Christo Brand was a guard at the apartheid-era prison on Robben Island, South Africa, where he became lifelong friends with Nelson Mandela. 

Ethan Casey is the publisher of Blue Ear Books. His own books include Alive and Well in Pakistan and Bearing the Bruise: A Life Graced by Haiti.

Beth and Jonathan Evans are internationally known batik artists who have created, shown, and taught their art all over the world. With combined experience of more than ninety years working in the batik medium, they both have led dedicated and adventurous lives in art. They own and run Shalawalla Gallery, housed in an old train boxcar in La Veta, Colorado, USA.

Lisa Carrington Firmin is a writer, poet, and author of the books Stories from the Front: Pain, Betrayal, and Resilience on the MST Battlefield and Latina Warrior. She retired from the United States Air Force as its most senior ranking Latina officer in 2010 after serving 30 years. 

David Grantham currently serves as a Senior Fellow with the Center for a Secure Free Society, where he researches and publishes on regional security matters related to the western hemisphere. Prior to that, David served as Senior Fellow of National Security at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and as an officer in the United States Air Force with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI).

David Howell is a Professor in the Humanities Department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Edith Mirante founded ProjectMaje.org in 1986, to distribute information on Burma (Myanmar) human rights and environmental issues. She is the author of two groundbreaking books on Burma’s conflict zones, Burmese Looking Glass and Down the Rat Hole, as well as The Wind in the Bamboo about Black Indigenous Asians and Where the Mithuns Are: Essays on War, Art and Beasts (from Blue Ear Books.) Her Project Maje archive is at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library. She has testified before the U.S. Congress, European Trade Commission and the International Labor Organization. Also a visual artist, she lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Active since the mid-1970s, guitarist-composer-arranger Dennis Rea has led or been a key contributor to such innovative groups as Moraine, Iron Kim Style, Zhongyu, LAND, Savant, and Earthstar and has worked with such prominent creative musicians as Hector Zazou, Stuart Dempster, Cui Jian, Albert Kuvezin, Klaus Schulze, Han Bennink, Hawkwind members Nik Turner and Michael Moorcock, and members of King Crimson, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Santana, and the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Stephen Russell, a former airborne infantryman with a decade of military service, brings a unique perspective shaped by his deployment with Bco 1/12 3HBCT 1st Cav DIV to Baqubah, Iraq, during the surge in 2006-2007. Beyond the battlefield, he’s a versatile artist, created the comic series Tales of Nihilism, and is open for traditional art commissions.

Patrick Rutikanga is transforming an orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda into a trauma-informed community center for vulnerable children and their families. His work is based on providing trauma-informed services through afterschool programs and early childhood programs that are very culturally appropriate to the Rwandan and African community.

Yuliya Shirokova immigrated from Kyiv, Ukraine to Tacoma, Washington in August 1996, at age 13. She served as a combat medic in the Washington State Army National Guard and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s in health administration.

Travis Vanderpool, author of Touching the Face of God: A Fighter Pilot’s Story, is a retired attorney from Dallas, Texas. Prior to law school, Travis served six and a half years in the United States Air Force, including a combat tour as fighter pilot in the F-100 Super Sabre in Vietnam in 1967-68. Upon returning from Vietnam in 1968, he served as an Instructor Pilot in the T-38 Talon.
Travis retired from the USAF in 1971 and began law school. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and Economics from Texas Christian University in 1965 and a Juris Doctor degree from the Southern Methodist University Deadman School of Law in 1974.
Travis practiced law in Dallas for forty years. Toward the end of his career, he was elected Chair of the Board of Directors of the State Bar of Texas. Travis and his wife live in Austin, Texas, where they enjoy being close to their adult children and their two grandsons.