Maren Showkeir is a writer, editor, teacher, and yogini whose work is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations unleash their full potentials. Her passion for writing led her to a career in newspaper journalism. She had extraordinary experiences for nearly 25 years and managed to exit the industry in the nick of time. As a Knight Fellow for the International Center for Journalists in 2003–2004, she taught at universities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Lima, Peru, as part of a mission to promote “quality journalism worldwide in the belief that independent, vigorous media are crucial to improving the human condition.” She also collaborated with local journalists to provide educational workshops for reporters and editors in the provinces who had scant opportunities for formal training.
Returning to the United States in 2005, she began a search for different meaningful work that would feed her soul. She found it through two seminal occurrences that happened at nearly the same time: she met Jamie Showkeir, an organizational consultant, and enrolled in a yoga teachertraining class with Mary Bruce at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Joining henning-showkeir & associates, inc. as a managing partner, she discovered a satisfying new career, true love, a business partner, and a husband. Her yoga studies gave her a spiritual practice that kept her connected to something larger than herself. Those two paths have converged in the writing of this book.
Maren is the co-author (with Jamie) of Authentic Conversations: Moving from Manipulation to Truth and Commitment (Berrett-Koehler, 2008). She earned a BA degree in journalism from Arizona State University and an MA in Human and Organization Development at Fielding Graduate University. 
Some of her very best work is refl ected in the shining lives of two loving, responsible human beings, her children, Sonnet Bingham Aguirre and Skyler Bingham. She also is stepmother to Zak and JR Showkeir, and Nana Maren to grandson Kadin Chaira. Together, she and Jamie are raising Bodhi the cat. They live happily together in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.