Fresh Air, all major TV networks at the time, and many other major national media outlets. 

Janet's latest work is Liv's Secrets, a novel that in many ways builds on Inside Apartheid.

Janet is an author, educator, and non-profit entrepreneur. In addition to her novel Liv's Ghosts and her other Armin Lear title, Reading Matters, she is the author of Inside Apartheid;  Know Your Parenting Personality;  The Enneagram Intelligences, nominated for the 2002 Grawemeyer Education Award; and Leela’s Gift. 

 Levine has published prolifically in magazines and professional journals as a writer both in her native South Africa and the United States. She is a book reviewer for the online New York Journal of Books. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Sowetan (in South Africa, the only white journalist to have a column in a black newspaper, 1978-1981.), Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, and many online journals and magazines.   

Janet leads talks, workshops, and programs internationally on the Enneagram, reading and writing, and, occasionally, current events in South Africa. An anti-apartheid activist, she is an expert on South Africa and South African politics.  

    Robert L. Saloschin was born in 1920 in New York City and passed away at the age of 95 after an illustrious legal career, mainly in the US Department of Justice. At DOJ, he had earned the moniker “The Wizard of FOIA” for his leadership in implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. He completed Government of ALL the People just a year before his death.

His early assignments at DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel included civil rights, the Olympic Games, immigration, communications satellites, oil importation, racketeering, conscientious objectors, and airline hijacking. He was a member of a U.S. diplomatic delegation to a conference of 72 nations in the Hague to develop a treaty to extradite hijackers. 

In 1970, he became Chairman of the newly formed Freedom of Information Committee, and in 1978,  Director of the Office of Information Law and Policy, advising federal agencies on openness and secrecy issues under FOIA.

During his decades at Justice, he worked directly with Attorneys General Kennedy, Katzenbach, Clark, and Rehnquist. Katzenbach openly credited Bob with stopping violence against the Freedom Riders by suggesting use of the existing statutory powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which prohibited discrimination in inter-state bus transportation.

Maryann Karinch began her career in book publishing in 1994 with the publication of her first work of non-fiction and has followed it with 30 other commercially published works.  In 2004, Maryann founded The Rudy Agency, a literary agency specializing in non-fiction.  

The Rudy Agency has placed the work of more than 150 authors with 49 different publishers during that time.  Most of those authors were first timers, but they came in with a professional commitment to hit high editorial standards and promote their books--and those are the kind of authors who are the prime audience for her new book with Armin Lear, Game Plan for Getting Published

After coaching many of her authors through the proposal writing process, and guiding them through the launch of their books, she decided to share the process she has taught them in Game Plan for Getting Published.

Sima Dimitrijev is a Professor at Griffith University in Australia. He is an educator, a microelectronic engineer, a researcher, an inventor, and the author of two textbooks. Sima has led many research and development projects, funded by industry, governments, and venture-capital investors. In addition to the textbooks on semiconductor devices, published by Oxford University Press, New York, and translated into Korean and Chinese, he has published 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals and many papers in conference proceedings. Sima’s peer-reviewed papers appeared in more than 40 different journals, many of them publishing seemingly disconnected areas of scholarship—from crystal growth to cognitive memory networks and intelligent systems. 

Sima received BEng, MSci, and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Nis, in 1982, 1985, and 1989, respectively. From 1982 to 1983, he was with the Semiconductor Factory, Electronics Industry, Nis, working on development of CMOS technology. From 1983 to 1990, he was with the Faculty of Electronic Engineering at University of Nis. In 1990, he joined Griffith University. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Microelectronics Reliability, Elsevier/Pergamon, and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Casey Bradley Gent is a Colorado native, wife, and mother to three beloved children.  

In 1995, one year after graduating from Colorado State University with degrees in Journalism and Speech Communications, Casey opened Snowshoe Studios photography. As the owner of this boutique studio, Casey has photographed presidents Clinton and Obama, two Super Bowls, numerous NFL and USA volleyball superstars, skating icon Peggy Fleming, countless intimate weddings, and thousands of family portraits. She still operates her studio and freelances for the Denver Broncos and local newspapers. 

Casey is an outdoor enthusiast who loves to run, hike, and play with her dogs and reindeer in the Colorado mountains. 

When Casey’s son, Beau, was diagnosed with Lupus at 13 years old, she became his fierce protector and medical advocate. Over the course of Beau’s illness, Casey experienced the heartache and loneliness that comes with seeing a child suffering. She often felt helpless. During Beau’s medical journey, she longed for a community or even a guidebook on how to get through the completely crushed feelings that came with Beau’s diagnosis. While sitting in numerous hospital chairs, Casey began to write a narrative of her experience. Casey’s journey as momma to a critically ill child ultimately revealed the importance of finding hope and joy in the little things and understanding that feeling wrecked does not equate to being broken. Her experience at a parent caretaker and witness to Beau’s uplifting journey are captured in her work, The Match and The Spark. 

