Our Board
Stephen Kennedy Smith
Stephen Kennedy Smith, JD, M.Ed: Stephen has been actively engaged in the fusion of literature and social progress since the late 1980s when he first taught “Literature and Social Reflection” at Harvard with psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Coles, twice winning the Danforth Award for excellence in teaching. He received his Masters in Education at Harvard and then went on to be certified in Negotiations at Harvard Law School and teach conflict resolution and collaborative decision making to corporate clients and NGOs. Currently, in his capacity as a Founder and Executive Vice President at Pear Therapeutics, he is dedicated to increasing access to mental health treatment through digital technology and innovative partnerships. Stephen is a Lecturer at the Sloan School of Management and Fellow at the M.I.T. Media Lab where he develops programs in healthcare and values-based investing. He has worked as a senate speechwriter and speaks, internationally, on the importance of compelling narrative coherence in both business and interpersonal communication. Stephen’s immediate family has contributed significantly to the support of mental health and disabled communities through expressive arts by establishing programs such as Jean Kennedy Smith’s Very Special Arts organization and the New York University Veteran’s Writing Workshop Fellowship.
Theo Theoharis, PhD
Theo Theoharis, PhD: Theo is a distinguished professor, editor, translator and global lecturer on a wide range of classic and contemporary literature and poetry. He is known for his ability to convey transcendent messages and meanings for diverse and multi-cultural audiences of varying ages, interests and backgrounds. He is the author of, James Joyce’s Ulysses: An Anatomy of the Soul, and Ibsen’s Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy, as well as translator of Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy. He currently teaches in the Harvard University Comparative Literature Department, and presently offers original courses as varied as: “Getting Real: Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop”; “African American Fiction and Poetry, the Last 90 Years”, and “Classic 20th Century American Novels of the 50s and 60s: The Natural, To Kill a Mockingbird, and True Grit.” When not teaching in a traditional classroom setting, Theo also holds workshops for high school teachers and community leaders as well as corporate clients and international groups. His territory spans from Shakespeare in the public schools to Walt Whitman in China and his provocative syllabi continue to evolve and maintain relevance with the challenges of a volatile world.
Natalia Livingston
Natalia Livingston is an Emmy award winning actress, producer, and owner/founder of Actor Boutique. She has starred in over 900 episodes of national television, as well as motion pictures and national commercials. She was recently nominated for her second Emmy Award. Natalia produced National Geographic’s Red Alaska and was Co-Executive Producer of the PBS documentary The Man Who Ate New Orleans. Natalia joins the Board of Writers Without Margins to lead its documentary production team and produce its first film, In Their Shoes: Unheard Stories of Reentry and Recovery, which features six writers in residency at a prison reentry program. Natalia has been a guest lecturer at Emory University and Notre Dame University in the area of entrepreneurship in entertainment. She has also previously collaborated with other socially driven nonprofits, such as Usher’s New Look Foundation, providing underserved Atlanta youth free acting classes and introductions to industry professionals.
Lucinda Jewell
Lucinda Jewell, M.Ed., is a leader in mental health advocacy. In addition to serving as past chair and board member of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), she also has 30 years of professional experience including teaching, coaching, writing, public speaking and philanthropy. DBSA is the only peer-led national mental health organization that promotes wellness and extraordinary lives for people who have experienced mental health issues, particularly those associated with mood symptoms. She has represented the organization in Washington, D.C., at leading psychiatric and mind/body conferences, as well as at the Global Conference for Transformation, Conscious Capitalism, Deepak Chopra’s Sages and Scientists Symposium, the Kennedy Forum and has been a speaker at the International Society of Bipolar Disorders. With the partnership between physicists, neuroscientists and other thought leaders growing, she believes that a paradigm shift is imminent: when mental health conditions are framed as a possible access to the evolution of Consciousness, transformative strategies (beyond and including the medical model) for eliminating debilitating symptoms and/or cultivating their strengths and resiliencies will be developed and made available. She is a Co-Trustee of the HPB Foundation, former President of DBSA-Boston, and has served on the Associates Board of the Boston Public Library and First Literacy, among others. Presently she is working with MD/PhD entrepreneurs as an angel investor in three mental health/med start-ups.
Andre C. Willis
Andre C. Willis is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. He is a philosopher of religion whose work focuses on Enlightenment reflections on religion, African American religious thought, critical theory, and democratic citizenship as it relates to ‘religious’ notions of hope, recognition, and belonging. Willis earned a B.A. at Yale in philosophy and his M.A. and Ph. D. at Harvard in the Committee on the Study of Religion. He is the author of Towards a Humean True Religion (2015) and is currently working on a manuscript about African American religion and politics tentatively titled "Afro-theisms and Post-democracy".
