Shaneka Jones Cook lives and works as a freelance writer and a Case Manager for homeless families in Washington, D.C. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BA in English from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. She is a licensed Notary Public in Virginia and Washington, DC. She is a former elementary school teacher who writes fiction, poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction. She has been published in The Record (Trinity Washington University), Trinity Magazine, and most recently Antioch University’s very own Lunch Ticket. She served as an assistant editor, interviewer, and guest interviewer of Lunch Ticket for Issues 11, 12, and 13. She served as an assistant editor for The Women’s National Book Association’s annual writing contest.  She is currently working on a collection of short stories. Shaneka Jones Cook has always been passionate about books and magazines, pouring through every page from cover to cover. So, she decided to create Shaneka Donte Enterprise, Black Cat Productions, and Literary Lenses. Publishing, film, and magazine that would become a community venue for artistic expression, popular culture, cultural diversity, and a protected space regardless of your sexual orientation. But most importantly she wanted to create a space filled with raw literary voices that will build connections through different genres of writing and diverse cultures that will shake up mainstream media.

Dr. Kristy McDowell is an experienced scientist with an extensive research background in oncology, molecular biology, genetics, and infectious diseases. She completed her Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Biology and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, Missouri) in 1997. She obtained her Ph.D. in Microbiology/Immunology from Meharry Medical College in 2007, completing her dissertation research at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland.

Currently, Dr. McDowell is an adjunct Professor at NVCC in the MSTB department and is the founder and CEO of BabyScientist, Inc., (www.babyscientist.org). BabyScientist is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created in order to educate, motivate, and inspire children, preK-12, from underserved communities and underrepresented populations to pursue careers in STEM.

Preshona is an East Bengali-American born in East Asia, in Kolkata, West Bengal. She immigrated to the U.S., to Baltimore, Maryland, when she was 4 years old. Growing up in neighborhoods of different cultures and incomes both within and outside of the U.S.(East Oakland, CA; East San Jose, CA; Southeast & Northeast DC; PG County, MD; Howard County, MD; San Salvador, El Salvador; Nogales, Mexico) Preshona became a passionate educator, performer, and activist to unite the divided around & within her. In 2011, she started the One Love Movement (One Love = True Change Inc.) with fellow youth workers to spread co-operative economics, education and positive culture in and with communities of color. Preshona loves to support folks passionate about the same:) Currently she is launching P.O.C- centered homeschool curriculum on www.iamsunschool.com. She is known to be pretty quirky and yet quiet & reflective, randomly hilarious, always chill, kind and passionate at the same time - and a firecracker if you got her messed up. Currently she is co-writing and directing a sit-com project called “How to Be Brown Like Me” based on her personal blog - airing on Instagram this season - about the lives of herself and her friends from Baltimore, DC, and the Bay Area, California. She is pretty much pretty awesome.

If asked what is her ultimate objective in life, Honest AM would proudly state that she wants to help activate women to live their best lives.  Through her writings, she envisions connecting the hearts and souls of women around the world.

Honest AM was born and raised in Detroit. She's a graduate of Hampton University with a Master’s in Business Administration. She is a Project Accountant by day and writer by night. Her resume is growing rapidly, with several featured articles on XONecole, including, “Why Rooting for Everybody Black Should Include Monique and The Gospel According to RiRi". AM is well on her way to becoming a household name.

The Professionally Petty Show was established in 2018 on a black lesbian Facebook group. The Petty was so real and the audience was so solid that Carly and Corri felt that in order to grow exponentially that they needed to establish their own independent platform, thus the two took off to take over the world. Their synergy and friendship is so captivating that they built a whole new family of friends online. By giving advice and sharing their own life experiences they became their listeners play cousins and play sisters. The hosts Carly Jonelle and Corri House meet in 2013 and realized their life experiences had more in common than all of their dating woes. The Professionally Petty show covers topics of love, dating, family, friendships and relationships. Although some topic can take on a serious nature, Carly and Corri knows you can laugh at half of life’s situations and the other half you can just be petty.

Zamara Perri is the founder and editor of  the Black Lesbian Love Lab blog, which showcases black lesbian relationships. She also runs a private Facebook group for women who are seeking to make connections with other like-minded women in a safe space and she coaches women on dating wisely.

For many years, she knew that love was integral to a life well lived and until her mid-20s never pursued love with a woman in real life. Once she did, she never turned back.  She became convinced that the love stories of black women in love were just as valuable, authentic and uplifting as any others. That is the reason she started this blog.  Z is passionate about black love and sharing black lesbian stories.

She also writes a column for this blog called Z Speaks. In this column she breaks down everything from her dating nightmares to love lessons learned to advice you should take to her thoughts on the gay rights movement.

Adama Hamadi, Delicious Living Coach at Dream Leap Live LLC, is the “human permission slip” for ambitious visionaries that have an innate drive to perform at a high level but feel too scattered to give their goals the attention they deserve. Adama has a background in trauma informed case management, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) and workshop facilitation.

Through one-on-one coaching, mentoring, and training, Adama helps burned out SuperWomen free up time and energy to do the work that matters. She is passionate about helping women find their voices and take back their power so they can enjoy a truly delicious, burnout-proof life of ease, joy and meaning.

In 2015, Latisha Atkins, left her work in D.C. Government and returned to her home ward to focus on community issues full time. She established BRIDGES, INC (Building Bridges to Success, Inc), which specializes in community development, community engagement, and community empowerment. “At the heart of our work is the community! We implement trainings, workshops and capacity building programming to strengthen the community's voice and build its capacity to engage others in a shared vision for growth and development.”