Meet Our Judges

Natalya Androsova, Ph.D.

Natalya Androsova is an award-winning writing and dissertation coach with over two decades of experience teaching writing. She has coached professional writers and university writers of all skill levels—students, staff, and faculty. Natalya has been running Writing and Graduate Student Support at Ryerson University in Toronto, where she has also been teaching Writing for Wellness to staff and faculty and acting as a dissertation coach for graduate students.
Her passion is helping writers become more courageous, authentic, and kind to themselves. Through individual coaching, writing groups, and writing retreats, she has helped hundreds of writers to break through blocks and find inspiration, a more authentic voice, and a greater freedom in their writing and their life.
She lives in Toronto, Canada, and when she is not writing or meditating, she loves to play tennis, practice yoga, or sit by the water and cloud watch for hours. In her own writing practice, spanning three decades, she discovered that beliefs we have about our writing are not different from the beliefs we have about ourselves, so a new way of writing often translates into a new way of living. What was impossible becomes probable and even likely when we learn to write and live without fear.
Natalya is the author of 7 Minutes to Freedom: Simple Writing Meditations to Liberate Your Writing and Your Life and Dissertation Without Tears.

Brandon Seyferth

Brandon Seyferth was awarded a prize for poetry by Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, Maxine Kumin. He has been a professional writer for the world’s largest online musical instrument retailer, Reverb.com and has had his original music and lyrics featured on large market radio, including Chicago’s WXRT. He has also had his music and lyrics featured in film festivals, including the International Film Festival of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles.
As a songwriter, he has collaborated with Grammy nominees and some of the biggest names in music, including songwriter Jackson Browne and Victor DeLorenzo of the Violent Femmes.