Victoria Lee Hood
Victoria is a brand marketing and communications strategist. For nearly two decades, she worked in the global financial technology sector, based in New York and London. A native Bostonian of Taisanese-American descent, Victoria has served as an active advisor to organizations focused on women’s economic empowerment, immigrant rights, combating sexual assault against people with disabilities, LGBTQ+equality, and interfaith youth leadership. She earned a BA in Spanish Language and Literature, Phi Beta Kappa, from Wellesley College.
Our Advisors
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Abigail Judge
Abigail M. Judge, Ph.D. is a clinical and forensic psychologist whose work is dedicated to women at the intersection of commercial sexual exploitation and substance use. Dr. Judge has worked with this population as a clinician, educator, consultant, program developer and expert witness since 2009. Themes in Dr. Judge’s scholarship and practice are building collaboration between sectors that have been historically mistrusting and siloed and integrating clinical and peer expertise in services design and delivery.
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Brynne O’Hare
Brynne O’Hare is a teenage writer from Chicago, Illinois. She is Writers Without Margins’ first youth advocate. Through her D181 KIDS Grant she received and her work with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline You Matter Blog, she aims to inspire healing and destigmatization through writing. She has been published many times, most recently in Ms. Magazine as a featured youth columnist. Brynne focuses on creating change through literature, and is involved in a climate change panel and works with the Youth Civics Initiative. She hopes to pursue a career in justice and public service. Brynne enjoys competitive swimming, water polo, travelling, and participating in her local youth group. She has been a board member since 2019.
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Cynthia Preston
Cynthia Preston is an Actor and Producer, known for her roles in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Carrie, Showtime’s Total Recall 2070, and Whale Music, which was the opening film of the Toronto Film Festival and nominated for Best Picture in Canada. She has appeared in 41 films, played the lead in 19, and has been in more than 240 episodes of television. Among her many credits, Cynthia is the voice of Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda animated series.
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Jabari Asim
Jabari Asim is the Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Emerson College and former Executive Editor of The Crisis magazine, the flagship journal of the NAACP. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Only The Strong. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts.
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John Skoyles
John Skoyles is the Poetry Editor of Ploughshares. He has published six books of poems, and four of prose. His awards include two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as fellowships from the New York and North Carolina Arts Councils. He has previously taught at Southern Methodist University, Sarah Lawrence College, Emerson College and Warren Wilson College, where he directed the MFA program. He currently serves as a member of the Writing Committee of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
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Jose Hidalgo
Jose Hidalgo, MD is a member of the Division of Public and Community Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Director of Psychiatry at the Suffolk County House of Correction. He has an interest in improving the care for vulnerable and marginalized populations and has developed trauma-informed programs to improve the lives of victims of human trafficking, unaccompanied migrant children, and incarcerated people. Dr. Hidalgo enjoys teaching and training mental health professionals. He developed a course on providing mental health care in correctional settings for psychiatrists in training.
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Randall Horton
Randall Horton’s past honors include the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature, and most recently GLCA New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction for Hook: A Memoir, published by Augury Books/ Brooklyn Art Press. His previous works include poetry collections: The Definition of Place, and The Lingua France of Ninth Street, both with Main Street Rag and Pitch Dark Anarchy (Triquarterly/Northwestern University Press). Horton is an Associate Professor of English at the University of New Haven. He is a Cave Canem Fellow and a member of The Affrilachian Poets.
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Tricia Rose
Born and raised in Harlem and the Bronx, Rose graduated from Yale University where she received a BA in Sociology (1984) and then received her Ph.D. from Brown University in American Studies (1993). She has taught at NYU, and UC Santa Cruz and has, since 2006 been a Professor of Africana Studies at Brown. Rose is an internationally respected scholar of post civil rights era black U.S. culture, popular music, social issues, gender and sexuality. She has been awarded for her teaching and has received several scholarly fellowships including ones from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Association of University Women.
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Vincent Xeus
Vincent Xeus is a visual artist. His artworks have been featured in museum exhibitions and international art fairs such as Autry National Museum, Art Basel Miami Beach, LA Art Show, and Art Market San Francisco. He is the recipient of international awards from institutions including Portrait Society of America and Art Renewal Center. He served as the Board Director of Arts Council of Napa Valley and as Yountville Arts Commissioner. Xeus was named one of the top 100 living artists of the contemporary era by Buzzfeed and Poets And Artists. Vincent Xeus holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Columbia University.