Leadership

Jennifer Billock is an award-winning writer, bestselling author, and writing coach. She has worked with businesses and publishers including the Smithsonian, The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Disney Books, The Atlantic, Kraft Foods, Midwest Living, Arcadia Publishing, and the MSU Press. She specializes in food, travel, history, and witchcraft. Check out her website at www.jenniferbillock.com, subscribe to her Substack at kitchenwitch.substack.com.

Merlisa Lawrence Corbett is a Central Florida-based independent journalist and author who writes about sports, home and garden, and real estate. She is the author of the book, “Serena Williams: Tennis Champion, Sports Legend, and Cultural Heroine.”

A former tennis columnist for Bleacher Report and reporter for Sports Illustrated, Lawrence Corbett wrote the foreword for Arthur Ashe Jr’s. “A Hard Road To Glory: A History Of The African American Athlete: Track and Field.” She covered sports for the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Tribune, and Pittsburgh Press.

Her work has also appeared in The Guardian, Essence, AARP, Black Enterprise, HGTV.com, Apartment Therapy, Capitol File, TennisView, First and Pen, and AJC.com (Atlanta Journal-Consititution). www.merlisa.com

Christopher Johnston has published more than 3,500 articles in numerous regional and national publications including American Theatre, Christian Science Monitor, History Magazine, and Scientific American. His book, Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice, was published by Skyhorse Publishers in May 2018. He teaches playwriting and creative nonfiction courses at Cleveland State University and a variety of workshops for the William M. Skirball Writers Center and Literary Cleveland. In 2020, Johnston received an Ohio Society of Professional Journalists award for best investigative reporting for a digital publication. In 2018 and 2019, he received an Ohio Arts Council grant and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Writer’s Alliance Grant. In 2019, he also received the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award from The Renee Jones Empowerment Center in Cleveland that provides a full spectrum of services to help women survivors of human trafficking recover.

David Steele has been a professional sports journalist for more than 35 years, writing for outlets that include The Sporting News, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday. His third book, It Was Always a Choice: Picking Up the Baton of Athlete Activism, was named one of the 10 Best Books in Arts & Humanities of 2022 by Library Journal. He also is the co-author of Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith. He also serves on the advisory board for the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland, and on the executive board for the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists.

A freelance journalist and content writer, Kim Kobersmith writes about philanthropy, arts + culture, and the outdoors, often from a rural or Appalachia perspective. Her work appears in the Bitter Southerner, National Parks Traveler, and the Daily Yonder. Kim joined ASJA as an associate member in 2022 and recently qualified as a professional member. She’s an active member of ASJA’s Membership Engagement Committee and will advocate for and act as a liaison to associate members.

A former TV and radio reporter, Cari Shane has worked as a fulltime freelance journalist and content writer for nearly a decade. A Manhattan native, she lives carless (that’s carless, not careless) in the nation’s capital and writes for a wide variety of publications including AARP, Fast Company, Fodor’s, Scientific American and Smithsonian. She has previous board experience with multiple organizations and currently volunteers as an editor with Street Sense Media, a nonprofit that produces journalism to elevate the voices of those experiencing homelessness in DC. Cari  joined ASJA in 2017 and served as co-chair of Client Connections in 2022 and 2023; she will chair the event again in 2024. Cari is looking forward to helping ASJA “get back on strong footing so it can increase membership and continue providing great programming.”

Richard Eisenberg is a freelance writer and editor and co-host of the Friends Talk Money podcast. He was formerly Managing Editor of Next Avenue and editor of the site’s Money & Policy and Work & Purpose channels and a writer there. He writes The View From Unretirement column for MarketWatch and also freelances for Next Avenue, Fortune.com and People. He was formerly Executive Editor of Money, Front Page Finance Editor of Yahoo! and Money Editor/Special Projects Director at Good Housekeeping. He is author of How to Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis and The Money Book of Personal Finance. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and lives in New Jersey.