Bill Hughes has more than forty years of professional sales, marketing and business management experience. He has held executive level positions with large and small companies. Since 1990 he has worked with 50 plus small-to-medium-size companies to increase revenues, profits and corporate valuation through time-efficient, innovative business strategies, coupled with results-driven sales and marketing programs. He has been a guest lecturer at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey and National University in San Diego, California. 

Co-author Aastha Verma holds degree in electrical engineering and system engineering and is a senior cyber security expert for the United States Government.

Co-author Michael Hughes is a veteran in the digital marketing field and helped thousands of businesses increase sales and realize profitable returns from their online marketing investments. 

Joan Arehart-Treichel is an award-winning science writer who, over the years, was on the staff of Science News Magazine; has written articles about scientific advances for New York Magazine, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Psychology Today, Sexology, The Washington Post, and other consumer publications; and has written four previous books about scientific advances for the public, notably Biotypes: The Critical Link Between Your Personality and Your Health, which was published by Times Books (The New York Times book publishing company) and sold in the United States, Canada, England, and France.  

For 15 years, she worked as a senior staff writer for Psychiatric News, a newspaper published by the American Psychiatric Association for psychiatrists throughout the United States. During this period, she covered research advances in various domains of psychiatry, including forensic psychiatry. And during her coverage of forensic psychiatry, she came to know a number of leading authorities on evildoers, many of whom are prime sources in Warding Off Evildoers.  She also had face-to-face contact with some individuals who had committed grisly deeds.  Her book is thus based on what she has learned about evildoers during this time period—information that she believes is not just provocative, or frightening, but that could help people shield themselves from such individuals.  

Robert Keith Wallace received his BS in physics and his PhD in physiology from UCLA. His postgraduate research was conducted at Harvard. Keith is a pioneering researcher on the physiological effects of meditation. His work has inspired hundreds of studies on the benefits of meditation and mind-body medicine. His findings have been published in Science, American Journal of Physiology, and Scientific American. He has lectured on meditation at major universities and institutes on five continents. 

He is the founding President of Maharishi International University (MIU) and has helped established graduate programs to train physicians, health professionals, and wellness consultants in Maharishi Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine. He is currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Health and a Trustee of MIU. 

Keith is the author of a number of  Dharma Parenting, Gut Crisis, and The Rest And Repair Diet. 

Sarah Chadwick began writing The Sweetness of Venus: A History of the Clitoris after a family move from the United Kingdom to Chicago in 2016.

I had always wanted to write, but once I had the idea for The Sweetness of Venus, it was as if my career came together--my love of reading, teaching, research, studying, libraries, high and low culture, and writing all seemed to coalesce with this project.

Sarah studied at Durham University Kings college, London and Warwick University. She has four children and travels between Cornwall and Chicago.

She also runs the gritty, feminist @its.personalgirls Instagram page and cam be found on Facebook. 

Bob Kaluza joined BP in 1997 as a Drilling Engineer and worked his way up to the position of Well Site Leader, Deepwater—a position that put him in a senior role at Thunder Horse, the largest offshore installation of its kind in the world. Through a combination of serendipity and being a nice guy, he ended up at the Deepwater Horizon four-and-a-half days prior to the blowout.

His résumé captures the depth and breadth of experience in his 30-year career in drilling. His early years as a roughneck, driller, and toolpusher laid the foundation for an intimate knowledge of the day-to-day demands on a rig. His academic credentials in engineering and business, coupled with continuing professional education, confirm his qualifications to take a leadership role in a major drilling venture, whether on land or offshore.

His story of being scapegoated by BP after the tragedy--and whose unjust indictment by DOJ was accepted as a "win"--is gripping. The jury returned a not guilty verdict in hours.  They saw the set-up, and believed the compelling evidence that showed the real guilty party was  a negligent, penny-pinching BP.

Vincent dePaul Lupiano is the author of two novels under the pseudonym Christopher Sloan --In Search of Eagles, and The Wings of Death. Writing under his own name, he has published three non-fiction titles, It Was a Very Good Year: A Cultural History of the United States from 1776 to 1996; Exploring IBM's Bold Internet Strategy: An Inside Look at IBM's Vision for Network Computing; and Operation Tidal Wave: The Bloodiest Air Battle in the History of War, a December 2020 release by Lyons Press.

He spent years as program director, writer, and host of his radio program at WFAS in White Plains. In New York City, he worked at WOR-TV and WOR-AM as a promotional writer and producer. At the American  Broadcasting Company's WABC and WPLJ, he was a writer, producer, and editorial director. He also worked at IBM for ten years as a speechwriter to senior execs, editor of a management publication, producer, and director of corporate films. 

He was born and raised in Manhattan and currently resides in Northern New Jersey with his dogs, Chase and Kiefer.  

