LINDA, Editorial Director
Our literary sensibility comes from Linda Gallant Moore. Her love of books began with a well-worn copy of The Wizard of Oz and culminated in stints at Princeton University Press and Time Inc. She hopes that the story of Baum coming up with the title for his book by glancing at a file cabinet marked O-Z is true.

CLAIRE, Creative Director
Our marketing, publicity, creative direction and book design come from Claire Moncla. Claire has always wanted to be a painter, but her brother Luke got all the talent. She decided to stick with writing, and it’s taken her from reporting and speechwriting to nonprofit marketing. She counts going to a reading by poet Richard Wilbur as one of the best-spent nights of her life. Claire graduated from Baylor University and now lives in South Philly surrounded by quirky art.

NIC, Founder & Board President
After developing urban farm projects in West Philadelphia with the organization Philly Rooted, Nic Esposito now co-manages Emerald Street Community Farm with his wife Elisa as well as their own homestead populated by their son, Luca, a dog, a cat, and a whole bunch of chickens. He writes about social change, urban farming and sustainability for blogs and magazine and spoke on urban farming at the 2010 TEDx conference in Philadelphia. He is the author of the novel Seeds of Discent and the essay collection Kensington Homestead. Nic is the founder of The Head & The Hand Press and The Head & The Hand Workshop.

Melody Wright, Board Member

Melody Wright is owner & principal of SAY/DO Strategies, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm specializing in executing targeted, high-stakes messaging campaigns for complex scenarios and projects in business, government, infrastructure and urban development.

In all of its work, SAY/DO’s goal is to use its unique expertise to help underrepresented urban populations make more money, or save more money, to support improved quality of life in the big city.

Melody is a former utilities leader, and was the youngest and first Black executive to lead Government Affairs for the Philadelphia Water Department. Thanks to this experience, she’s highly skilled in managing full life-cycle communications and community outreach for intricate, large-scale public infrastructure projects.

Some of Melody’s key accomplishments include securing the regulatory approval for PWD’s $75M+ Advanced Metering Infrastructure project, and leading the development and launch of communications for the TAP low-income assistance program – the first water billing assistance program of its kind in the United States.

Melody’s other government affairs wins include successfully partnering with the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office to publicly address the impacts of COVID-19 waste on the city’s water infrastructure, and significant lobbying at the Federal level to push for effective funding to support Philadelphia’s infrastructure maintenance, post-pandemic.

LISA, Senior Editor & Board Vice President

Lisa McHenry Bendel has been with The Head & the Hand Press since 2013. She has been writing, editing, and typesetting for over twenty years. Lisa has worked in newspaper publishing, advertising, television production, and is currently a supervising editor at a large corporation. Lisa also enjoys dogs, songwriting, and playing guitar and bass. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Rutgers University and has been an enthusiastic resident of Philadelphia since 2005.