Guest Teachers
Ruthie Ackerman
Award-winning journalist and writer Ruthie Ackerman is at work on her first book. She spends her days teaching writing workshops for individuals and corporations and working as a book coach, helping other writers bring their stories to life. She was most recently the Deputy Editor at ForbesWomen. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Salon, Slate, Newsweek and more. She has a Master's in Journalism from NYU.
Sari Botton
Sari Botton is a writer and editor living in Kingston, NY. She is a contributing editor at Catapult, and the former Essays Editor for Longreads. She edited the award-winning anthology Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving & Leaving NY and its New York Times bestselling follow-up, Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for NY. She teaches creative nonfiction at Wilkes University, Catapult and Bay Path University. Her memoir-in-essays, And You May Find Yourself... will be published by Heliotrope in June, 2022.
Susannah Cahalan
Susannah Cahalan is an award-winning #1 New York Times bestselling author of 2012 Brain on Fire and 2019's The Great Pretender. She has written for The New York Times, The New York Post, Elle, The New Scientist, and BBC’s Focus, as well as academic journals The Lancet and Biological Psychiatry. She teaches narratives in mental health at New York University.
Dawn J. Fraser
Dawn J. Fraser is a storyteller, public speaker and a nationally acclaimed communications coach based out of San Jose, California. She is the Creator/ Host of ‘Barbershop Stories’, which features storytellers performing true tales in barbershops and salons around NYC, and the Founder/ CEO of Fraser’s Edge, LLC, which offers programs for businesses, nonprofits, and college students the opportunity to develop their leadership potential through storytelling. Past clients have included companies like Spotify, Vox Media and Google as well as 1 on 1 celebrities including the rapper Common. Dawn currently serves as a Lead Instructor with The Moth and was featured amongst some of the nation’s top change makers at TED@NYC.
Ally Hilfiger
Ally Hilfiger is an artist, designer, writer and the daughter of fashion mogul and entrepreneur Tommy Hilfiger. As a producer, she created and starred in the docu-series Rich Girls for MTV, and as a designer, spearheaded the women’s clothing line NAHM that was featured in the documentary “Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s”. Her 2016 memoir, Bite Me: How Lyme Disease Stole My Childhood, Made Me Crazy, and Almost Killed Me, explored her chronic battle with Lyme Disease. Ally lives in Los Angeles with her husband, artist Steve Hash, and daughter Harley Hilfiger-Hash and recently launched her new Clothing line “Series Eight”, which is a bespoke limited edition brand.
Danea Horn
Danea Horn was born with VACTERL Association, a rare birth disorder that caused malformations in six systems in the body and left her with chronic kidney disease and other demanding health challenges. Her diagnosis was described by Doctor Hardy Hendren of Boston Children's Hospital as one of "nature's worst malformations." Danea’s book, Chronic Resilience, was published by Conari Press in 2013. After healing from the transplant, Danea returned to academia and received her Master’s in Economics from Sacramento State University. She is currently a PhD Candidate at University of California, Davis where her research focuses on technology, information and decision making in health care.
Porochista Khakpour
Porochista Khakpour’s debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, one of the Chicago Tribune’s Fall’s Best, and the 2007 California Book Award winner in the “First Fiction” category. Her second novel The Last Illusion was a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and many more. Her third book Sick: A Memoir was a Best Book of 2018 according to Time Magazine, Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, Autostraddle, The Paris Reivew, LitHub, and more. Among her many fellowships is a National Endowment for the Arts award. Her nonfiction has appeared in many sections of The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Elle, Slate, Salon, and Bookforum, among many others. Her most recent book is a collection of those essays, Brown Album (Vintage, May 2020). She has taught creative writing and literature at Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Columbia, Bucknell, Bard, Sarah Lawrence College, and many other universities around the country. She lives in New York City.
Allison Langer
Allison Langer is a Miami native, University of Miami MBA, retired photographer, writer and a single mom to three children, ages 11, 14 and 16. She is a private writing coach, taught memoir writing in prison and has been published in The Washington Post, Mutha Magazine, Scary Mommy, Ravishly and Modern Loss. Allison's stories and her voice can be heard on Writing Class Radio, a podcast she co-produces and co-hosts.
Phoebe Lapine
Phoebe Lapine is a food and health writer, gluten-free chef, wellness expert, culinary instructor, Hashimoto’s advocate and speaker, born and raised in New York City, where she continues to live and eat. On her award-winning blog, Feed Me Phoebe, she shares recipes for healthy comfort food and insights about balanced lifestyle choices beyond what’s on your plate. Named by Women’s Health Magazine as the top nutrition read of 2017, Phoebe’s best-selling debut memoir, The Wellness Project, chronicles her journey with Hashimotos Thyroiditis and how she finally found the middle ground between health and hedonism by making one lifestyle change, one month at a time.
Gemma Leghorn
Gemma is a writer and editor who helps people write words that matter. She earned her MFA in fiction at UMass Boston and her B.A. in English at Bowdoin College, where she also studied poetry and creative nonfiction. She worked at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown for a decade and spent six years managing the organization’s online writing workshops program. As a writer and editor, she helps people write, shape, and revise narratives of all kinds, from creative essays to web copy. When she’s not working with clients, she’s at work on a novel focused on identity and friendship. She was also the assistant producer of the Made Visible podcast.