Tim Rayborn is a writer and internationally acclaimed musician. He plays dozens of unusual instruments that many people of have never heard of and often can’t pronounce, including medieval instrument reconstructions and folk instruments from Northern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East.

He has appeared on over forty recordings, and his wanderings and tours have taken him across the US, all over Europe, to Canada and Australia, and to such romantic locations as Marrakech, Istanbul, Renaissance chateaux, medieval churches, and high school gymnasiums.

On the writing side of things, Tim lived in England for nearly seven years and has a PhD from the University of Leeds. He has written books and magazine articles about music, the arts, history, and business.

He currently resides in Northern California amid many books, antique music reproduction devices (that is, CDs), and instruments, and with a demanding cat. He’s also rather enthusiastic about good wines, single-malt Scotch, and cooking excellent food.

Jay Marcus is a graduate of Rutgers University and the University of Virginia Law School. He began his career practicing law in New York City and is now a practicing attorney in Iowa. Jay was a co-founder and Associate Editor of Contemporary Drug Problems, a respected drug abuse journal, and he has lectured extensively on drug abuse, prison reform, and meditation. He is the author of four books, including TM and Business (McGraw-Hill, 1977) and The Crime Vaccine (Claitor’s Books, 1996). The Crime Vaccine was designated by Bookviews as one of the five best non-fiction books of 1996. 

 He was a Captain in the U.S. Army Infantry, and co-captain of the Rutgers University basketball team. In the interest of full disclosure, he says that he is best remembered at Rutgers for missing the last shot against Penn State for a one point loss in his final game, and for guarding All-American Bill Bradley in a game against Princeton (and holding  him to 45 points).

Dr. Chris Clark is a graduate of Yale Medical School and did his residency at Yale in the Department of Psychiatry. Chris has pioneered the integration of Ayurvedic medicine into the practice of medicine and psychiatry since 1985. He studied one on one with leading experts of Ayurvedic medicine in consultation with patients for 15 years. 

While absorbing the knowledge of Ayurveda, especially pulse diagnosis and herbal pharmacopeia, he wrote two books on Ayurveda, most recently Ayurvedic Healing--Contemporary Maharishi Ayurveda Medicine and Science (Singing Dragon Press, 2012). He was the founding medical director of The Raj, America's premier Ayurvedic health treatment facility for the purification treatments of panchakarma, stress management, Yoga, and marma therapy.  Currently he is the director for wellbeing initiatives and digital development for Garten, a leading Silicon Valley innovator for nutrition, technology and wellness in the workplace. 

David Sherer was born in Washington, DC and spent his childhood and adolescence in Bethesda, Maryland. After earning a BA in Music with a concentration in piano from Emory University in 1979, he moved to Boston where he completed his medical school studies. After an internship in internal medicine in Baltimore, he completed his anesthesia residency at The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital in 1986 and practiced clinical anesthesia in a variety of settings until his retirement in 2019.

Since 2018 he has written the blog “What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You” for Bottom Line Publications and has written numerous articles and appeared in many videos on healthcare, medicine and related topics.

During his clinical career he was Physician Director of Risk Management for a major American health maintenance organization, helping to design and implement policies that made patients less likely to suffer the consequences of medical malpractice and medical error.

His work and writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Bethesda Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, USA Today and other publications.

He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Into the Ether is his first work of fiction.

Steve Bodansky and his wife Vera have been teachers of sensuality for the past 35 years. Steve received a Masters in Molecular Genetics at SUNY at Albany and a Doctorate at More University in sensuality with an emphasis on female orgasm. He first studied and then taught at More University through 1992. For the past 30 years they have been coaching students to expand their orgasmic potential and to improve their relationships.

A number of their former students have become sensual facilitators themselves.  Steve has written numerous books about optimizing sensual pleasure, including two best sellers: Extended Massive Orgasm and The Illustrated Guide to Extended Massive Orgasm. 

Cindy Kolbe has been a lifelong disability advocate—even before her daughter’s spinal cord injury. Cindy directed a nonprofit, managed group homes, and taught literacy at a state institution. She is a peer mentor for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. She supports other Warrior Moms, as well as other disability and mental health nonprofits. She is a mom on a mission to celebrate the power of hope and connection.
 

Cindy’s memoir, Just Keep Swimming, shares her battle with depression and guilt after a car accident results in her daughter's quadriplegia. They travel near and far on extraordinary adventures, from their small town in Ohio to Seattle, Harvard, Capitol Hill, and around the world. Cindy is working with writer and producer Terri Garbutt of Controlled Chaos Productions who is shopping around her story to Hollywood movie studios.

 
Cindy lives near Boston and presents workshops at Abilities Expos across the country and in Canada. She is a frequent guest on podcasts and has published more than 50 articles since 2016 in 22 different media. Her work has been featured in Power of Moms, Motherly, Option B, Women For One, Parent, The Mighty, Stigma Fighters, Grown and Flown, and more.