Lilly Workneh is an award-winning journalist who is passionate about impactful storytelling. She served as the editor-in-chief at Blavity News, where she directed the platform's mission to unpack and celebrate the many aspects of the Black millennial community. She previously led HuffPost Black Voices and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Lilly is a Rebel Girl who wholeheartedly believes powerful stories can shift perspectives, expand imagination, and deepen understanding, helping to build a better future for us all.
CaShawn Thompson is the brilliant mind behind Black Girls Are Magic and the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic. She believes in the phenomenal power and skill of Black women and girls. A passionate advocate of the work, will, and wonder of Black women, CaShawn champions their many causes online and in her everyday life. She lives right outside her hometown of Washington, DC, in Mount Rainier, Maryland, with her husband, two cats, and the various children and grandchildren who visit daily.
Diana Odero is a writer living in Nairobi, Kenya, with bylines in many lifestyle, business, and travel publications. Curious to explore the world, she spent her time learning on different continents, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chapman University (Orange, California) and University of Westminster (London, England), respectively. She is passionate about seeing her fellow women succeed and has spent the majority of her career writing about great women doing amazing things! An aspiring cat lady, Diana enjoys travel, reading, pastries, and a long stretch of beach.
Jestine Ware is a QPOC grant writer at the human rights organization Heartland Alliance by day and a stellar freelance editor, writer, and writing coach by night. She’s edited kidlit titles Madam C. J. Walker Builds a Business, Ada Lovelace Cracks the Code, Dr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest, and Junko Tabei Masters the Mountains. Her comics, poems, stories, and activities have been featured in Ladybug, Babybug, Spider, Cobblestone, Muse, Click, and Cicada magazines and on Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: The Podcast. In every project Jestine undertakes, she’s passionate about supporting those who don’t see themselves represented accurately—particularly communities of color, LGBTQIA+ folks, and people with disabilities. Originally from New York, Jestine lives in Chicago with her two feathered children, Owl and Sunny. In her spare time, she’s a book afficionado, comic book enthusiast, gardener, avid puzzler, and dabbler in writing afrofuturist science fiction, fairy tales, and nonfiction short stories.
Sonja Thomas always wanted to be a writer, but she was afraid. So she became an accountant instead. One day, she said "enough!" and finally pursued her dreams. Now she writes stories for children of all ages, often featuring brave, everyday girls doing extraordinary things. Her debut middle grade novel, Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence, was published in spring 2022 from Aladdin/Simon & Schuster. Originally from central Florida, she moved across the country and is now "keeping it weird" in the Pacific Northwest.
