2024 Authors/Speakers

Nicola is a five-time Amazon Best Selling author with a Master's of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Administration in Marketing. She enjoys writing marketing books to show her analytical side. But gets her creative juices flowing by writing children's books.

Her passion for writing started at the age of 10 with poetry. She recently published a book called "Brown As I am " to empower young brown boys. Currently, she lives in sunny Florida with her military spouse husband, and creative daughters.

Comic Book Artist, writer, publisher, cosplayer. Army Veteran. Loves to draw and meet people in the creative industry.

That I strive to help people understand their worth in all aspects of life.

I am inspired everyday to be an agent of change!!

Antwan Floyd Sr. is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Black Love, a black private investigator living in Chicago, IL; they are perhaps his most popular works.

Maria Anderson was born and raise in Boston, Massachusetts. Her faith is her foundation and her family is her motivation. She is a foodie who loves trying new restaurants, the most unique food trucks or anywhere that lets her share a good meal with the people she loves!

Maria loves to travel, especially to warmer climates that have drinks with umbrellas, and she loves spending time with friends and family making memories and living life to the fullest.

Joanna Avin is founding President/CEO of HeartWork Precision (www.heartworkprecision.com), a training and development company dedicated to strengthening the souls of individuals to become emotionally intelligent leaders. For over 15 years, she has partnered with corporations, non-profit organizations, and clients seeking transformational growth.

Certified by High Performing Systems, Joanna is a seasoned Emotional Intelligence Coach, and a sought-after speaker. She encourages her clients to lean into their discomfort to become the difference they want to see personally and professionally. As a result of her passion and drive countless lives have been changed. Leaders are excelling, broken families are being restored, clients are evolving from the mindset of being a victim to becoming victorious, and the work continues.

Maya Angelo said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” These word drive Joanna to make a difference one person, one organization, one audience at a time.

Her published works are: Conversations and Questions You Should Have When Dating Over 30?, children’s book It’s Ok, God made me this way. Soon release This Love.

Derrell Nelson is an international best-selling author and philanthropist who began The Global School Supplies Charity. His book Tour De Hoops: Bigger Than Basketball ranked in the top 50 best-sellers in Amazon UK for young-adult basketball books. Derrell has been featured on the Roku TV Show ANEW You and the Hoop Heads podcast which streams on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. His book "Bigger Than Basketball" might be the craziest basketball story you will ever read. 30 chapters. 4 quarters. 10 countries. Championships overseas. Basketball during the pandemic. Agent scams. NBA legends and much more.

Meet Shantasha Naomi Laing, author of Not A Monolith: poems and musings of a black woman, her debut poetry book. Shantasha Naomi Laing was born in Brampton, Canada, but primarily raised in Orlando, FL. The eldest of six children, Shantasha grew up in a Jamaican household surrounded by many matriarchs in her youth. She moved several times during childhood, attending 16 schools K-8th which attributed to her adaptable nature. Shantasha takes pride in being a daughter, granddaughter, niece, friend, confidante, and above all, an eldest sister and bonus mom. Shantasha graduated from the University of Florida, where she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Science while her diploma currently collects dust in the closet at her home in Tampa.

Comic book creator and writer.

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Blowtorch/DaisyChain

I love to imagine. There is freedom in imagination and putting it into a story. I wrote, directed and produced my first play for my church's youth group at age 17. I struggled with expressing myself and writing poetry helped me to develop a voice of expression. I raised a daughter, who gave me a great son-in-love and a beautiful granddaughter. I wrote my first novel Finding Renee which is a trilogy and I'm currently working on my second novel.

In his second poetry collection, author and poet Troy R Legette shares a blend of various poetic forms providing inspiration, motivation, and healing to readers of all ages. The Objective Scholar: Poetic Wordplay is a literary work that stems from a journey of self-improvement as a writer.

Written to eloquently deliver sounds, rhythm, and style that honor and bend the rules, the content is a resource for librarians, teachers, and professors to use when working with novice writers. These poems are fueled by the author’s experiences and observations as an Afro-American male within Black America, offering a solid confluence of themes and ideas relevant to the present-day.

I consider myself an exotic, erotic, unselfish story teller

Jeffrey White is a ghost writer, editor, and the author of 9 books, with 5 of them
becoming best sellers. Prior to his writing career, Jeffrey worked in the financial services
industry, where he was a licensed stockbroker. For several years, he had a book of
business, where he managed his client’s portfolios and advised them on their stock, bond
and mutual fund investments. He also helped them devise plans to meet their long term
investment goals.
After becoming disillusioned with corporate America, Jeffrey left the industry, letting his
licenses expire and became a certified personal trainer and wellness coach. He quickly
realized being “fit” is more than just physical exercise, it also means to be strong
mentally, spiritually and financially as well. They are all interconnected, and in order to
be the best we can be, each must be acknowledged and improved simultaneously.
With that revelation, Jeff White Fitness Solutions LLC was born.
Jeffrey is also an avid triathlete, competing in the fun, yet challenging swim-bike-run
events since 1996. His favorite distance is the “70.3,” which is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile
bike and 13.1 mile run. He has completed every race he has entered, and lives by two
mottos: “Believe and you can achieve!” and “Have a Fitness problem? Let’s find a
fitness solution!”

Retired Army veteran who loves to write

Samantha Tubbs-Crews is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who is very passionate about empowering others. She considers her work an awesome opportunity to assist her clients in tapping into the tools they already possess and helping them to develop additional tools for life stressors. She is a private practitioner but also enjoys speaking engagements, retreats, teen girl forums, and women conferences. In her leisure time, she looks forward to traveling, relaxing, and spending time with family and friends.