Writer Bios

We couldn't offer The Well to our readers without the generous contributions of our writers. Read through their bios to learn from their stories and click through for links to the articles they have written. If you are interested in writing for The Well, explore our Writer's Guidelines.

Michelle Ami Reyes

Michelle Reyes (PhD) is the Vice President of the Asian American Christian Collaborative and Co-Executive Director of Pax. She is also the Scholar-in-Residence at Hope Community Church, a minority-led multicultural church in East Austin, Texas, where her husband, Aaron, serves as lead pastor. Michelle's work on faith and culture has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Missio Alliance, Faithfully Magazine and more. Her forthcoming book on cross-cultural relationships is called Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead to Lasting Connections Across Cultures (Zondervan; April 27, 2021). Follow Michelle on Twitter and Instagram.

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Ciara Reyes-Ton

Ciara Reyes-Ton is a biologist, science writer and editor who is passionate about science communication to faith communities. She has a Ph.D. in Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan. She has served as Managing Editor for the American Scientific Affiliation’s God & Nature Magazine, and previously taught Biology at Belmont University and Nashville State Community College. She is currently the Digital Content Editor for BioLogos and an Adjunct Professor at Lipscomb University. Outside science, she enjoys singing as part of her band Mount Carmell and drinking coffee. She recently released a new single “To Become Human,” a song that explores the biology and theology of what it means to be human. She is also the author of Look Closely, a science and faith devotional that explores the life of Christ by bringing scripture in conversation with science, from water walking lizards to dividing cells and resurrecting corals.

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Amy Reynolds (BA Harvard, PhD Princeton) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wheaton College and the Coordinator of the Gender Studies Certificate Program. She researches and writes on issues of economic globalization, religion and public life, and gender inequality. Before entering academia, she served with World Relief in El Salvador and with a public elementary charter school in DC. She and her husband Stephen Offutt, an assistant professor of development studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, have three daughters.

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Freelance writer and editor Kami Rice relocated to southern France in 2012 to study French. Presently based in Marseille, she aims to cover international stories with as much nuance and as little caricaturizing as possible. Follow her adventures on Twitter and Instagram.

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Jan is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She serves as director of The Wellspring Studio, LLC, and has traveled widely as a retreat leader and conference speaker. Known for her distinctive intertwining of word and image, Jan’s work has attracted an international audience drawn to the welcoming and imaginative spaces that she creates in her books, online blogs, and public events.

A native Floridian several generations over, Jan grew up in Evinston, a small community near the university town of Gainesville. The rural landscape, community traditions, and lifelong relationships fostered a rich sense of place, imagination, and ritual that continue to shape Jan's life and infuse her work.

Jan makes her home in Florida. She often collaborated with her husband, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles, until his sudden death in December 2013.

You can find Jan's distinctive artwork, writing, and more at her blogs and websites:

The Painted Prayerbook The Advent Door Jan Richardson Images Sanctuary of Women

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Lisa Rieck is a writer and editor on InterVarsity’s communications team. She worked at InterVarsity Press for over nine years as a proofreader and Bible study editor (and, as it were, resident limerick-writer). She is continually inspired by the beauty of the sky and loves good conversation with family and friends over steaming-hot beverages.

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Allison Rieck has a BA in English, an MA in Christian formation and ministry, and is currently pursuing an MS in nutrition. Prior to returning to school, she worked as managing editor at InterVarsity Press. When she's not studying, she likes to spend her time reading, cooking, going to classes at her gym and having long chats with friends over a cup of hot tea.

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Dr. Debra Rienstra is professor of English at Calvin College. She did her undergraduate work at University of Michigan and her graduate work at Rutgers. She is the author of Great with Child: On Becoming a Mother, So Much More: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality, and Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry. Her scholarly research interests are in English religious poetry of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and especially Psalm translations and paraphrases. She blogs at debrarienstra.com. Debra and her husband, Ron, have three children.

