Ijeoma Oluo is a writer and speaker whose work on race has been featured in The Guardian, New York magazine, xoJane, Jezebel, and more. She is also an editor-at-large at The Establishment, and Seattle magazine named her “one of the most influential people” in Seattle.

Jessica Valenti is the author of multiple books on feminism, politics and culture. Jessica is also the founder of Feministing.com. Her writing has appeared in publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Nation, and Ms. magazine. She is currently a columnist at the Guardian US. Jessica lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Dawn Dais is an author, freelance writer, and designer. Her previous books include The Sh!t No One Tells You series of parenting titles. She lives in Sacramento.

Julie Scelfo is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, where her stories about how we live routinely appear on the Times‘s more e-mailed list. Prior to joining the Times in 2007, Scelfo was a correspondent at Newsweek, where she covered breaking news and wrote about society and human behavior. She covered the events of September 11, 2001, live from lower Manhattan, then reported extensively on the attack’s environmental and emotional aftermath. Scelfo lives with her family in New York City.

Andrea Owen, CPCC, has emerged as a powerhouse in the life-coaching world. Since founding her signature program Your Kick-Ass Life in 2010, she’s reached more than 1.2 million readers through her blog and taught workshops sponsored by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. She lives in Stokesdale, North Carolina.

Susan Stryker is associate professor of gender and women’s studies, as well as the former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona. She is the author of many articles and several books on transgender and queer topics. She won a Lambda Literary Award for the anthology The Transgender Studies Reader (Routledge 2006), and an Emmy Award for the documentary film Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria (Frameline/ITVS 2005).

Julia Serano is a highly regarded writer and thinker on the subjects of gender, feminism, and LGBTQ issues. She is best known for her 2007 book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, which garnered rave reviews-The Advocate placed it on their list of “Best Non-Fiction Transgender Books,” and readers of Ms. Magazine ranked it #16 on their list of the “100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time.” Julia’s writings have also appeared in numerous anthologies; in feminist, queer, and progressive magazines and websites (including Bitch Magazine, Out, AlterNet.org, Ms. Magazine blog, and Feministing.com); and are regularly used as teaching materials in gender studies, queer studies, psychology, and human sexuality courses in colleges across North America.

Julia’s background as a writer, performer, activist, and biologist (she has a PhD in biochemistry from Columbia University) makes her a unique voice on the subjects of gender and sexism. She has the rare gift of being able to present complex ideas from feminism and gender/queer theory, and to interweave them with her personal experiences as a bisexual trans woman, in a clear, compelling, and entertaining manner.

Rory Dicker teaches classes about women and literature, feminist pedagogy, and the history of American feminisms at Vanderbilt University, where she is the director of the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center. She is the coeditor of Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century.