Julie Colvin

Julie began to write as a way to make sense of the many changes that were happening in her life.

Julie’s first book, A Cure for Emma, became a bestseller within days of its release sharing inspiration and hope for anyone going through adversity. Many who had shared Julie’s journey to publication began to request her help to bring their stories to life.

Since then, Julie has helped hundreds of authors as either an editor, book project coach, ghostwriter, retreat facility, and now founder/publisher at Wellness Writers Press.

She is also the creator of Wellness & Writing Retreats, providing remarkable vacation experiences that facilitate the process of Wellness through Writing. Here, new authors ignite their creative process and are guided on how to build an exceptional story, proposal and platform, while also striving to achieve balance in their writing, and in their lives.

Julie loves to share what she has learned about Wellness & Writing with others embarking on a similar journey and looks forward to learning more about you and your writing!

Lisa Fugard

Lisa is an award-winning novelist and has been leading writing workshops for the past 16 years. From 2009 to 2012 she was a presenter in the hugely successful Hay House Writer’s Workshop.

In 2014, she had the pleasure of coaching writers in Mastin Kipp’s Bali Writer’s Mastermind. She has taught at Georgian Court University in N.J. and is passionate about the writer’s craft. Lisa has helped many of her students and clients bring their manuscripts to publication. Her Hay House ebook, 21 Days to Awaken the Writer Within, is a call to trust your process as a writer and to express your unique writer’s voice.

Lisa’s novel Skinner’s Drift, published by Scribner, was a 2006 New York Times Notable Book and runner up of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She has published short stories in literary journals and anthologies. Her travel articles and book reviews have been published in the NY Times and LA Times.

Lisa lives in Southern California with her son and is completing her second novel.

Windy Lynn Harris

Windy writes short stories and novels from the cactus-filled town of Cave Creek, Arizona. Her work has been seen in dozens of literary and women’s magazines across the US and Canada, including The Literary Review, 34th Parallel, and Raising Arizona Kids. She has received a fellowship from the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony and is supported in part by a Professional Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, which receives support from the State of Arizona and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Windy has created a mentorship program called Market Coaching for Creative Writers where she teaches others how to professionally present their work to magazine editors and get their own work published. In addition, Windy is the Publishing Tips Editor at The Review Review, an online magazine dedicated to helping creative writers navigate the world of literary magazines. She works with poets, essayists, memoir writers, and fiction writers of all levels. If you’re looking for a place to submit your creative writing, Windy can help you.

In addition to working one-on-one with clients, she has shared her passion for connecting the right story to the right editor with many Arizona writing groups, including the Phoenix Writers’ Club, The Professional Writers of Prescott, the Scottsdale Society of Women Writers, the Arizona Authors Association, and the Scottsdale Writer’s Connection group.

Pat Verducci

Pat has written screenplays for Touchstone Pictures, Witt-Thomas Productions and Disney’s animation division. She has also worked as a story consultant for Disney/Pixar, brainstorming with their writers and filmmakers as part of their Brain Trust.

She wrote and directed the feature film True Crime, and her writing credits also include documentary films. She developed the script for a Fox television special (which she also directed,) and co-produced Somewhere Between, a feature documentary about four teenaged girls adopted from China, which aired on Netflix, won the Hot Docs Audience Award, and was chosen to be part of Sundance’s Film Forward Program.

As a writing coach and story consultant, she works with New York Times bestselling authors, experienced screenwriters, and beginners of all stripes on their personal growth books, novels, memoirs and screenplays. She has served as a mentor at the Meryl Streep/IRIS Writer’s Lab For Women in New York, at CINESTORY, and as a volunteer teacher for InsideOUT Writers– a nonprofit that runs creative writing workshops inside Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls.

Pat is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America, and teaches in UCLA Extension’s Creative Writing Program. She writes a weekly blog on writing craft and inspiration at patverducci.com.

Priya Rana Kapoor

Priya, Editor-in-chief, Life Coach, Author and founder of Give YourSelf Permission™, a program designed to foster foundational and long lasting self-awareness and empowerment.

She grew up in London, England and then spent over a decade in California earning an undergraduate degree in theatre and a master’s in marriage and family therapy, both from the University of Southern California (USC). Her post-grad research was in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease along with providing therapy to patients and their families at USC University Hospital’s Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery. She is also a graduate of the Coach U Core Essentials Program.

Priya speaks to corporate and non-profit groups, facilitates workshops, and has appeared on NBC’s Today Show and BBC Radio Asia where she was invited to discuss women’s health issues. As a vocal advocate for MS research, Priya is dedicated to helping the community through her work with the National MS Society. Additionally, her philanthropic commitment includes involvement with Aids Project Los Angeles, the Junior League of Los Angeles and London; Global Angels 100 Club and served on the board of the USC Alumni Club of London. She currently lives in Santa Barbara, CA, but commutes to London to speak, work with clients and visit with family and friends. She hopes to travel more, visit new countries and learn as much as she can from different cultures.

Gary Finnan

Gary’s passion is to evoke creativity by revealing one’s essence so as to inspire and mentor those committed to their craft and to living in their element.

As a creativity consultant, Gary has taught for the Wine Institute at Sonoma State University and is sought after as a speaker and facilitator for seminars and specialty retreats. He has recently written and published his first work, Hector – At Ground Level, which won a “Living Now” silver medal for Inspirational fiction from the Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY).

In addition to being a writer and business consultant, Gary enjoys creating sculpture art. Gary is currently working on two new novels, Billy Tapper and The Elephant Family along with a non-fiction book, @3.P.M. — The Balance Between Reason and Passion.

Born in Scotland, and raised in Zimbabwe and South Africa, Gary lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife and two daughters.