The Mindfulness Effect: An Unexpected Path to Healing, Connection and Social Justice

Dena Samuels, PhD serves as a mindfulness-based leadership development and cultural inclusion consultant. Author, activist, public speaker, and award-winning educator, she taught for 20 years at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs in the Women's & Ethnic Studies program while consulting around the U.S. and beyond. Her passion is to inspire people to raise their personal and social consciousness to live more fulfilling, connected, and meaningful lives; and to assist organizations, campuses, and corporations in building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultures. Samuels' latest book, The Mindfulness Effect: an unexpected journey to healing, connection, & social justice (Night River Press, 2018) offers 25 mindfulness practices for self-empowerment and cultural inclusion. Her previous book, The Culturally Inclusive Educator: Preparing for a Multicultural World (Teachers College Press, 2014) provides transformative inquiry and strategies for building cultural inclusiveness. Over her extensive career, Dr. Samuels has been interviewed in print, radio, online, and on TV. Most notably, she was interviewed by the Colorado affiliate station of NPR; and by the Huffington Post. She is also a featured speaker in Thomas Keith's documentary, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? (2019). Samuels volunteers as co-facilitator of the monthly Second Tuesday Race Forum of Denver, and also as co-chair of The Privilege Institute, the institutional home of the annual White Privilege Conference. In Denver, Samuels serves as a culturally inclusive, trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness instructor.

Matthew LaFleur {Illustrator} was born with a crayon in his hand and goofiness in his soul. As a boy, he would draw Pac-Man-inspired battle scenes or intricate underground mazes with physics-defying tunnels leading to contraptions of mechanical wonder. Comic books, pen and ink, watercolor, and how to express them all digitally, came after. Matt has been an illustrator for 15 years, having received a BFA in illustration from Syracuse University. His clients include The Wall Street Journal, The American Bar Association, Fused Muse Ensemble, and W. W. Grainger. He has illustrated books for Sterling Publishing: whodunits, baseball trivia, many MENSA puzzle book covers; most recently, a young adult book called "Who Is Evelyn Dae?" for CreateSpace. The Toothless Fairy was Matt's first children's picture book. Matt currently lives in Chicago and is the proud father of two art and music loving daughters.