Speak Up Talk Radio Network

Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., is a best-selling, award-winning author, publisher, arts advocate, and internationally recognized leader in research design and arts-based research. She is widely considered the world’s most visible proponent of arts-based research as a means of making research publicly accessible. Moreover, she coined the terms “social fiction” and “fiction-based research” and has been pioneering...

JULIE SCOLNIK is a concert flutist and the founding artistic director of Mistral Music, a chamber music series which since 1997 has been known for its virtuosic artists, imaginative programming, and the personal rapport she establishes with her audiences. Since her treatment and recovery from breast cancer in 2005, Scolnik has found ways to play and organize...

Award-winning author Lukman Clark lives with his wife, Dr. Linda Strahan, and two cats in Riverside, California. He works as a fulltime writer and gardener in his own backyard. Long ago, Lukman earned his BA in Communications/English Lit and an MBA in International Marketing. From there he went on to executive positions in banking, finance...

Born and raised in Oakland, CA Natasha learned the importance of resilience at a young age. As a teen, she struggled with homelessness, addiction and a suicide attempt. By her early 20’s she was determined to turn her life around. With faith, hard work and a radical shift in mindset she created the life...

Jacqueline Shortell-McSweeney is a proud member of Sisters in Crime, Women’s National Book Association and Honorary Member of Women Make Movies and Suffolk Bar Association. Jacqueline Shortell-McSweeney writes only when inspired, or when her Muse, Noreen, stands over her with a metaphorical rolling pin. At other times, she has worked as a producer for...

Allergic to the modern world, trapped in a bubble and now illegally alive; Summer asks the question “Do our lives not matter?” in her new book “Canary in a Bubble.” Unexplained throat swelling, pain, and nausea mark only the start of Summer’s decade-long search for answers that spanned numerous hospitals and state lines. Her...

Steve is a multi-award winning and international selling author. He is the creator of the Polish Dragon P. I. series and was born in the Slavic Village area of Cleveland, Ohio where many of his stories take place. He is a member of the Private Eye Writers of America. He has wanted to be an...

Wendy Sanford grew up in an upper-middle-class white suburban family in Princeton, New Jersey. During the socially turbulent time of the 1970s, she became a feminist, a lesbian, and a Quaker. A founding member of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Wendy co authored and edited many versions of Our Bodies, Ourselves, the women’s...

ALSO $500 GRAND PRIZE WINNER Nicholas L. Chiarkas was the Director of Wisconsin’s State Public Defender Agency for 22-years. Under his leadership, the agency received several awards for excellence. He was the founder of Justice Without Borders, was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and a visiting lecturer in...

Mary Lou Wells is an award-winning author of poetry, non-fiction, and a semi-fiction dark fantasy epic series. In 2021 she won a Firebird Book Award in the Series category for the second installment of the Annals of Aeternum series with Spear of Destiny: Finding Bucephalus, the sequel to Spear of Chaos: Legend of the Undead,...