BROOK WILENSKY-LANFORD

Associate Director of Sacred Writes

Wilensky-Lanford is Sacred Writes’ Associate Director and a freelance writer and editor. A member of the 2021 Sacred Writes training cohort, she is a historian of race, religion and literature in the “Long Reconstruction,” and also obsessed with narrative, liberalism, and utopias. Brook is a contributor to The God Beat: What Journalism Says About Faith and Why It Matters (Broadleaf Books, 2021), and the author of Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden (Grove Press, 2011). A former editor-in-chief of Killing the Buddha, her writing has appeared in Religion Dispatches, Religion and Politics, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. She has a PhD in Religion in the Americas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University. Follow her on Twitter @modmyth. 

samira mehta

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER

Samira Mehta is an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies at CU Boulder. Her research focuses on the intersections of religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the US. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (UNC, 2018) was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her book of personal essays, The Racism of People Who Love You (Beacon Press, 2023) was called “the epitome of a book meeting a moment” by Oprah’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023.” Mehta’s current academic book project, God Bless the Pill: Sexuality and Contraception in Tri-Faith America examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in moral logics of contraception, population control, and eugenics in the mid-twentieth century. Mehta is the primary investigator for a Luce Foundation funded project, Jews of Color: Histories and Futures.

phoebe farag mikhail

Phoebe Farag Mikhail is a Coptic Orthodox Christian and the author of Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church (Paraclete Press). She holds an M.A. in International Education and is a lifelong learner of theology, currently taking courses at Pope Shenouda III Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in Sojourners, Plough, Christianity Today, and other publications.

Lisa ann cockrel

Acquisitions Editor, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Lisa Ann Cockrel joins Eerdmans editorial team with a special emphasis on trade books, including literary nonfiction. For more than twenty years, Lisa has been curating conversations between writers and readers—in person, in print, online, and via multimedia—that stoke curiosity and spark both creative and contemplative engagement with the world. She was most recently director of programs for Image Journal and brings to her position vast experience that includes serving as director of the Festival of Faith & Writing, producer for Prime Time America, and editor for Christianity Today, Intl., Brazos Press, and Baker Academic. Cockrel also holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Bennington College. Read more here.

Valerie weaver-zercher

Senior Acquisitions Editor, Broadleaf Books

Valerie Weaver-Zercher is a writer and acquisition editor for Broadleaf Books. Her book reviews, op-eds, essays, and features have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Salon, Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, Christian Science Monitor, Publishers Weekly, Brain, Child, Christian Century, and Sojourners, among other venues. She is the author of Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels (Johns Hopkins, 2013), and her writing has been nominated for and received special mention for a Pushcart Prize. She is a regular book reviewer for the Christian Century, and books she has edited have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Christianity Today Book Awards. Valerie and her husband and sons live in central Pennsylvania. Connect with her at www.vweaver-zercher.com.