Gateless Alumni

 Kate Neufeld is an EMDR therapist who helps women heal anxiety and trauma (both big and small) so they can feel more joy and ease and create the life they most deeply want. A mom of two kids ages 6 and 9, she lives in Burlington, Vermont with her husband, a middle school science teacher. She has a MSW from Smith College and has worked in mental health for 13 years, and has a background as a yoga teacher and bodyworker. She is an insatiable learner with an interest in trauma, healing, spirituality, and transformation.

 Candyce Ossefort-Russell, LPC-S offers accurate, empathic information and insights about grief and other painful emotions from a unique blend of personal and professional experience. Her first husband died suddenly when she was 30 years old; and she’s a psychotherapist, writer, trainer, and speaker in Austin, Texas. She’s extensively explored psychological, spiritual, and scientific perspectives of suffering and transformation for more than 30 years. She’s known for her warm, emotionally engaged writing and teaching style that creates a safe and connected atmosphere for growth and learning. She’s writing a book that weaves together science that validates the value of grief with existential wisdom about loss to guide grievers (and their helpers) toward bedrock-level healing.

Sandra Yin: I’m a recovering journalist, whose stories have appeared in places like the Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, The New York Times, and American Way magazine. I’ve covered topics ranging from the power of a stool transplant, picky eaters, and how to market to fast-growing demographics … to why dogs were acting skittish one winter in Manhattan. (Hint: Ungrounded wires + a salty sidewalk.)

 These days I’m a ghostwriter in West Virginia.

While it’s been easy enough to write for others, I’ve resisted tackling my own writing projects.

For decades.

Ack. What’s up with that?

Jessica Kantor is a Los Angeles-based writer and interdisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of technology and culture through writing, immersive media, and experiential art. She was an artist-in-residence at Technicolor, a Google JUMP creator, and an Oculus VR for Good Fellow. JessicaJessica’sas has earned accolades such as a Webby Award and a finalist nod for the Producers Guild Interactive Award, and many of her projects have screened at festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival and the Arles International Photo Festival.

Her interactive exhibition, Be Water My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee, is currently on display at The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle. It allows visitors to explore Bruce Lee’s pLee’sal library and his path to self-mastery. Jessica’s romantic comedy screenplay, The Date Whisperer, produced by ReelOne Entertainment, is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

She also hosts Raising Cinephiles, a podcast featuring interviews with actors, writers, and directors. In it, she explores the profound impact of cinema on their lives and how they pass that passion on to the next generation.

Kristin Song became a fierce gun safety advocate after her 15-year-old son, Ethan, was tragically killed by an unsecured gun at a friend’s house. While the gun owner escaped charges, the 14-year-old boy involved was charged with manslaughter. Outraged by this injustice, Kristin championed the strengthening of Connecticut’s child access prevention law, shifting accountability to gun owners.

Now, she’s at the forefront of the national fight to pass Ethan’s Law, demanding mandatory safe gun storage when minors are present to protect other families from similar heartbreak. Kristin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Mike, while her children, Emily and Evan, live in Boston.

Annmarie McLaughlin has been a volunteer for PEN American’s Prison & Justice Writing Mentorship Program and had her personal essays and nonfiction published in the Eldorado Sun, Santa Fe Reporter, and Santa Fe.com in New Mexico. Her spoken word projects have been performed at the Armory for the Arts, the Santa Fe Playhouse and SITE Santa Fe, also in New Mexico.

She has two adult sons who are frequent early readers of her work and she cherishes time with the rest of her favorite people in aspen groves, on frothy rivers, and beneath clear night skies.

Annmarie studied film production at New York University in the dark, pre-internet, pre-digital age and currently supports her writing and wandering habits with a job in the northern New Mexico social sector.

