Founder + Publisher

Kristen is a best-selling author, editor, and long-standing publishing professional. After spending the first decade of her career working in editorial for Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins, as well as in film development at Warner Brothers, Kristen wrote the bestselling memoir, 51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life. Her most recent book, Live Through This, is being a released in October 2023. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, Shondaland, and Marie Claire. Kristen lives in Ojai, CA with her husband, two children, and a dog named Lucy.

Director of Publicity + Marketing

Lauren is the best-selling author of Unboxed: Essays on Learning to Trust Myself So I Could Stop Doing the Things I Hate. Lauren has spent the past 25 years working in sales, fundraising, and marketing through various industries, realizing that the most powerful part of a storied work history is the wide variety of human connection. She is endlessly curious, a lover of books, travel, and new adventures. Lauren lives in Mt. Kisco, NY with her husband, three children and two dogs.

Chief Financial Officer

Elena Azzoni, MFA, is a Certified Financial Coach and consultant with over 20 years' experience. Throughout her career, she has ushered companies from startup mode through successful exits. In 2021, Elena completed training as a Certified Financial Education Instructor and launched her own coaching & consulting firm, Facts + Figures, LLC. When she’s not crunching numbers, Elena is an author whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Huffington Post, Elle, Make/Shift magazine, and feminist anthology We Don't Need Another Wave. She is the author of A Year Straight, published by Seal Press (Hachette Book Group). Elena holds an MFA from New College and a BA in Social Thought & Political Economy and Women’s Studies from UMass, Amherst.

Chief Creative Officer

Vyana is an ecological artist & educator based in Ojai, California. Before joining the Rise Literary team, Vyana spent a decade doing freelance design, brand strategy, creative direction, and teaching. Their studies spread wide across various art media, somatics, and relational skills. They use earth pigment paint making & color science alongside these interpersonal skills to explore how creativity sustains & heals us as people.

Their work & facilitation is heavily inspired by their near death experience, guiding their use of multimedia storytelling as a tool for intergenerational healing & legacy making.

Content Director

Raya is a producer, writer, and lyricist with an unwavering love for literature and the written word. Outside of her professional pursuits, Raya enjoys exploring new bookstores, penning her own stories, and watching objectively bad film and television. She believes in the power of literature to foster community, provoke thought, and provide much-needed escapism. With degrees in English, Communications, Psychology, and Social Media Marketing, she aspires to continue contributing to the creative world for years to come.

Publishing Manager

Sienna is a passionate writer with a penchant for fiction. She fell in love with the written word as a child, when it first ignited possibility, creative thinking, and expanded the world. She went on to complete her BA in Fiction, magna cum laude, from Columbia College Chicago, where her unwavering curiosity for real-world experience led her to the parenting community, where she excelled at forging connections and forming lasting relationships. She now writes on Substack, where her cumulative decade of experience in early childhood education, along with her belief in the power of story and narrative, converge. She resides in Ojai, CA, where she enjoys trail running, swimming under the stars, and penning her debut novel.