Deesha Philyaw

Deesha Philyaw is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer whose publication credits include Essence, Bitch, and Wondertime magazines, and The Washington Post.  Deesha’s writing has been anthologized in Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal Press), and Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta!(GirlChild Press). She is an adjunct professor in Chatham University’s Master’s of Professional Writing program, and she teaches adult writing classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

In addition to freelancing and teaching, Deesha is the co-founder, along with her ex-husband, of CoParenting101.org, a resource for parents striving to raise their children together, cooperatively, after divorce or separation.  She also writes a monthly column at AntiRacistParent.com, a website for parents committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook. Prior to these endeavors, for four years, Deesha wrote a monthly column that was in part based on her experiences as an adoptive mother, for LiteraryMama.com.

Deesha is the mother of two wonderful daughters, ages 5 and 10.  In her pre-mama, pre-writing life, Deesha worked briefly as a management consultant and as an elementary school teacher.

Dr. Makungu Akinyela, Ph.D.

Dr. Makungu M. Akinyela, is a Marriage and Family therapist and a much sought after scholar / activist consultant on Black family life as well as an Associate Professor in the African American Studies Department at Georgia State University.  He is a co-founder of the Family Center of South DeKalb, a private practice family therapy center where he specializes in couple and relationship therapy. 

Dr. Akinyela is a Clinical member and an Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and past chairperson of the Metro-Atlanta Chapter of the Georgia Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.  He has presented and lectured at numerous conferences both nationally and internationally in such places as Adelaide, Australia; Durban, South Africa; Toronto, Canada; Vancouver, BC; Montreal, Canada; Manchester, England, Havana, Cuba and Hong Kong.

Dr. Akinyela serves of the editorial advisory boards of the International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy; and the Journal of Systemic Therapy.  Dr. Akinyela has written and published several journal articles, book chapters and commissioned monographs on issues related to Black families, mental health, African Centered family therapy and critical pedagogy.  

Lisa L. Carter, J. D.

Lisa is a family law practice attorney in Georgia and has worked to help families resolve their problems in this area of law for more than 10 years.  But, her passion for helping restore family structures began long before her professional career. She has long had a passion for people who had a desire to correct a relationship with another person but simply lacked understanding as to how and why that relationship correction was necessary.   Over the years, that passionate seed developed into sadness for children who suffered from a broken or absent relationship with their fathers.

Out of that passion, Lisa embarked upon a search to understand why a large number of men in this generation fail to actively function in their roles as fathers. What she discovered is that some men lack understanding of their purpose and the honor that comes with fatherhood.  Her pursuit of the answers to these problems led to Lisa’s directing and producing a feature-length documentary, A Fatherless Child–A Diary of Absence, and the birth of Seed in the Earth, a non-profit with the mission of restoring the honor of fatherhood.

Lisa is a regular contributor to the Words of Wisdom.

Have a question for Lisa?  Email her at wow@weparent.com.