The Morning Glory Project

Lucinda Jackson is the author of Just a Girl: Growing Up Female and Ambitious. As a scientist and business executive, Lucinda spent almost fifty years at three universities and four Fortune 500 companies where she experienced and witnessed the unequal treatment of women. This spurred her to write about how to change that dynamic and how to help women find their power. After growing up in Californi...

Grace Livingston is on a journey to find her voice as a writer and storyteller as she faces illness, loss, and all the other tragically beautiful things that make us human. Grace works as a Senior Researcher for Ten Percent Happier, a mindfulness meditation company, where she is currently helping founder and ABC News anchor Dan Harris on his forthcoming book code-named "10% Nicer." She is an activ...

Anna Stewart personifies the phrase “dedicated writer.” Since her first novella with Harlequin in 2014, Anna has written and published more than forty romances in multiple sub-genres. As a USA Today and national bestselling author she writes sweet to sexy romance for Harlequin's Heartwarming and Romantic Suspense lines with one of her titles, Recipe for Redemption, optioned for a TV Movie aired on...

Laura Davis, author of seven bestselling non-fiction books, including The Courage to Heal, I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, and forthcoming memoir, Wholehearted, teaches writing workshops in Santa Cruz, California, and leads transformative writing retreats in Tuscany, Peru, Bali, Spain, and other international locations. As the creator of The Writer’s Journey Roadmap, Laura sends out free evocati...

As a gay Christian, Matt Nightingale is passionate about the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. He works to create safe, sacred spaces for people exploring these identities. His TEDx talk, “Choosing Gratitude and Hope,” with his former wife, Luanne Nightingale, tells their story of their 23-year mixed-orientation marriage, an evolving understanding of faith and sexuality, and the choice t...

Shannon Curtis writes and performs art pop music; Jamie Hill produces and creates music with all sorts of bands and artists. They're both writers and authors and speakers ... oh, and also, they're married!

As CEO of Habitat for Humanity New York City, Karen Haycox has pulled from every aspect of herself, her history, her losses, and her talents to help her teams provide housing to those who might otherwise never have the homes they need. The lessons she’s learned from losing one she loved, to embracing sobriety, and even her background in filmmaking all serve her now in the highly demanding role of...

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. Her bestselling book, On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard is an exploration of her discoveries, confusions, wisdoms, and her striving for a zero BS way of life. Cheryl Straye...

Seán Dwyer is a college professor, a songwriter, and the author of award-winning fiction and non-fiction. Just as the possibility of publishing his debut novel was on the near horizon, both his career in teaching and his future as an author were put on hold due to a shocking car accident. While stopped at a crosswalk, he was rear-ended at 50 mph and suffered two serious concussions in two seconds....

After losing both of her parents in her early 20s, and much more of her small extended family over the following few years, Alanna McLeod got an early and up-close education about grief and loss. With the empathy and understanding she gained, Alanna became a founding team member of Reimagine End of Life, a nonprofit organization that encourages others to explore the otherwise taboo topics of death...

Julie Barton is the New York Times Bestselling author of Dog Medicine, How My Dog Saved Me From Myself. Julie's story is not your average dog story; rather, it's the story of learning to live through and live with depression by learning a different kind of self-talk. It's also a story of a loving, but flawed family. Dog Medicine was the recipient of a silver Nautilus Award for its “exceptional lit...

Raised by counter-culture parents in San Francisco’s roaring ‘60s, with her progressive politics intact, to say nothing of being female at a time when women were rare in policing, Karen Lynch was not exactly what would’ve been called “cop material”. But for a kid with a mom who suffered mental illness and who was exposed to abuse and neglect, she saw the police as helpers who often rescued her fro...

With humor and heart, author, Eileen Rendahl tells the story of grief, family, and enduring beyond loss. In this episode of The Morning Glory Project, she shares how writing this fictionalized version of her story, along with the support and laughter of her family got her through the toughest moments.

The people in his San Francisco inner-city community who encounter Damien Posey affectionately call him Uncle Damien—Unk for some of the youth. To watch his tireless work on behalf of youth, homeless people, and others in need on the streets of San Francisco’s poorest and roughest neighborhoods it’s hard to imagine him as his former self, a self-described wild child who ran with gangs, went in and...

Maureen Langan is an award-winning stand-up comic and radio talk show host. In her one-woman show, Daughter of a Garbageman, Maureen shares with great humor and great heart the story of growing up with her Irish mother and Bronx-born father, in a loving, but flawed family. With working-class values peppered with alcoholism and other challenges, Maureen reveals her the strengths, struggles, and sec...

While enduring a fragmented family and an unstable mom, Meredith May found inspiration in the gentle guidance of a grandfather and a sense of order and “family” that she observed while he taught her the art of beekeeping. Poignant, intriguing, and sometimes funny, this book and this author are bound to inspire.

Coming from a loving, complicated, literary family, Sands Hall did not precisely fit the profile for one who would submit to a slow yet willing absorption into the Church of Scientology in the 1980s where she spent nearly a decade. In her candid and nuanced memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology, Sands shares her spiritual and artistic journey both during and after her years in what has...

Brooke Warner’s deep love for stories and books led her to a career in publishing where she eventually became an acquiring editor for an independent women’s press—her dream job. But when the publishing industry changed, aiming more toward celebrity than substance, she feared her dream was fading. With determination, taking huge risk, and sometimes stumbling, Brooke co-founded She Writes Press, ove...

Toby Dorr might just be the world’s unlikeliest felon. So law-abiding that she counted to three at every stop sign before putting her foot on the gas, she had a lifelong drive to be “perfect” and to please others with no thought to her own needs. With her emotional well dry she had rendered herself vulnerable to trust the very first person who paid her attention—a choice that ultimately landed her...

Diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, when the first HIV tests became available, Mark S. King felt he'd been given the death sentence that took far too many in those years and since. Somehow Mark's body endured until the life-saving medications could come along. Today, he credits his “fabulous disease” with giving him the gift of empathy for others.

Raised by counter-culture parents in San Francisco’s roaring ‘60s, with her progressive politics intact, to say nothing of being female at a time when women were rare in policing, Karen Lynch was not exactly what would’ve been called “cop material”. But for a kid with a mom who suffered mental illness and who was exposed to abuse and neglect, she saw the police as helpers who often rescued her fro...

As a leadership coach, author, and advocate for writers and thought leaders, Sara's energy, optimism, and general hopefulness is contagious. Sara's story of love's generosity can be found in her memoir, Bringing In Finn. What strikes most is that though Sara's journey to becoming a mother is an exceptional one, her methods for coping with loss and dealing with paralyzing grief are surprisingly ord...

With humor and heart, author, Eileen Rendahl tells the story of grief, family, and enduring beyond loss. In this episode of The Morning Glory Project, she shares how writing this fictionalized version of her story, along with the support and laughter of her family got her through the toughest moments.