Archives: Authors

Sara Eckel

Sara Eckel is the author of It's Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single (Perigee, 2014). She lives in Ulster County, New York.

Friederike Boissevain

Friederike Boissevain, MD, works in medical oncology, hematology, and palliative care. A leader of the Wind and Wolken sangha in Germany, she translates the writings of Dogen and Ryokan into German.

Bonnie Ryan-Fisher practices in the Theravada tradition, supported by an affiliation with Light of the Dhamma in Edmonton, Alberta, and the guidance of Ajahn Sona, abbot of Birken Forest Monastery in British Columbia.

Megumi Yoshida

Megumi Yoshida is the art director of Lion's Roar magazine.

Marcelle Gilkerson

Alex Tzelnic

Alex Tzelnic studied Philosophy, Religion, and Asian Studies at Skidmore College. With that degree, he says, he "of course" became an Athletics Director at a small Montessori school in Cambridge, MA. In his free time he sits, reads, writes and watches sports.

Jessica Fayerman

Jessica Fayerman is a lawyer and a mom who is relatively new to Soto Zen practice. She practices with a great group in Chicago and recently spent a week as a guest student at the San Francisco Zen Center. With her crazy schedule, she credits her fledgling Zen practice and study with helping her achieve a grounded sense of well-being.

Rob Brooks

Justin Luu

Justin Luu is a consultant in the IT industry with a background in software engineering and business. He has also helped serve the Buddhist community in various ways including being one of the founding members of the Mitra Youth Buddhist Network and co-convenor of the 2007 Mitra Buddhist Conference. He also gives talks and conducts workshops as part of the Dhamma sharing group at the Buddhist Library. In his own practice, Justin attends retreats abroad and locally. He's from Sydney, and currently lives in Kenya.

Samantha Updegrave

Samantha Updegrave is a single mama extraordinaire living in Seattle, Washington with her three-year-old son Oscar. She holds a Certificate in Creative Non-Fiction Writing from the University of Washington, and works as a land use consultant and freelance writer. Read more at her <a href="https://bysamanthaclaire.wordpress.com/">blog</a>.

Marcus Seiryu Wilkinson

Marcus Seiryu Wilkinson is a horticulturist, certified permaculture designer and gardening educator who lives and works in Oberlin, OH, where he is converting his one-acre yard into a micro-farm. He teaches in Lorain County Community College’s Sustainable Agriculture Program and is a Visiting Instructor in Oberlin College’s Environmental Studies Program. He has been a sangha member of the Village Zendo in New York City since 1999. Read more at his <a href="http://earthstorehouse.blogspot.ca/">blog</a>.

Sonya Huber

Sonya Huber is a creative writing teacher at Fairfield University, and has written two books of memoir: Opa Nobody and Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, both published by University of Nebraska Press. She wrote this essay at age 34, as she "shyly began to admit that I was a Buddhist." Read more at sonyahuber.com.

Marloes Lasker

Marloes started her zen practice in 2001 as a student of Nico Tydeman Sensei, and became ordained as a monk in 2010. She is legally deafblind from Usher Syndrome. Marloes lives with her husband and her retired guide dog in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Joshua Shin

Joshua Shin switched majors five times at three different schools before earning his associate's degree in Psychology at Bakersfield College in 2010. He is currently attending California State University, Bakersfield, where he is working on his BA in Sociology.

Carol Lorton Shilor

Carol is 31 and lives in Lafayette, Indiana, with her husband. She has degrees in psychology, criminology and philosophy, and calls herself "a curious mind. A skeptic, but a hopeless romantic. A realist, but a dreamer."

Ishita Gupta

Ishita Gupta is the founder and publisher of <a href="http://fearlessstories.com/">Fear.less Magazine</a>, an online magazine that profiles leading thinkers and their experiences overcoming fear. She lives in New York City.

Sarah Fox

Sarah Fox calls herself an overeducated waitress. She has a master’s degree in history and folklore, and lives in Seattle with her husband, their two-year-old son and their two giant dogs. She slings food for a living, cultivates a sprawling vegetable garden, and participates in the Seattle sangha, and is currently working on a book-length manuscript exploring ordinary people’s stories of nuclear contamination in the American West.

Chris W.

Chris W. is a writer, reader, traveller, cook, and any combination of these he can manage. When not pursuing those, he works as a psychologist and author, teaching dharma to young minds.

Susan Yao

Susan Yao (she/hers) has been a middle school educator for 12 years, most recently serving as the Middle School Head at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, MA. She has practiced Buddhism for 17 years in Korean Zen and Insight traditions. She is currently exploring a Buddhist educational program for K-8 students, the Laughing Rivers School. She lives on a homestead with her family in Vermont.