Theresa Cantley: I’m Theresa! Former Laboratory Equipment Operations and Marketing Director turned CEO and high level business coach for Main Street CEO’s and leadership teams.  After spending over 20 years in corporate America and working for entrepreneurs of Mid-Size small businesses I  realized my life had a bigger purpose so I traded her high heels, suits and sales meetings for the world of entrepreneurship.  While still working full time I started my first business in 2008, Armario, a boutique retail store with my best friend and in pivoted into a new business endeavor of coaching and consulting Main Street business owners.  I have a PhD in experience scaling businesses to multiple 7 and 8 figures and my core belief is that adversity and diversity in your life gives you the chance to create your biggest innovations and ideas that can ultimately change the world.  My passion is to make sure Main Street businesses thrive because that are the backbone of our economy.  They keep communities thriving, provide jobs to local individuals and have the greatest impact on creating positive change in our society.  My work with the CEO’s and leadership of these businesses centers around improving what’s inside businesses so we can change the world outside.  I am also the creator of The Business Growth Formula™, a proprietary process that teaches small business owners to profitably scale to 7 and 8 figures, The Business Resilience Blueprint™ which is a proven system to help businesses on the brink of failure go from surviving to thriving.  You can catch me weekly as the host of the The CSuite Mentor™ Podcast which centers around real-life experiences, solutions and coaching to help small business owners build more profitability into their business and freedom into their life.

Walli Höfinger

Born 1966 in Austria.

Walli Höfinger is an Austrian performance artist, voice performer and Roy Hart voice teacher, who lives and works at Gutshof Reichenow near Berlin. Her artistic work currently focuses on experimental work on the voice, writing her own texts as well as voice and piano compositions. She works equally solo and in various formations with artists from other disciplines in interdisciplinary projects, including Christiane Hommelsheim, Jonathan Hart-Makwaia, Biliana Voutchkova, Ingo Reulecke, Teresa Brayshaw, and others.

Walli Höfinger originally studied New Artistic Media with a focus on performance art with Prof. Ulrike Rosenbach at the HBK Saarbrücken, followed by a lateral move into contemporary dance. Since 1996 she has been developing her own performances with movement, aerial acrobatics, video installations, sound, voice and piano.

Since 1996 she gave numerous performances in the visual arts, dance or theatre context, she started teaching performance art at the HBK Saar, (99-01) won the SAARSTIP. in Berlin (01) as well as the Women’s Promotion Prize of the HBKsaar (02).

Since 2009 she has been an accredited Roy Hart voice teacher (Malérargues, France) and regularly teaches voice workshops in Germany and throughout Europe.

Walli Höfinger divides her time between Reichenow near Berlin, Germany, and the Roy Hart Centre in Malérargues, France. She speaks German, English and French.

 Charlotte Coplin is a writer, astrologer, and author. Her first book, How to Be Fabulous, came out with Affirm Press in 2023. Having worked as a writer in various capacities, she is now focused on fulfilling her dream of becoming a novelist. Originally from New Zealand, she has since lived all over the world, and now resides in Hollywood with her husband.

Dr. Dympna Weil, MD is a board-certified OB/GYN, Physician Wellness Advocate, Writer, and Master Coach who has had the privilege of delivering hundreds of babies into the world. Now, she helps deliver doctors back to themselves by PRESCRIBING POSSIBILITY.

When intellect meets intuition, there is a sort of alchemy that occurs. As the Founder of The Physician Wayfinder, Dympna serves other doctors as they navigate their own seas of life – be it personal or professional – so that they may live their purpose with joy and ease.

It is time we reconnect our brilliant minds and our hearts.