Jen Pastiloff
Jen Pastiloff travels the world with her unique workshop “On Being Human,” a hybrid of yoga related movement, writing, sharing out loud, letting the snot fly, and the occasional dance party. She also leads Writing and The Body workshops with author Lidia Yuknavitch. Her memoir On Being Human was published by Dutton books in June 2019.
Sarah Ramey
Sarah Ramey is a writer and musician (known as Wolf Larsen) living in Washington, DC. She graduated from Bowdoin College in 2003, received an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia in 2007, and worked on President Obama’s 2008 campaign. She is also the recipient of a 2018 Whiting grant for creative nonfiction. Sarah’s book, The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness came out in March 2020.
Class: Made Visible Writing Class November 2020 and Made Visible Writing Class January 2021
Lauren Ruotolo
Standing 4 feet 2 inches tall, Lauren Ruotolo was told at a young age that she was destined for a life in a wheelchair because of a rare genetic disorder called McCune Albright syndrome. Lauren didn’t accept this news and decided to flip the script. She ditched the wheelchair for her preferred method of transportation: stilettos. She threw out the “disabled” label in favor of authentic self-discovery. And she turned her small stature into a big, beautiful life full of love, joy and success. Lauren’s book, Unstoppable in Stilettos will give you the tools you need to carve your own unique path to self-confidence, happiness, and success—no matter what obstacles you face—and you’ll have a blast along the way!
Arya Samuelson
Arya Samuelson is the winner of CutBank's 2019 Montana Prize in Non-Fiction, judged by Cheryl Strayed. Her work has also been published in Columbia Journal, New Delta Review, Entropy, and The Millions. She is a proud graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at Mills College and teaches online writing classes at LitReactor, Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop, and through her own teaching series, Writing as Ritual. Outside of all that, you’ll find Arya singing, making herbal medicines, studying somatic therapies, or scouting adorable dogs in nearby parks. She currently lives in Northampton, MA and is writing her first novel.
Maya Sorini
Maya J. Sorini, MS graduated from and taught in Columbia University's Narrative Medicine Master's Program. Maya uses Narrative Medicine theory and practice to unify three key parts of herself: her experience with chronic illness, her work in trauma surgery clinical research, and her passion for reading and writing poetry. This summer Maya begins medical school at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
Class: Narrative Medicine Workshop and Made Visible Writing Class January 2021
Erika Stallings
Erika Stallings is a music industry attorney and patient advocate based in NYC. In 2014, she learned that she carries a BRCA 2 mutation, which confers an elevated lifetime risk of breast and ovarian cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy in December 2014 to lower her lifetime risk of breast cancer to less than five percent. She regularly speaks and writes on issues relating to BRCA specifically on access to counseling and testing.
Amanda Stern
Amanda Stern is the author of 13 books: The Long Haul, Little Panic, and eleven books for children written under pseudonyms. In 2003, she founded the Happy Ending Reading Series which ran for 15 years at NYC’s Joe’s Pub and then at Symphony Space. She hosted the yearlong podcast Bookable and is about to launch her first newsletter called How to Live, about psychology and mental health. She is working on another memoir. She splits her time between Brooklyn and Monaco. Okay no—she does not.
Emily Stone
Emily Stone is a writer, teacher and content alchemist with 25+ years of experience working with authors to distill the power and impact of every story. She taught at Latin at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights, creative writing at Hunter College and drama at Stern College. Her book Did Jew Know? is a cultural history of all things Jewish from Saul to Seinfeld. She runs a popular online Book Dive, a collision of pop culture and high criticism that explores classic gothic and genre novels. Her Plot Spine course was the Zoom hit of the pandemic. Emily lives with her wife in New York and Los Angeles.
Quentin Vennie
Quentin Vennie is a celebrated wellness expert, philanthropist, keynote speaker and author of the bestselling memoir, Strong In The Broken Places. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Entrepreneur, Chicago Tribune, NBC News, Fox News, MindBodyGreen, and others. Quentin has been recognized as one of Black Enterprise magazine’s 100 Modern Men of Distinction and by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for his contribution in raising awareness for mental health and suicide prevention, as well as appearing as the wellness keynote speaker for Colin Kaepernick’s “Know My Rights” Camp. Quentin has guided meditations and given talks at the Wagner Youth Facility at Belize Central Prison, shared his journey of healing childhood trauma for the University of Maryland Medical Systems & University of Maryland Symposium “Not All Wounds Are Visible”, and was recognized by Lululemon at their annual Here To Be Conference.
CC Webster Marrone
CC Webster Marrone is a young adult lymphoma survivor and author of So, That Happened: A Memoir. After completing six months of intensive chemotherapy, she didn't expect that remission would be the hardest part of treatment. With the lasting effects of cancer and chemo now hidden, CC learned how to redesign her personal and professional life to accommodate a new, unexpected set of priorities. As the founder and creative director of Webster Works, CC is a branding and marketing consultant specializing in working with health and wellness brands and businesses.