Alena Guest was the recipient of the Carmen Gabriela Etcheberry-Freund Memorial Fellowship for 2012. Her essays, articles and poems have been published in The Noyo River Review, Good Words (College of the Redwoods) and Real Estate Magazine. Ravishing is her first memoir. The author has written scripts for, as well as recorded over 800 guided visualization CDs, for her private clients and the general public (e.g. Restful Sleep, Preparation for Surgery and Healing Anxiety). In 2010, Ms. Guest was among the first medical support hypnotherapists to be hired, as an allied staff member, at a regional hospital (the Mendocino Coast District Hospital). In addition, she's taught medical hypnosis at conferences-for the International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association, in Daytona Beach, Florida and for HypnoThoughts, in Las Vegas, Nevada. She's also presented at service organizations, (e.g. Soroptimist International and Rotary International). Alena completed an accelerated graduate program at the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management in 1981, after receiving an undergraduate degree at Allan Hancock College the previous year. Ms. Guest is also a fine artist who received training at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. In addition, she received dramatic training, as a contract player for Columbia Studios. She received her certification as a clinical hypnotherapist in 2008 from the Hypnotherapy Academy of America in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as certification as a neuro-linguistic programming practitioner from Inner Mind Sourcing in 2013. The author has been interviewed for radio, television, YouTube and podcasts, on the subject of medically applied hypnotherapy. Some examples are: "Work Smart Hypnosis," "Miracles in Hypnosis," and the Unlimited Human Magazine. Additionally, the author has considerable experience as a professional actress (SAG, AFTRA) for TV, film, commercials and live theater.