Elizabeth Borton: I was a copywriter my whole career, working in advertising agencies as a writer/producer/account coordinator. In 1993, I started my own group called Write On Target, Inc. to serve the marketing/communication needs of HR departments by making benefits simple and easy to understand (seriously). In 2008, I ran the company remotely as my husband and I sailed our 42-foot Catalina from Lake Erie to the Florida Keys. That trip turned into a blog and a book called The Great Adventure. I sold the company in 2015, got divorced in ‘23 and now live in Key West

Vicki Gohl has worked in theater and film, owned a retail store and held every job from grunt to guru in catering and events. Since COVID she has been writing and working in NH municipal government. Her current goal is to complete the second draft of her novel in progress. Married to a musician (Teese) with two grown boys, they have lived in an old house in Walpole NH for almost 30 years along with her 97 year-young mother. Born and raised in NYC. MFA  UCSD; BA Cornell University; finished high school at Friends School Saffron Walden, UK.

Darha Phillpot: On impulse, sometime late last spring, Darha clicked on a link that popped up on social media and tumbled, like Alice, into the gateless community. Darha is a land planner, supporting Indigenous communities in Northern Canada on conservation and community planning. She has a BFA in dance from Simon Fraser University and a Master’s Degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of British Columbia. She lives with her husband, her ten-year-old daughter and her red border collie named Chilli Dog in a small town in the northeast prairie region of Saskatchewan. 

Jenny Goff lives with her husband and two daughters on Whidbey Island in Washington state. They raise animals and grow a variety of vegetables and fruit on their six-acre farmstead. She is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and private chef, as well as on the chef team at the literary non-profit Hedgebrook.

Before farming life, Jenny sailed over 35,000 nautical miles over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Caribbean Sea. When she was twenty-five, she sailed with her partner from San Diego to New York City via the Panama Canal on their 32’ sloop. She subsequently worked on mega-yachts and sailboats and obtained her USCG Master’s license in 2011. In 2016 she raced a 23’ trimaran from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan, Alaska, in the 2nd annual Race to Alaska (rules: no engine, no support)—and made it to the finish line!

Jenny is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and studied long-form journalism at Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. She has written for national magazines including SAIL and Cruising World, as well as regional newspapers and magazines including Whidbey Island Life, Working Waterfront, Beach and Bay Press, and The Bollard. She recently launched her children’s book, THANKFUL HARVEST, and is currently writing/editing novels based on her years at sea and escapades in the yachting industry. www.jennygoff.com

Julia Manlogon is happily retired from a 33-year career as a Licensed and Board Certified Electrologist in her multi-person practice. She served on the NH Electrolysis Association Board, Electrolysis Advisory Committee for the State of NH and was a Delegate to the American Electrology Association.  She became a Financial Coach in 2018, helping her patients, friends and church members achieve their financial goals. Julia is also a co-manager of family summer rental properties in Maine. Writing has been a part of her life since 5th grade, whether it be poems, short stories, journaling, press releases, blog posts and a couple of nonfiction book ideas. Julia sees stories in the everyday and writes them.

Camilla Royce read English at Southampton University and then completed classical theatre training in repertory at the Jermyn Street Theatre, off West End, London.

After a couple of years of semi-successful touring, she left London feeling disillusioned and went to Paris looking for inspiration. There, she worked as an assistant to veteran Hollywood actress Leslie Caron. Camilla went on to work in magazine publishing within events and for many years was a freelance events producer for corporate and experiential events in London, Middle East and Europe.

Camilla currently works part-time with two film directors on script development, film production and digital art projects. She is dipping her toe back into acting by joining the 2024/2025 cast of immersive theatre event, You Me Bum Bum Train.

She is a master tarot reader, www.veritytarot.com, and is currently writing her debut novel – a historical thriller with esoteric and supernatural themes.

My childhood wishlist had three big things on it – genetically engineer organisms, have a great family, and write stuff other people read.

Did the first one, I am in the middle of the second one (which is awesome), and now I get to focus on that writing thing.

I have previously written for roleplaying games, a weekly gaming column, and the occasional comic script. Most recently my short story “Package Handed Directly to Resident” appeared in the Wrong Turn thriller anthology that (bonus points for coolness) has an audiobook version. I also recently had another short story accepted for the fiction wing of a gaming IP I adore, which is too cool for words.

