Madison 2024 Participants

Ashley Logan is a mother, daughter, sister, seeker, founder and instigator. She’s a doer, a dreamer, a believer and motivated by making a difference in the world by shining a light on all things, good, authentic and beautiful. As an entrepreneur and natural community builder, she’s had the privilege of building and leading multiple women’s organizations over the span of two decades.

She is the founder and CEO of Yakkety Yak Marketing, a purpose-driven marketing agency. Woven into the fabric of entrepreneurship, are deep somatic practices that help people access their whole selves. She is a reiki healer, sound practitioner, breathwork facilitator, journey guide and Miracle Way Facilitator. Ashley is also mother of three small children, host of the Unapologetically Yours Podcast, and a painter, music-maker, dreamer, and storyteller.

Shandy Gabbay: I have a M.S from the Columbia Scool of Journalism (2001) and double Undergraduate degree, B.S in Communication Studies and Socio-Cultural Anthropology from UCLA. I freelanced for the New York Times, Long Island Arts & Culture section and I have poetry published in ONTHEBUS, Bombshell Press, a literary magazine. Currently I am working on forthcoming book, Walking the Days: From Warrior to Woman. I have worked with Jack Grapes, using the method-writing process to access my inner voice and the story of who I am. I had the honor of working with Sadhguru at his Tennessee Ashram and have incorporated his teachings of Inner Engineering to develop clarity, focus and balance in my life and writing.

Eleanor Shannon: I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, the eldest of five daughters to two academics. My childhood strategies—follow the rules, be a good helper, achieve at school, push myself hard —won me praise from my parents, a BA from Dartmouth, an MBA from Harvard, a successful husband, three children, and two Volvos in the driveway.

But by the time I hit forty, the weight of it all put me in the breakdown lane—unrelenting back pain, surgery, and divorce. That’s when I became my first client and turned my attention to myself—listening to the intuitive wisdom of my own body on healing journey over fifteen years, largely in Italy.

Now in my sixties and living in Ojai, CA, I guide others in the process of discovering the grounded safety of their own authenticity www.cometoyoursenses.com. The common thread in my work—coaching with Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach, body-centered practices, and writing—is in working with the nervous system to open pathways to curiosity, confidence, creativity, and compassion.

Antonia M Redwine: Protective guardian, dream nurturer and, comfort provider all wrapped up in one! I believe that play and pleasure are the secret keys to fulfilling life.

Cat Preston: Lifestyle coach and host of The Collective Wisdom podcast, Cat is on a mission to help creative women in mid-life to explore and share their unique gifts, strengths and talents.

Born in the UK, Cat has spent the last 25 years calling Malaysia, Singapore, France, the USA and Hong Kong home. Taking a multi-faceted approach to both her personal and professional life, a new country has often meant a new opportunity to follow her many passions and explore diverse cultures.
Working as a coach in Bernadette Jiwa’s Story Skills Workshop has allowed Cat to help others craft and share their stories. She shares her own writing on via her newsletter “Catalyst for Creativity” over on Substack.

Whether it be coaching, writing, or designing jewellery pieces for her jewellery brand, the core theme for Cat is creativity and bringing people together.

In her coaching practice, Cat helps her clients realise their true potential by leaning into their creative strengths and talents to do work that matters. Supporting and encouraging those who want to turn their dreams into purpose-driven businesses, social enterprises or creative projects, is work that inspires her.

Evelyn Wright has done a *lot* of different things. She’s been a professor, a climate policy analyst, a meeting facilitator, a consensus process trainer, a government administrator, and now a craniosacral therapist. To all of these pursuits she brings a love for learning and an uncompromising passion for creating a better, freer, more loving worlds.

Natalie Schriefer, MFA is a freelance writer and academic editor. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, HuffPost, CNN, Wired, Bloomberg, and more. She focuses on pop culture, health, and identity (particularly bisexuality). As an academic editor, Natalie supports students and faculty in the humanities and social sciences as they finish theses, dissertations, journal articles, and textbook manuscripts. When she isn’t at her desk, she’s often out walking or learning a new sport.

Rose Andrez is a holistic healer, inspirational speaker and writer. She was trained in The Rubenfeld Synergy Method and her story was published in Healing Journeys – The Power of Rubenfeld Synergy.

She is an advocate for mental health and has raised considerable funds for the National Association on Mental Illness in NYC. Rose is writing her first memoir about mental health in the Gateless Academy community.

Rose resides in Edgewater, NJ with her wonderful husband, Greg. They both love music and enjoy performing together in their duo group, Kisses from New York.

Rishma Walji: Professionally, I’m trained as a Naturopathic Doctor and also have a PhD. I spent about 20 years in clinical practice working with hormones and fertility (none of which prepared me to raise my two teen daughters!). For the past several years, I’ve transitioned away from clinical practice and into looking at intentional decision making (which is the topic of the book I’m researching and writing). I spent a long time helping people make huge decisions in their life (related to family planning, IVF, etc) and I’m deeply curious about psychology and neuroscience. A lot of my work is related to self-awareness and emotion that often guides (or misleads) our life choices. I opened up vulnerably on a TEDx stage (thankfully, I survived!), and now I host a narrative style, personal growth podcast called XO Conversations. Personally, I love to dance (I’m not great at it and mostly just dance around my kitchen – but it brings a kind of freedom I don’t find anywhere else, with the possible exception of traveling). Please feel free to reach out, I love connecting with people.

Support

Renata Rokicki is a fiction writer and was part of the very first Gateless Writer’s Academy. Thereafter she became trained in Gateless with the class of 2016.  Since then, she has been at the helm at Gateless retreats, where she is the backbone and the talent that makes retreat the incredibly inviting, beautiful experience it is. She is back this year, at the 2024 Gateless Training as our celebrated chef.  Renata has spent the past few years as the Executive Chef at Café Birdie in LA. Her work as a chef has been praised by The New York Times, The LA Zagat, Open Table and much more. We are so grateful and happy to have her in our midst this fall. Thank you sweet, wonderful, amazing Renata!!!

Kate Baldwin works as an editor helping writers find the fullest expression of their ideas and leads Gateless Writing salons for teens and adults in her hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts. She is a Gateless Certified Teacher, has an MFA from Vermont College, an MEd from Lesley University, and is an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her own writing has appeared in The Maine Review, Hunger Mountain, Soundings East, The Larcom Review and the Huffington Post among others.

Me: Suzanne Kingsbury is an award-winning, internationally noted author, whose work has been translated widely abroad and optioned for film. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Award, an Oxford Town Fiction Award and has been shortlisted for the Robert Olen Butler Award, the Fog City Writer’s Award and a Dana Award.

In 2007, after graduating from the Bennington College Masters in Fine Arts program, Suzanne founded Gateless Writing, an internationally-acclaimed organization whose unique methodology combines brain science and therapeutic touch to draw out writers’ unique talent and singular genius, enabling them to move through residual blocks and create domain-changing prose. Through retreats, workshops, one-on-one intensives and career training programs, Suzanne has helped countless writers on their path to acquiring top agents, signing 6-figure book deals, hitting bestseller lists and wining prestigious literary awards. Her writers have been interviewed by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and major Hearst publications, they have seen themselves on CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates, and have appeared in Forbes, USA Today, and on the Jane Pauley show.

As a writing intuit, Suzanne’s “channeling” and shamanic practices have created incredible shifts in her writers’ work and in their lives. Ultimately, she believes the urge to write is a dancing order from the divine; writers are “scribes”, and the messages they are called to write have extraordinary power to change the world.