TW: Sexual abuse of a child, eating disorders

“I became incredibly skilled at disassociating,” recalls dancer-turned-author, Antonia “Tunie” Deignan. With a lifelong passion for dance, Deigan used ballet to help herself cope with traumatic experiences at home and in school. She launched herself into a successful dance career despite trying to deal with her trauma with substance abuse and an eating disorder. When Deignan became a mother her world was transformed. A bike accident forced a reinvention that made her look back at everything she had been through and find the threads to recovery. Listen in to this gentle, honest, and thoughtful conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour to hear Deignan’s phenomenal story of survival, how she navigated facing her traumas, and how she used writing to process her grief and heal her soul.

Antonia Deignan is a mother of five children by choice, a dancer by calling, and a writer by necessity. She was born on the East Coast but spent most of her life in the Midwest, where she danced with multiple dance companies and raised her children. She opened her own dance studio and directed a pre-professional dance company before a bike accident wish-boned her path, and her identity. Instagram

Do you ever wonder how the most popular speakers and coaches land guest spots on top podcasts? Writer and podcast publicist Alice Draper knows the secret sauce. “Let’s say you’re leaving corporate and you’re starting a business,” she says. “Look at the examples around you…you’re bringing your own unique value.” With podcasts becoming the new platform for information and visibility, it’s important for entrepreneurs to understand how to use podcast guest-speaking to enhance their personal brand. In this conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Draper shares her practical advice on creating the perfect pitch to secure great podcast appearances. She also provides a downloadable outline for crafting a compelling pitch and shares actionable steps to get started.

Free gift! Grab our new ebook, 5 Days to More Time for You! We’ve packed it full of our favorite time management hacks to help you conquer your to-do list and create more time for the things that matter most.

About Alice Draper

Alice Draper is a podcast publicist who is on a mission to make publicity easy and accessible for underrepresented women entrepreneurs at all stages of their businesses. When Alice started building her business, she knew that publicity, in the right places, would garner her the authority she needed to position herself as a high-end copywriter. And so, she started pitching magazines like VICE, Refinery29, HuffPost, and Business Insider. This came with an unplanned skill — the art of the pitch — which is how she ended up pivoting her business towards publicity. She has been running Hustling Writers for over two years and in this time, she has secured her clients in over 500 podcasts including countless top 1% and top 0.5% podcasts. When Alice isn’t building out publicity strategies or thinking of new story angles, she is taking advantage of her location independence by house-sitting with her partner in places like Tbilisi, Nairobi, or Cape Town.

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“My family was advised that they needed to come very quickly to say goodbye,” says Geralyn Ritter. “My brother packed a dark suit for my funeral.” For Ritter, a near-fatal experience on the 2015 Philadelphia Amtrak derailment was the life-altering catalyst for a complete life and career reinvention. Her 2022 book, Bone by Bone: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing, details the story of her remarkable journey to recovery, moving through grief, trauma and healing. “The main reason I wrote it was to try to help other survivors,” she tells CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour in this candid conversation. “It has been enormously healing for me to be able to share my story.” Listen in to hear her insights on overcoming and the resources that supported her along the way.

Free gift! Grab our new ebook, 5 Days to More Time for You! We’ve packed it full of our favorite time management hacks to help you conquer your to-do list and create more time for the things that matter most.

About Geralyn Ritter

Geralyn’s doctors use the word “miraculous” to describe her survival and recovery. Today she lives a full life inspired by gratitude and offers hope and healing to many others. She is known for her distinctive laugh that fills a room and determined resilience in the face of personal and professional challenges. ​ A recognized expert in healthcare policy, Geralyn was determined to re-start her career after years of disability leave following the accident. She is currently executive vice-president at Organon & Co., a new company dedicated to women’s health. Prior to the launch of Organon in 2021, she was a longtime senior vice president of Merck & Co., Inc., one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the world. At Merck, her passion was leading the Company’s engagement on social and community issues and supporting forward-thinking governance at the highest levels of the company. ​ Geralyn and her husband Jonathan have been married for almost 25 years. Jonathan and their three sons traveled every step of the recovery journey with her, and their experiences as unexpected caretakers are an important part of her story.

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What would you do if, as a healthy 20-something on the verge of achieving your dreams, your world was shattered by a health diagnosis? Elena Sonnino thought her body was broken and her life as she knew it was over. Through years of treatments and mystifying test results, she was determined to reinvent her relationship with her body and transform her health. In this intimate conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Sonnino shares her incredible story of overcoming. “I realized along the way that I wasn’t broken, my heart and my soul weren’t broken,” Sonnino observes. “I was just experiencing some things, and all of those experiences led to the reinvention of who I am today.”

Free gift! Grab our new ebook, 5 Days to More Time for You! We’ve packed it full of our favorite time management hacks to help you conquer your to-do list and create more time for the things that matter most.

About Elena

Elena Sonnino is a life coach, yin yoga teacher, and author. But what most people say about Elena is that she brings delightful sparks of energy to everything she does. Elena is on a mission to help you transform the walls of survival mode into doors of possibility so that you can step into the spotlight of your life as your most rooted and nourished self. Her work helps you get out of your head and into your body as your source of wisdom, and moves you from beyond shoulds and into delight, one day at a time. At home, Elena enjoys watching the sunrise, tending to her many plants, riding her Peloton bike, and impromptu kitchen dance parties.

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“When I think about reinvention, I think about finding talents, hidden parts of you that need to come out and be front and center,” says Dr. Joan Fallon. With over 20 years of experience researching autism and related disorders, Dr. Fallon founded Curemark, a pharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutic treatments for neurological disorders. In this inspiring conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Dr. Fallon explains how her personal reinvention led her to changing the world of autism. Pass it along to anyone who needs to know about the groundbreaking work being done in the treatment of this disorder.

About Dr. Joan Fallon:

Dr. Fallon began her research on Autism and related disorders over 20 years ago and founded Curemark as a platform to develop product candidates to address her findings. Dr. Fallon has both clinical expertise and academic experience—the former from running a private practice specializing in pediatric development, and the latter as an Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Yeshiva University.

Dr. Fallon has played an integral role in two very successful (and unprecedented) medical ventures. She was an Oxford Health Plans board member and helped achieve underwriting authority from New York State, for alternative and complementary medicine where none had yet existed. She also helped implement a cost-effective, interdisciplinary health plan for Oxford that increased the level of quality care for all children enrolled there. Dr. Fallon has written numerous scholarly articles, lectured around the world on developmental problems in the pediatric population and served on the Board of Directors of the ICA and Kentuckiana Children’s Center. She serves as a Senior Advisor to the Henry Crown Fellows at The Aspen Institute, as well as a Distinguished Fellow at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College/Columbia University. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Franklin & Marshall College. Dr. Fallon holds a B.A. degree from Franklin and Marshall College, a DC degree from Palmer University, and has completed the coursework for the MSc in clinical investigation from Harvard University’s joint program with Massachusetts General Hospital.

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“You can give in to just sitting around or you can do something creative, do something wonderful, do something for other people, which really makes you feel good.” So says Judy Katz, who found her dream career in her 60s and is still living it up in her 80s! Actively working, dating, and inspiring others, Katz is a professional ghostwriter, publisher, and marketer. If you have any inkling that you feel that you’re getting old in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond, listen in to her fabulous conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour which will inspire you to toss that old idea out. As Katz says, “There’s just so much you can contribute up to the last breath.”

About Judy

Judy Katz is an award-winning ghostwriter, editor, book publisher and promoter of 50 books, and still going strong. She also writes a blog called CelebrEighty to help change perceptions about “old age.”

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