Archives: Authors
George Takei
Best known for playing Sulu on the original Star Trek TV series and six movies that followed, George Takei is unlikely social media royalty. Unofficially dubbed the King of Facebook, he counts 8.2 million fans in his online empire - including Trekkies, Howard Stern listeners, and the LGBTQ community - who devour his quirky mix of kitten jokes, Star Trek references, heartfelt messages, and sci-fi/fantasy memes. An outspoken advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, Takei has used his unmistakable baritone in several satiric PSAs, including one in response to Tennessee's infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill that encourages viewers to say, "It's OK to be Takei." His current projects include the musical Allegiance, drawn from his experience of growing up in Japanese American internment camps during World War II, and the recently published "Oh Myyy! There Goes the Internet" and "Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back."
Adam Tebbe
Adam Tebbe is owner and editor of <a href="http://sweepingzen.com/">Sweeping Zen</a>, an online database of unique interviews with Zen teachers -- complete with extensive biographies, audio talks, dharma talk transcripts, Zen news, and more.
Melissa Myozen Blacker
Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi is the Abbot of Boundless Way Zen. She is co-editor of <em>The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan</em>. She will be teaching at the annual Lion's Roar retreat, "Facing Life's Challenges" from October 19-21, 2018.
Tenshin Reb Anderson
Tenshin Reb Anderson is a senior dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition of Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco and Green Gulch Farm Zen Centers.
Charles R. Johnson
Charles Johnson won the National Book Award for Fiction for his novel <em>Middle Passage</em>. He’s coauthor of the new graphic novel <em>The Eightfold Path</em>.
Shozan Jack Haubner
Shozan Jack Haubner is a Buddhist monk in the Rinzai tradition and author of <em>Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk (Shambhala).</em> He writes under a pseudonym.
Larry Rosenberg
Larry Rosenberg is the founder of Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the author of several books including <i>Breath by Breath</i> and <i>Three Steps to Awakening</i>.
Miguel Chen
Miguel Chen is the bass player for long-running punk rock band Teenage Bottlerocket. He is a meditation practitioner, a yoga instructor, and the owner of Blossom Yoga Studio in Laramie, Wyoming. In addition to appearing in countless Teenage Bottlerocket press pieces, Miguel has been featured by Lion's Roar, PunkNews, Full Contact Enlightenment, LionsRoar.com, Modern Vinyl, Chris Grosso’s MindPod podcast, and more.
Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg is the author of <em>Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within</em> (Shambhala 1986), <em>The Great Spring: Writing, Zen and This Zigzag Life</em> (Shambhala 2016), and other books on Zen practice and the creative process.
Catherine Anraku Hondorp Sensei
Catherine Anraku Hondorp Sensei is guiding teacher of Body-Mind Zen Temple in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S.A. She is co-founder of Two Streams Zen, a nonprofit Multicultural Dharma Movement dedicated to transforming people and communities through fearless intimacy and living compassion. www.twostreamszen.org
Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki is a Soto Zen priest and an award-winning writer. Her novels include <em>All Over Creation</em>, <em>My Year of Meats</em>, and <em>A Tale for the Time Being</em>. She lives in New York and British Columbia.
Brian Brett
Brian Brett is the author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction, and memoir, including the prize-winning <em>Trauma Farm</em> and the recently released <em>Wind River Variations</em>. According to Brett, his novel, <em>Coyote, A Mystery</em>, might or might not be (as Salman Rushdie would say) the story of an ecoterrorist who’s an incarnation of Hotei, the Laughing Buddha. Brett lives with his wife, Sharon, on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, where they farm garlic, pussy willows, and eggs.
Ellen Watters Sullivan
Ellen Watters Sullivan is a writer and psychotherapist living in Vermont. She is writing a memoir, <em>I Once Was Lost: How I Got Found</em>, about her life growing up in Georgia and discovering her ancestors’ dark past.
Jan Willis
Jan Willis is a Professor of Religion Emerita at Wesleyan University as well as a visiting professor at Agnes Scott College. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the U.S. for five decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism almost as long. Her work has explored meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race; her most recent book is <em>Dharma Matters: Women, Race, and Tantra</em>.
An Olive Branch
An Olive Branch is a Buddhist-inspired organization that helps communities resolve conflicts and design ethical governance procedures. It is directed by Kyoki Roberts, Katheryn Wiedman, and Leslie Hospodar. Visit <a href="http://www.an-olive-branch.org/" title="An Olive Branch">an-olive-branch.org</a> for more information.
Gina Sharpe
Gina Sharpe was born in Jamaica and immigrated to New York as a child. After successful careers in government, the motion picture industry, philanthropy, and law, she cofounded New York Insight Meditation Center in 1997, where she led its People of Color sangha and served as its guiding teacher until 2017. A member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, she led, with Larry Yang, Lila Kate Wheeler, and Rachel Bagby, the most diverse dharma teacher training in Spirit Rock's history, which was completed in September.