My formal writing training is sparse, but the current work would be my fourth full-length manuscript. I’ve been shopping number three around to agents for a few years, and the first two were excellent practice. 🙂

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 looking forward to continue 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.

Heather Johnson Durocher is returning to the Academy for a second year as she works on her first novel. She is an award-winning journalist, writing for national and statewide newspapers, magazines and organizations for more than 25 years and specializing in parenting, health and wellness, business/financial services, and travel/outdoor recreation. She is a senior editor for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, a position that allows her to travel and explore — and do research for her in-progress book that is set in part in the Upper Peninsula.

Heather writes from a beautiful small town on Lake Michigan in the state’s northern lower peninsula, where she and her husband Joe raised their three kids, ages 24, 22 and 18. Heather is also the publisher of the lifestyle website Michigan Runner Girl and through this has hosted a weekly podcast and created an annual women’s winter retreat that brings more than 50 women together for an active and restorative weekend in the woods. She is a contributor to an anthology about women and running and writes the Moving Through newsletter on Substack, where she explores midlife, long-term partnership and marriage, parenting adult children, and how to keep moving through it all.

Casey Erin Wood is a writer, coach, energy healer, Gateless trained teacher and founder of the Ruby Slipper School of Magic, where she helps women own their magic so they can change the mother-trucking world.

Casey has helped hundreds of women step into their ruby shoes and realize they’ve always had the power. Her work has been featured in places like HuffPost, The Muse, Scarry Mommy and The New York Times.

When she’s not championing women to shamelessly change the world, you’ll find her killing her darlings in her (oh-so-soon-to-be-finished) memoir, plotting (yet another) trip to Ireland or bingeing her latest television addiction (hint: anything with crackerjack character development).

Casey lives on the shores of Georgian Bay with her multiple-hat-wearing husband, her unabashedly sassy teenage daughter and her two very badly behaved French Bulldogs, Gus and Mabel.

Farrah Haidar has spent far too long being a closet creative and writer. Her siblings claim she acted out commercials in the mirror when young. She’s now taking that penchant for the dramatic and a lifelong commitment to creative work to start her career as a writer, voice actor, and podcast host.

My goal for my writing is to tell sharp, untamed stories that challenge the way people think about gender roles, life goals, and my Arab heritage. I write as a war survivor, a woman, and a Muslim, each identity takes a turn informing my work. I want people to walk away from my writing with questions that make them curious about the world around them and how they can defy it to find more joy and freedom.

Heather Lee Farrell lives in the mountains and open spaces of New Mexico.  My  professional background melds together modalities of healthcare and wellness with wilderness and embodied practices. You can read more at HeatherLeeFarrell.com. Lifelong, I’ve approached creativity infused with wellness and nature spending time outside creating earth art/alters and including creative expression as an aspect of health-care. I’ve always loved writing; but kept it private. Iit wasn’t until I wasn’t able to speak for a period of time while going through nine years of many surgeries due to a severe accident and adjunct medical issues that I truly embraced how powerful our words are. During that time, when I was well enough, I began writing almost as a devotion returning my voice to me. Creative energy felt renewing producing a unique regeneration of health and wellness. This made me more resilient, healed, and empowered while I was still considered unwell and recovering from surgery to surgery. During that time, I decided to explore writing several books. I first applied to Gateless as an act of bravery to claim becoming a writer. Joining Gateless has been transformative for me. I am excited to continue to learn, connect, and be part of this community of writers.

Stephanie Greene is an organizer of the Brattleboro Literary Festival and was a commentator on Vermont Public Radio for nine years.

She was Art Editor of Print Town: Brattleboro’s Legacy of Words, a history of local printing, publishing and writing, which won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Best Overall Design–Nonfiction.

Her fiction has appeared in Green Mountains Review, The New Guard, Sky Island Journal, Literally Stories, The Writing Disorder, Transform the World and Solstice. It has been nominated for Best of the Net and for a Pushcart Prize.