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Tricia Robinson

Tricia grew up in Georgia and spent hours drawing on big sheets of white paper, creating little worlds of girls and flowers. Her dream was to be a fashion designer in NYC, but instead she moved to Birmingham and has loved the community ever since. It was in Birmingham and on the beaches on 30A in Florida where she was inspired to start painting, and she loves to bring a sensus lusus (playful spirit) and joie de vivre into her art. “I want people to see my paintings and be inspired to view life with a little more playfulness and beauty.” That is Tricia’s hope: to bring smiles into people’s hearts through paint and brush. Find her at triciarobinson.com, on Facebook, or on Instagram.

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Rebecca Rodgers

Rebecca Rodgers has an MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. Along with essays about travels and spirituality, she enjoys writing flash fiction and magical realism. She is enjoying the beauty of her adopted home in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Bobbette Rose has an MFA from UW-Madison and works professionally as a designer and teaches classes and workshops through both university and community arts programs in design and fine art. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can see more of her work at her website.

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Sheila Wise Rowe

Sheila Wise Rowe is a graduate of Tufts University and Cambridge College with a master's degree in counseling psychology. For over twenty-five years she has counseled abuse and trauma survivors in the United States. Sheila ministered to homeless and abused women and children in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she also taught counseling and trauma-related courses for a decade.

Sheila is the executive director of The Rehoboth House and the cofounder of The Cyrene Movement, an online community for people of color seeking healing for racial trauma. She is the author of The Well of Life: Heal Your Pain, Satisfy Your Thirst, Live Your Purpose along with The Wonder Years. She lives in the Boston area, where she is a writer, counselor, speaker, and spiritual director.

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Allison has a PhD in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a passion for how couple relationships and families can be strengthened in order to stop the spread of HIV. A native of Oregon, she has lived in Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and (most recently) South Africa. She loves travel and discovery, the outdoors, having people over for dinner, and (most of all) being wife to Joel and mom to two little kids.

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Tania Runyan is the author of the poetry collections What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, and Delicious Air, which was awarded Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2007. Her guides How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay are used in classrooms across the country. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review, and the Paraclete book Light upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011.

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Brian is the Communications Director for what is affectionately known as DoIT (Division of Information Technology) at the UW-Madison. When not typing emails, speaking or planning, he can be found encouraging fellowship among colleagues at the UW. Or playing trombone in a few local bands. He and his wife Jacque are members of Door Creek Church.

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Fleming Rutledge

Fleming Rutledge is an Episcopal priest and a bestselling author. She was in full-time parish ministry for twenty-one years, fourteen of them at Grace Church in New York City. Her other books include Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ and The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (winner of Christianity Today's 2017 Book of the Year Award).

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Eeva Sallinen Simard

Eeva Sallinen Simard is the project director (chief of party) at SCOPE Project at World Relief and has more than ten years of experience working with missional NGOs from research to ministry. She is cofounder of BE Development Partners, a consulting firm that trains organizations to develop belonging cultures. Eeva holds an MSc in international politics from the University of Helsinki and an MBA from John Hopkins University, and she is a coconvener of the Wheaton Consortium for Development, Gender, and Christianity.

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Brenda Salter McNeil

Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil is an Associate Professor of Reconciliation Studies at Seattle Pacific University, directing the Reconciliation Studies program. She is also the Associate Pastor of Preaching and Reconciliation at Quest Church in Seattle. She is the author of Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race (2008), and The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change (2005), coauthored with Rick Richardson. Her newest book Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now is available August 2020.

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Scott Santibañez

Scott Santibañez is an adjunct professor and faculty advisor for Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Emory University. He has worked as a volunteer physician with underserved populations for over 20 years, and also has a doctorate from Trinity School for Ministry.

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Corianne Payton Scally

Corianne Payton Scally was a professor of urban planning and public policy at a public state university for seven years, where she received tenure. After running her own research consulting firm for the past year, she and her husband and two children are relocating to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area so she can pursue her passions, which include affordable housing and community development policy and implementation, at a national research organization.

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