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About the Contributors

Photographers:

Tom Olin has covered the disability rights beat since 1983, photographing the national activism of organizations like ADAPT and Not Dead Yet. He regularly photographs conferences of the National Council on Independent Living, of TASH, and of state independent living councils. Due to his photography, many of the pioneering activists of the disability rights movement will not be forgotten. He is currently archiving his work for the Smithsonian Institution.

Lila Aryan is a commercial and fine art photographer. She graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 1990 with a Bachelors degree in Fine Art-Photography. She owns her own commercial photography business and has exhibited her fine art photography in local galleries. Aryan volunteers her time and art to Arab World Fest, the AIDS Resources Center of Wisconsin, Eastbrook Church Drama Ministries and the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.

Francis Ford has been a photojournalist and editorial and commercial photographer in Milwaukee for the past 35 years. Ford was Picture Editor of Art Muscle Magazine from 1986-1997. He has taught photography at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design since 1992. Ford’s work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. His main focus has always been portraiture of the famous and not so famous.

John Sibilski is a people photographer, plain and simple. You can find his images in magazines, advertising, corporate reports and books. His involvement in A Celebration of Caregiving was motivated by deep respect for those who give themselves unselfishly to others. Sibilski lives in Wisconsin with his wife Stacey, an occupational therapist, and their three children.

Writers:

Crocker Stephenson, who lives in Milwaukee with his three children, is a staff writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is the author of "Blood Relative: Portrait of a Mass Murder," about the killings of the reclusive Kunz family in northern Wisconsin in 1987. It was published by Bonus Books in 1993.

John Hughes is an Episcopal clergyman who has been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as well as in Vital Source, Christianity Today and Milwaukee magazines. Author of the self-published book, "Broken Winged Flights," Hughes lives with the younger of his two daughters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Mary-Liz Shaw has been a journalist for 20 years, covering a range of beats for newspapers and magazines in the Midwest, Northeast and in Canada. She has worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 2001, where she writes entertainment features and reviews and edits a weekly entertainment calendar.

Editor:

Jamakaya is an award-winning writer, editor and historian based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is the author of "Like Our Sisters Before Us: Women of Wisconsin Labor," published by the Wisconsin Labor History Society in 1998. She wrote the centennial history of Ironworkers Local 8 and the Women’s Coalition of Milwaukee. She is a longtime journalist and also conducts grant writing for non-profit agencies.

Foreword:

Lee Schulz has been the Executive Director of IndependenceFirst, one of the country’s largest non-residential independent living centers, for over 20 years.