Barbara Kessler, editor of GreenRightNow, has been covering green news for the past three years, and has been a lifelong advocate of chemical-free living. She previously covered child welfare and safety, and urban and suburban development at the Dallas Morning News, where she worked for 13 years. She worked in other newspaper and TV newsrooms in the Midwest and South since graduating from Northwestern University. Her hobbies include organic gardening, vegetarian cooking and photography. She volunteers on her school district’s nutrition committee and with the Boy Scouts.

Harriet L. Blake, contributor, is a veteran editor formerly with The Dallas Morning News and the Washington Post. A 1977 graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, she got her start in journalism at the Post where she worked in features. At the Morning News, she edited a Sunday lifestyles section on Texas news makers. Since relocating to the Boston area, she is pursuing a longtime passion chronicling environmental news and all things green.

Clint Williams is a 30-year journalism veteran who has covered politics, lifestyle trends and environmental issues for newspapers from Florida to Arizona. He paddled Georgia’s Chattahoochee River from the mountains to the sea and rode the roaring rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in pursuit of a good story. And he’s hiked to the top of Mount Whitney and to the bottom of the Grand Canyon just for fun. He went to college at Brevard College and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill back in the days when there was a draft.

Shermakaye Bass, contributor, has been covering news, features and foreign affairs for more than two decades. A former staff writer for The Dallas Morning News, she now lives in Austin and freelances for a wide range of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Austin American-Statesman and The Good Life magazine. In 2001, Bass’s interest in the environment took her to Nepal in 2001, where she co-organized the nonprofit Clean Nepal to institute recycling programs and create conservation awareness in the remote regions of the Himalayan Annapurna Massif. During the clean-up, groups of American and Nepali volunteers canvassed and cleaned more than 20 Himalayan villages.

Christopher Peake was a TV reporter in cities in the East and South and then with CNN as a correspondent in Central America and the Caribbean. Among the major stories he covered were the invasion of Granada, guerrillas in Honduras and El Salvador, the Mariel Boatlift, Haitian Boatpeople and three major riots in Miami. In 1990 he moved to New York City where he coached corporate executives on Message Development and Presentation Skills. In 2009 he moved to Exeter, New Hampshire to become Farmers Market manager for a family farm orchard, largest in the state. He was appointed the at-large member of the statewide UNH Extension Advisory Council and writes green articles for newspapers, magazines and TV websites.

Diane Porter, contributor, is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years’ experience in the newsrooms of The Austin American Statesman, The Arizona Republic and The Washington Post, editing features, arts & entertainment and education reporters. She grew up in Denver, before the Rocky Mountains were perennially hidden in a brown cloud, and lived in a co-op dormitory at the University of Kansas. She saves boxtops and aluminum can tabs for her nieces & nephews, recycles like a crazy person and has been known to stop her car to rescue junk on the side of the road, much to the delight or consternation of her passengers.

John DeFore, contributor, started his professional life as a full-time recycler: Upon graduating from the University of Texas, he opened a store devoted solely to the trade and resale of used CDs. Since leaving retail, he has written about arts and culture for such publications as The Hollywood Reporter, Blender, and Slate; he is also a regular contributor to The Austin American-Statesman. In his Central Austin neighborhood, DeFore’s 1991 Honda is a neighborhood landmark: Rarely used, it is almost always stuffed with recyclables that aren’t accepted at the curb.

Sommer Saadi, contributor, is a recent graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she majored in History and Business Journalism and was named a William O’Neil Business and Journalism Scholar and a Belo Foundation Scholar. Saadi has worked in media since middle school contributing to school newspapers and serving as editor in chief of the SMU Rotunda yearbook. Last year, she served as an editorial intern with D Magazine’s business journal D CEO, and she has worked as a stringer with The Dallas Morning News. Saadi’s experience studying abroad in London during her junior year ignited a passion for travel and a fascination for world cultures, and she enjoys learning about the global issues associated with environmental news. She also enjoys writing about the youth voice in the push for climate change and how green issues are becoming a part of this generation’s culture.

Catherine Colbert, contributor, has written for several companies since graduating from the University of North Texas with a degree in journalism. She has been a staff writer for several trade magazines, a medical writer for a pharmaceutical development company, a technical writer for computer manufacturers and consultants, and for the past five years, a business writer and analyst covering the consumer products, manufacturing and retailing industries. Colbert is raising two environmentally conscious sons, who, through their Montessori education, have taught their mom some valuable tips. Starting with simple concepts, such as shopping for items at the local farmer’s market to harvesting rain water and water from showers, they are learning from each other how they can help to sustain our precious resources.