Past Forward

John Manuel is the author of a memoir, The Canoeist, and two previous novels, Hope Valley and The Lower Canyons (Atmosphere Press, 2020). His short stories have appeared in The Savannah Anthology and New Southerner. In addition to writing fiction, he has published numerous articles on environmental health, environmental policy, and outdoor recreation. John received his B.A. from Yale University an...

Judith Bice was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where she has enjoyed a dual career as an educator and a musician.  Hey, White Girl Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen o...

Daniel Robinson is a retired lawyer from California. He has a BA from UC Riverside, an MA from Stanford, and a JD from McGeorge Law School. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Venezuela from 1966 to 1968. He’s married with two children and two grandchildren. Hitchhiking Across America: 1963 Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pande...

Donna Peizer is a mother of three and holds a BS in nursing from the University of Colorado and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, she lives with her dog, Toby, in the beautiful Sierra foothills of northern California. She is a certified end-of-life doula and volunteers in her community and elsewhere. Somewhere Different Now Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books...

Dr. William M. Tsutsui is an award-winning historian and teacher, frequent public speaker and media commentator, and a seasoned academic administrator with a record of innovation.  Born in New York City and raised in Texas, he holds degrees from Harvard (A.B. 1985), Oxford (M.Litt. 1988), and Princeton (M.A. 1990, Ph. D. 1995) universities. He began his academic career at the University of Kansas,...

Public Podcasting has partnered with Santiago Canyon College to produce these student podcasts. Student groups from the English 100 class at Santiago Canyon College researched topics and created scripts to record. Public Podcasting mentored the students in how to tell a story, how to share research, and how to personalize their episodes. Working with the students, we produced, recorded and edited...

Dr. Jason A. Douglas is an assistant professor of public health in the Department of Health Sciences within Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Leveraging community-based participatory research frameworks, Douglas works with community-based organizations and residents in underserved Black and Latinx communities to investigate social and environmental determinants of public health disp...

Janet Kelley is a teacher, reader, writer, and feminist. A native of Hutchinson, Kansas, she studied Humanistic Studies and Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. She studied Historical Theology at the University of Notre Dame. She earned her teaching credentials from Indiana University at South Bend. Ms. Kelley currently lives in Boston and Budapest. Ms. Kelley believes t...

Dr. Richelle Tanner is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science and Policy Program, jointly appointed to the Schmid and Wilkinson Colleges. She is broadly interested in how climate change affects both ecological and human communities, and our mechanisms of resilience. She uses tools from ecology, physiology, genomics, and the social sciences to ask questions about how coastal ecosystems...

Richard Voigt practiced as an attorney dealing with issues of the workplace and has been selected for inclusion in “Best Lawyers in America”. He is a lecturer at Wesleyan University’s Institute for Life-Long Learning and at the Presidents’ College at the University of Hartford. He and his wife Annemarie live in Connecticut. My Name On a Grain of Rice Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books wa...

Sonia Myers started her writing career at the Half Moon Bay Review newspaper contributing articles and reporting on sports. She is currently a middle school science teacher, and a 2021 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions. She lives on the California coast with her husband and daughter. We Have Something to Say! is her first novel. We Have Something to Say! At...

Pasquale di Falco ’s journey began in Chicagoland. He graduated first from the University of Illinois–Chicago and then from DePaul University’s College of Law. For a period, he worked in local government and politics. After he passed the Illinois bar, he bought a one-way ticket to California. Then he rambled and roamed for five years: on a spiritual mission. After he had returned to his roots, to...

James Gilbert is a historian and novelist. While a professor at the University of Maryland, he published eleven books on American culture, and one of which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. He has lived and taught abroad in Paris, and with year-long Fulbright Fellowships in Australia, Germany, and the University of Uppsala, Sweden, where he received an honorary doctorate degree. His f...

Karen Hampton : "As an artist of color, I have made a life long commitment to creating artwork that responds to the lives of my ancestors.  My lens is anthropology and I study my own genealogy. I travel in my ancestors footsteps, I walk the roads where they lived, explored the plantations where they were enslaved, I am the storyteller.  As their medium I provide a vehicle for my ancestor’s spirits...

Paul Turay was born in Detroit, Michigan and later raised in St. Peter’s, Missouri. It was in high school that he discovered “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, and right then he fell in love with a style of poetry with deep meaning. Embrace the Passion in a Lover’s Dream is his first published book of poems. Embrace The Passion In A Lover's Dream Atmosphere Press, 2021 A World Without Books was creat...

Karen M. Wicks holds a doctorate from New York University and has taught in middle and high school and at the college level. She has served as director for curriculum and instructional development at the College Board. She and her husband Les created a supplemental education company. They subsequently co-founded the K-12 public school, Royal Live Oaks Academy of the Arts & Sciences Charter School,...

Jan Beatty is professor of English and director of creative writing at Carlow University, director of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops, and distinguished writer in residence of the Carlow University MFA program. Her fifth book, Jackknife: New and Selected Poems, won the 2018 Paterson Prize, and her memoir, American Bastard, won the 2019 Red Hen Nonfiction Award. American Bastard Red Hen...

Teresa K. Miller won the 2020 National Poetry Series with Borderline Fortune (Penguin, 2021), having previously placed as a finalist with two other manuscripts. A graduate of Barnard College and the Mills College MFA program, she is the author of sped (Sidebrow, 2013) and Forever No Lo (Tarpaulin Sky, 2008) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (F...

Dr. Robert D. Bullard is often described as the father of environmental justice. He is the former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University 2011-2016. Professor Bullard currently is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Prior to coming to TSU h...

Shawn Adair Johnston was born in Ontario, Canada, educated in southern California, practiced forensic psychology in northern California and Oregon and is now semi-retired near a small lake in Washington. He has taught at numerous colleges including U.C.L.A., U.C. Davis, Oregon State University and Portland State University. Since 1980, he has performed over fifteen thousand judicially referred psy...

Patricia Jovel Flores is Orange County Environmental Justice's new Project Director, and is excited to lead the organization in confronting the many environmental issues disproportionately affecting Orange County's marginalized communities. PJ was raised and currently lives in Santa Ana, California. She began organizing as a student at UC Berkeley, where she worked to bring student power to bear i...

A.M. Grotticelli is a veteran technology trade journalist who resides in suburban New Jersey. After a life of overcoming similar challenges, he is an avid supporter of foster kids aging out of the foster care system at 18 and provides encouragement to all who need it. The Bond Atmosphere Press, 2020 A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Mi...

Alex Chornyj has been writing for approximately forty years and has been published in books, journals, magazines, and in online publications. He actively reads on monthly blog talk radio poetry shows. His writing has an esoteric, ethereal thread to its origins as he is a reiki master teacher. The source of his material is often intuited through his spirit guides. Vincelles Cyberwit. Net, 2020 A Wo...

Natasha Lester worked as a marketing executive for L'Oreal before penning the  New York Times  and internationally bestselling novel The Paris Orphan. She is also the author of the USA Today bestseller  The Paris Seamstress  and  The Paris Secret . When she's not writing, she loves collecting vintage fashion, traveling, reading, practicing yoga and playing with her three children. Natasha lives in...

Nawaaz Ahmed was born in Tamil Nadu, India. Before turning to writing, he was a computer scientist, researching search algorithms for Yahoo. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and is the winner of several Hopwood Awards. He is the recipient of residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, and VCCA. He’s also a Kundiman and Lambda Literary Fellow. He currently lives in Brooklyn. Wit...