Author Conner Gorry has spent decades writing guidebooks for Lonely Planet, (Cuba included), reporting from post-disaster situations, and covering Cuban life from the inside for a variety of international publications. She first visited Cuba in 1993 and has been permanently based and officially accredited as a journalist in Havana since 2002 where she reports on everything from clinical trials to questionable fashion.

She has written several books about Cuba and founded the island’s only English-language bookstore/cafe, Cuba Libro, in 2013; most of her explorations for her recent book, 100 Places in Cuba Every Woman Should Go (2018; Traveler’s Tales), were made on a 1946 Harley-Davidson, leading one observer to say: ‘Conner’s Cuba is where Shakespeare and Company meets Easy Rider.” Indeed, she has traveled nearly 5,000 miles across the island on two wheels – necessary field research for her book Cuban Harleys, Mi Amor, (2014; Backroad Diaries) with photographs by Max Cucchi.

She writes about contemporary life in Cuba on her blog Here is Havana (www.hereishavana.com) and recently published her first collection of prose, poetry and rants TWATC.

To learn more:

www.connergorry.com

www.cubalibrohavana.com

Lavinia Spalding is the author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler and the co-author of With a Measure of Grace, the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant and This Immeasurable Place, Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness. She is the six-time series editor of The Best Women's Travel Writing, and she wrote he introduction to the e-book edition of Edith Wharton's classic travel memoir, A Motor-Flight Through France. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Tin House, Post Road, AFAR, Yoga Journal, AirBnB Magazine, Sunset Magazine, San Francisco magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian UK, Off Assignment, Inkwell Journal, Ms., Westways, and Every Day with Rachael Ray, and her essays have been anthologized in Lonely Planet's An Innocent Abroad, Independent Bookstore's Days Like This, and two volumes of The Best Travel Writing. She has won gold Lowell Thomas and SOLAS awards. She is a member of the Writers' Grotto and Peauxdunque Writers Alliance. She lives in New Orleans and on Cape Cod, and shhe teaches writing workshops around the world, from Machu Picchu to Mexico and Morocco, Nepal to New Orleans. Watch her popular TedX talk here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CNulcWfi-0

When she was three years old, Erin Van Rheenen's parents moved the family from Portland, Oregon, to Lagos, Nigeria. This two-year stint would be the first of many extended stays abroad--from Quito to Dublin to Oaxaca to Costa Rica--that inspired her to write about her experiences outside of her home country.

Besides authoring and updating Living Abroad in Costa Rica (livingabroadincostarica.com), Erin also writes fiction, children's books, science curriculum, essays and articles. She has contributed to guidebooks, and publishes in venues such as Fiction, Afar, New American Media and the Los Angeles Times. Erin has won prizes for her fiction and nonfiction writing, and has been included in Best Women's Travel Writing.

Photos of Erin by David W. Smith.

Kelly Hayes-Raitt traveled to Iraq in Feb 2003 just 5 weeks before the US-led invasion. She returned a few months later to find the people who had so deeply touched her. Their stories begin her forthcoming book "Unveiled: How I Found Myself Among the World's Forgotten," a journalistic memoir about her experiences with Iraqi and Palestinian refugees.

This collection of loosely connected essays also chronicles Kelly's summer volunteering in Syria to help Iraqi refugees, her reporting from Israel and the West Bank about the innovative and inspiring peace efforts there, her meeting with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon whose families were devastated during the 1982 war, and her interviews with American "refugees" - residents of New Orleans' Ninth Ward who evacuated during Hurricane Katrina.

Several chapters from "Unveiled" appear in the anthologies listed here. Additionally, several chapters have won a total of 19 literary awards and appear in literary journals.

Following a successful 30-year career as a political consultant, spokesperson and commentator, Kelly now travels full-time -- and has been for the past decade! (She jokes she sleeps around to write.) She was awarded 5 residential writing fellowships (including one in Bialystock, Poland) in her first 5 years of nomading and now housesits internationally. She shares her experiences and tips in "How to Become a Housesitter: Insider Tips from the Housesit Diva."

Her column in Los Angeles' "The Argonaut" newspaper was named "second best" by the Southern California Journalists Association.

When not looking for an agent, Kelly works closely with authors by coaching and editing their books. She offers tips for overcoming writer's block at www.JumpStartMyBook.org.