She lives in southern Vermont with her husband, writer Marshall Brooks.

Kate Chaney: I’m a writer of life. An emotional sponge that needs a place to wring myself out and make room for more. I pour my truest self onto the page – the one I keep veiled just enough to give the appearance of “having it all together.” Through writing, I explore the twists and turns of life that play out in my anxious mind.

A list of just the facts: Katie, Kansas City, grieving mother, wife, daughter, friend, survivor, education junkie, multi-career collector, including life coach, fitness trainer, and aspiring writer.

After going from a stay-at-home-mom to award-winning activist filmmaker, Top 100 podcaster and sought-after international speaker, Denise Soler Cox uses her experience to produce inspiring conten that sparks meaningful and transformative dialog. In 2020 Denise was recognized as a “Featured Host” by Apple Podcast North America for her podcas “The Self-ish Latina” which has listeners in 32 countries. Denise has been invited to speak on over 400 stages including two TEDx talks and has worked with some of the world’s most recognized brands like Progressive, Microsoft, AARP, Facebook, LinkedIn, JP Morgan Chase, Salesforce, Procter & Gamble, Dow Jones, Eli Lilly, KPMG, Starbucks and VaynerMedia, SONY, to name a few. Her work with Project Eñye has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Forbes.com, CNN, NBC Latino, Chicago Tribune, Telemundo, Univision, Fox News Latino, HOLA and the Huffington Post. Denise is a distinguished member of the 4th Cohort of the Stanford Latino Leaders Entrepreneur Program and was a National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) 2017 Fellow. She was honored to be selected as the 2018 recipient of the “Bridge Builder Award in Education” from the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Simon & Schuster will be publishing Denise’s debut book, “What Will They Say?” in 2026.

Dr. Sarah Johnson is an American historian with twenty years of teaching experience in higher education and over ten years of experience in public history. She currently serves on the steering committee of a European Union research group, ACORSO through the University of Brighton, and is working on a manuscript project about the history of American mail order. She is an author and speaker on topics at the intersection of material culture, design/mass production history, and women’s labor history. She has worked and consulted for nonprofits, museum collections, and historical societies, and is about to launch a content creation business.

Helen Kweskin: I’m a retired high school English teacher (a career I loved for 45 years), and am now focusing on my own writing.

Born in England and spent my early years in Colombia and Venezuela; education in Philadelphia and Washington DC, before moving to Connecticut.

Married to a retired attorney; we have two adult children and six grandchildren (three of whom are growing up in Geneva, Switzerland).

For the past 15 years I have been involved with educational missions in Rwanda, East Africa. Am a very active person, stymied this year by knee issues, but packing my hiking poles for the cobbled streets of Cortona. Nothing will hold me back!

Melissa Dugan: Raised in Southern California, my journey took me to Boston where I earned a BA from Emerson College, enjoyed concerts, museums and getting lost in the city, on purpose (the best way to learn a new city). During my years in Boston, I worked in various media, hospitality and state agency positions. Career goals fell as life happened and I experienced vision issues but apparently now there’s a new story being created. Currently I live in Texas with my long-time boyfriend, I am grateful to have found Gateless and looking forward to being part of the Academy for the third time.

Jean Haynes writes at the intersection of family history and fiction.

Recent research into her family’s roots revealed stories of courageous female ancestors overcoming hardship, searching for identity, and developing agency in a man’s world. Set against a backdrop of family, faith, hope, and resilience, she believes their legacy can empower today’s women and girls as they create their own life stories.

Jean is a life-long learner, book lover, and history nerd. When she is not reading, writing, and researching, you’re likely to find her walking the beach, doing yoga, or playing with her grandchildren.

