Michael has been an artist and educator for twenty years. He currently teaches Art at the American International School, Vienna. He holds an MA in Art and Art Education from Columbia University in New York, and a BA in Studio Art from the University of Minnesota. He is a certified MBSR Instructor and long-time student of meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. He also teaches art to young people, leads the meditation, and art workshops for adults. He claims Sicily as an ancestral homeland. He first visited the island in 2012 to retrace the steps of his ancestors.

Teresa Hernández (photography and poetry) teaches journalism and photojournalism at Central Michigan University. She studied photojournalism at Syracuse University and worked as a staff photographer at The Grand Rapids Press for nine years. She is a longtime student and practitioner of meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and has completed the Shambhala arts teacher program. She writes and studies poetry as a contemplative practice.