Emily P. Freeman is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. As a spiritual director, podcast host of The Next Right Thing, and creator of The Soul Minimalist on Substack, hers has become a trustworthy voice of wisdom and direction for people as they make decisions in faith, work, and life. Emily holds a master’s degree in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership from Friends University where she serves as a residency lecturer. She and her husband, John, live in North Carolina where they are enjoying a newly empty nest with their three young adult children away at college.

Cindy Bunch is a seasoned editor, published author, and a trained spiritual director. She has worked in Christian publishing for 39 years, focusing her work on spiritual formation writing. Cindy currently serves as Senior Editor-at-Large at InterVarsity Press and is the primary editor for the IVP Formatio line of books which includes The Road Back to You, The Good and Beautiful God, Liturgy of the Ordinary, and Sacred Rhythms. She holds an MA in Theological Studies from Northern Seminary as well as a certificate in spiritual direction from North Park Seminary. Cindy is the author of Be Kind to Yourself and a number of LifeGuide® Bible Studies. She and her husband, Dan, divide their time between the Chicago suburbs and Houston, Texas, making sure that wherever they are their Llewelin setter gets time to run in the park each morning.

Casey Tygrett is a trained spiritual director and author with over 30 years of pastoral ministry experience. He is the author of three books including The Practice of Remembering: Uncovering the Place of Memories in Our Spiritual Life, which received the 2020 Award of Merit in Spiritual Formation from Christianity Today. He has both a Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry (Spiritual Formation) degree from Lincoln Christian Seminary, and has taught undergraduate and graduate seminary courses in both the United States and Australia. Casey focuses his writing on the intersection between spiritual formation and human development, often exploring unusual areas such as curiosity, memory, and restlessness to discover new ways in which we are shaped and formed by God. Casey, his wife Holley, and their daughter Bailey live in the Chicago suburbs with their dog, Winston.

Sharon Garlough Brown is a veteran retreat leader, spiritual director, and bestselling author of both the Sensible Shoes series and Shades of Light series of spiritual formation novels and study guides. Her book An Extra Mile was named Christianity Today’s 2019 Fiction Book of the Year. Her collection of spiritual formation poetry, Echoes of Yes, releases with IVP in 2027. Sharon holds a B.A. with highest honors in English literature from Smith College and an M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Jack, have served on the pastoral staff of churches in the US and UK. They currently live near Dundee, Scotland, where they enjoy exploring castles, being refreshed by the beauty of landscape, and watching dolphins frolic in the nearby River Tay.

Jeff Crosby has worked in the Christian publishing and bookselling industry for more than four decades. He currently serves as president of ECPA, the trade association of Christian publishing. During his 23-plus years at InterVarsity Press, he served as both the senior executive of sales and marketing and, for five years, as IVP’s publisher. He holds an MA in Leadership Studies from North Central College and a BA in journalism from Ball State University. He has done freelance development editing for memoir, non-fiction, spiritual formation, apologetics, and other genres of books. Jeff is the author of The Language of the Soul (Broadleaf), World of Wonders (Paraclete Press), and The Spirit in the Sky: The Power of Music in our Search for Graceland (Bloomsbury). He was the editor and compiler of the book Days of Grace through the Year and his work has appeared in numerous journals including CRUX, Books & Culture, Living Lutheran, Publishers Weekly, and on the Urban Faith website. He and his wife, Cindy, live in the Chicago suburbs, sharing space with their beloved black cat named Luan Andromeda.

Kathy Helmers is a literary agent and publishing consultant with nearly fifty years’ experience. After her B.A. (English) at The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, NY, she spent two years in Manhattan as a general-market magazine editor, then shifted into Christian book publishing in Colorado Springs with NavPress (editor, associate publisher) while completing an M.A. (English) from the University of Denver. She also did stints as a freelance editor and collaborative writer and as co-founder of a small press producing new editions of classic works by Ray Anderson, Donald Bloesch, Klaus Bockmuehl, James Loder, Eugene Peterson, Thomas Torrance, and other pastor-theologians and scholars. Her experience and interest in manuscript development and writers’ career trajectories led her into 30+ years of literary representation with established agencies (Alive Communications; Creative Trust Literary Group) and independently (Helmers Literary Services). Clients have included M. Craig Barnes, Tod Bolsinger, Ian Morgan Cron, Andy Crouch, Michael Cusick, Melanie Dale, Peter Enns, Kelly Flanagan, Leighton Ford, Makoto Fujimura, Richard Foster, Tracy Groot, Cynthia Heald, Todd Hunter, Mark Labberton, Brennan Manning, Brian McLaren, Donald Miller, J. Philip Newell, Luci Shaw, James Bryan Smith, Jim Wallis, Walter Wangerin, Jr., W. Lee Warren, Philip Yancey, and many others. Her avocational interest in animals and healing led to an M.A. in counseling/pastoral therapy (Belmont) with an internship and subsequent training in equine-assisted therapy and learning (horse barns are a terrific diversion from desk work).