Kelly Anderson: “I’m an academic HIV physician, but I’ve always been drawn to intuitives and naturalists – people who understand something deeper about the world we live in, and can help unshackle the rest of us from the hustle and grind. I love to write elements, myth and literary love stories. I’ve guided thousands of women doctors through writing experiences at Understory (understory.me), my non-profit designed to bring women doctors back into their instincts. My writing has appeared in many books, including The Surprising Lives of Small-town Doctors (2016) and Pursuing Health (2018). I’ve published in Academic Medicine (2012), the Journal of Adolescent Health (2013), Social Medicine (2014), the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (2014) and the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine (2012 and 2018), amongst others. I’m an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, teaching about community, ethics and belonging for over a decade. I spent my childhood on the beaches of British Columbia where most of my stories unfold.”

Jill Lyons: Fueled by the natural beauty of Vermont, and the love and care of friends and family (2- and 4-legged), Jill Lyons leads a life filled with new adventures and learning opportunities. She is passionate about the self-awareness that equine experiences provide, and she endeavors to become more skillful and subtle in all her communications.

Jill and Heidi Garvey, in partnership with many horses, have co-created Unbridled Ways at Heart and Heritage Stables, where they offer equine-guided sessions and multi-day retreats. Each session demonstrates that we all have, deep within us, the answers to our own questions. Heidi and Jill serve as witnesses who gently ask intuitive questions, while the equines and the universe conspire to ensure the answers are palpable. Each magical interaction helps bring inner clarity to those seeking answers, and information to guide their path forward.

Writing and reading are intertwined for Jill. They stimulate her soul and senses; awaken her to who she is and what she believes in; and give her insight into the person she aspires to be. Her most recent venture is writing a playbook that will provide the same deep zing of understanding people experience in an Unbridled Ways session. In listening to their life, contemplating their histories and re-experiencing their lives through the lenses of others who were present, readers will feel awe for the lives they have created, gratitude for how their challenges have fed their souls, and open them to the person their most profound self is encouraging them to become.

Jill has an extensive background with innovative occupational therapy approaches, including being primary founder and director of the non-profit Philo Center. Profound daily connections with children, their families and care/educational professionals began her immersion into each person’s unique gifts.

Outside of the barns, she loves and learns from Mark, her husband and partner of 40 years, their 2 adult sons and their brilliantly creative wives, and a menagerie of fur-babies and -grandbabies.

John Lincoln: “I’m just a guy trying to be the best man I can be in this world, who thinks about everything, lives life fully, loves to tell stories and likes to laugh ’till my eyes water. I have a wonderful partner, a pooch, a bald kitty, three parrots, a tortoise, a chameleon and some of the best people in my life a guy could wish for. I believe that we’re all unique and when we understand and lean into who we most authentically are, with honesty and vulnerability, we thrive infinitely. I coach people to do that – it’s the job I was born to do but could not do until I was ready.

I’ve done the corporate thing from dishwasher to Director, taken an intentional two-year sabbatical traveling the country on my “Travels with Pooter and Petunia Tour” in my Airstream trailer with my dog and cat, told stories on stage with Molly Ringwald, won a gold medal in men’s singles figure-skating at the Gay Games and tend to straighten pictures when they’re crooked. I am a lover of language and a linguistic lint-picker, thrilling at the power of the written word that stimulates my expanding mind, allowing me to will images into existence, in flights of fancy, grounded in truth.

Oh, and I am writing a memoir of my life.

Facebook: facebook.com/hjohnlincoln and facebook.com/groups/strengthsassessment
 YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCRhVAoa_jqFmTzskSzZhgGg
 Blog: ponderablepostulations.blogspot.com

Emily Stroia an entrepreneur, yoga and meditation teacher, published author, and speaker. She has spent the better part of 12 years sharing holistic health and wellness practices to enrich women’s lives. She is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and discovered some unique practices that allowed her to find peace and build a life after many years of trauma. Emily has been featured in the New York Times about her experience around motherhood, and she’s written articles for Medium, Vice, and Huffington Post. She also appeared on numerous wellness platforms, including Insight Timer, Thought Catalog, Gaia, Tiny Buddha, and more.