For session times and topics, consult the convention program and mobile app.

Devan Coggan is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly, where she covers film, television, and all things pop culture.

In her seven years at EW, she’s worked as a reporter, editor, film critic and podcast host, interviewing everyone from Oscar winners to Marvel superheroes.

A St. Louis native and Northwestern University alum, she now lives in Los Angeles. 

Lucas Farrell is a 27-year-old entrepreneur based in St. Louis. Farrell has been a leader in community building and digital marketing since he founded his companies Mango Social Marketing and STL Bucket List in July of 2019.

He has since built a strong brand through Instagram and other social channels totaling over 100,000 combined followers, weekly podcast and a successful digital marketing agency.

With an emphasis on community, Farrell has been featured in the St. Louis Business Journal, Show Me St. Louis, KSDK, KMOV, Fox 2 and local radio outlets. Through STL Bucket List, Farrell plans to establish the No. 1 source for media in the city. This includes written content, podcasting, and videos.

William H. Freivogel is a journalism professor at Southern Illinois University and publisher of the Gateway Journalism Review.

He worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 34 years in Washington and as an editorial editor. Editorials about John Ashcroft’s civil liberties abuses were a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

His stories about the death of Michael Brown won the ABA’s Silver Gavel Award in 2016 and projects on race and police brutality won Silver Gavel mentions in 2020 and 2021.

J.B. Forbes was an award-winning photojournalist for 50 years. He worked for four papers starting in 1970 and retired in 2020. Forty five of those years were at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

He traveled extensively during his career to many states and 30 countries. Forbes and the rest of the staff won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson in 2014.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris  covers crime through the lens of accountability and justice for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

She previously covered criminal justice in New Jersey for NJ.com/The Star-Ledger.

Harris specializes in finding the human angle in illustrating a personal, fair and transparent touch. She covers high profile court cases, from arrest to acquittal or sentencing and corruption and controversy within police departments and government agencies. Harris frequently covers protests and is proud to cover the community of St. Louis, the epicenter of the new civil-rights movement.

She serves as the president of the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists and is an alumna of Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Bobby Hawthorne is a popular speaker, writer and writing coach. Among other awards, he’s received JEA’s highest honor — the Carl Towley Award — and NSPA’s Pioneer Award.

He writes fiction as well as literary non-fiction, and is the author of several books including “The Radical Write” and “Copy That: Writing for Yearbooks | A Guide for Beginners,” released recently by Jostens.

Maddie Hiatt is the social media editor at Cosmopolitan, where she manages social strategy for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Prior to Cosmo, she worked on the social media teams at Martha Stewart Living, House Beautiful and more. She can often be found listening to Taylor Swift, trying out new skincare products and walking her dog, Waffles, through their favorite New York City parks.

Benjamin Hochman is a sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

He writes about pro and college sports for his hometown paper, while also starring in a daily sports video on the website. He’s also an author of four sports books.

Sarah Hutchins is the investigations editor for Spotlight PA.

She came to the newsroom from Investigative Reporters & Editors, where she spent eight years as the organization’s training director and editorial director.

At IRE she developed and delivered training to journalists around the world and coached reporters on using data, public records and other investigative techniques. She lives in St. Louis and got her start in journalism at her high school paper, The Kirkwood Call.

Tony Messenger is the metro columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 2019 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his series of columns on debtors’ prisons.

Wiley Price has worked as a photojournalist for Missouri newspapers for more than 36 years at The St. Louis American and five years at Suburban Journals of St. Louis. 

Price has received more than 80 awards for outstanding photojournalism, including dozens of first-place awards from the Missouri Press Association, Illinois Press Association, National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America and the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association.

In 2009, he was named one of the NAACP’s “100 Most Inspiring St. Louisans.” In 2000, he received the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association’s Contributing Medium Award, only the second time the award had been given to a photojournalist.

Chris Snider is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Drake University,
Des Moines, Iowa.

He teaches classes in digital strategy, web design, visual communication, multimedia and more to undergrad and online graduate students. Prior to joining Drake, Snider was a visual journalist and editor at newspapers including the Baltimore Sun, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Des Moines Register.