edited by Shanna Due and curated by Taylor Schulte and Justin Castelli.
These stories by award-winning financial advisors feature people from all walks of life―young and old, those in debt, and those with great wealth―and a wide variety of situations, from designing a desired lifestyle to dealing with catastrophe. They show how well-thought-out, personalized, and high-touch financial planning can truly impact lives for the better. These leaders in a growing industry remind us that financial planning is more than dollars and cents―it is about resourcing dreams and improving lives in the near term and beyond.
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Winter 2023: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — “If you can read this, thank a teacher,” writes Suzanne Capek Tingley, Veteran Educator, M.A. Degree, about her favorite bumper sticker in an article about the Three Reasons to be Thankful for Teachers, for Western Governor’s University.
WGU is home to educator Dr. Jennie Sanders, our cover story star in the Winter 2023 issue of Inkandescent Women magazine. So it seems appropriate to share Suzanne’s three reasons to be thankful for teachers: “their support, their kindness, their ability to teach kids, and of course, their dedication.”
These are Suzanne’s three examples of teachers who went above and beyond and proved why everyone should be thankful for this truly amazing group: (more…)
Fall 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — In this issue, we are celebrating the significant trend reversal where the book publishing industry is no longer run from the very top by a small group of men. This fact isn’t lost on journalists such as The Guardian’s Johanna Thomas-Corr and Irish Times reporter Finn McRedmond, who believes the reason for the shift is that women make up about 80% of those novel buyers.
“It follows, then, that it is perhaps likely that women like buying books written by women,” Finn muses, noting the increasing democratization of the publishing industry has also got something to do with it. “Publishing is no longer run from the very top by a small group of men. It is abundantly obvious (and stop me if you’ve heard this one before) that an industry dominated solely by men is more likely to favor the work of men, seeing them preferred over their female counterparts. But that women writers are enjoying such sustained prominence in the fiction market at the same time that more women are entering the publishing industry is further proof of this.” Click here to read more from Finn. (more…)
Summer 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — The gift of finding your heart’s desire is what we all strive for. And as anyone who has been at it — for decades — knows, it takes time, patience, and faith to keep following your intuition.
That’s why it’s amazing to feature intuitive psychotherapist Kara Kihm and the guests of her weekly video and podcast show on the cover of this issue of Inkandescent Women magazine. Not only does each woman share her powerful journey, but she also provides insights and ideas into how we can each overcome obstacles.
“It’s never easy to face challenges, but the sweetness of getting to the place where you deeply know you should be is definitely worth the ride,” insists Kara, who has been following her path since getting divorced in 2016. Everything Kara thought she wanted from her life began to crumble around her. “As I stood amid the rubble, rather than crumble too, I decided to redefine it all.”

Read more: KaraKihm.com
A trip around the world came next, followed in 2021 by the publishing of her memoir Discovering My Wings. Scroll down to read the first two chapters of the book. And click here to learn more about what Kara is up to today: KaraKihm.com.
Thank you so much for taking the time to be part of our Truly Amazing Women project at Inkandescent Women magazine. We look forward to talking with you again in August! — Hope Katz Gibbs, founder, Inkandescent® PR + Publishing Co.
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April-May 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — I love this quote by critically-acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Angélica Allende Llona. Her books live in the genre of magical realism, including The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus, 1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias, 2002). Based upon her personal experience and historical events, Isabel’s works pay homage to the lives of incredible women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism. It’s hard not to adore a woman who understands the depth and breadth of what it means to harness your personal power in a magical manner.
The same is true of the women who grace the cover of this month’s issue of Inkandescent Women magazine featuring Marguerita Cheng, CFP® Pro. She shines a light on a dozen of the women she has featured on her popular TV and podcast show that celebrates Happy Hour every Friday at 5pm EST, Margaritas with Marguerita. (more…)
March-April 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — We celebrate International Women’s Month 2022 with a quote by Susan B. Anthony about one of the greatest changes in women’s rights: The bicycle.
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel — the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
Indeed, when modern bicycles were invented in the 1890s, it was a social revolution for women. As you’ll read in this month’s cover story featuring “Women in White Coats,” about three Victorian women who became the first female doctors, bicycles provided freedom of movement for women of the era who were idealized for virtues such as domesticity and motherhood. The bicycle afforded an accepted way to step outside and become a larger part of society — including when it came to business and politics. (more…)
January-February 2022: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — While I usually quote women in this passion project of mine, as we embark on the new year I was drawn to the words of the American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
An advocate of social reform, who was nevertheless suspicious of reform and reformers, Emerson achieved a tremendous reputation with his verse, corresponded with many of the leading intellectual and artistic figures of his day — and during an off and on again career as a Unitarian minister delivered and later published several controversial sermons. He believed, “To trust oneself and follow our inner promptings corresponds to the highest degree of consciousness.” (more…)
November-December 2021: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine, and Cynthia de Lorenzi, founder, Success in the City, and co-author, Your What’s Next Journal — How comforting it is to end the year with a sense of relief. Yes, the world is still struggling with a devastating pandemic. Yes, we continue to reel from a caustic presidential election. And yes, we are all working to discover the new normal.
So what a blessing it is to look back on all that we’ve been through these last few years. Please pat ourselves on the back for making it through — and knowing in our hearts that a new year awaits, one filled with infinite possibilities!
With that goal in mind, we hope to shine a little light on your life by releasing our newest Inkandescent™ Publishing book: Your What’s Next Journal. (more…)
If you or someone you know is in need of help, the following is a list of resources from our experts:
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September-October 2021: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine (Image by Miki Jourdan, flickr.com creative commons) — Never underestimate the power of hundreds of thousands of women coming together to protest. Such was the scene on Oct. 2 when thousands of protesters marched at rallies in Washington and cities across the country decrying Texas’s recent ban on most abortions and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority could impose further restrictions in the coming months.
It has been nearly five years since the debut of the Women’s March when women from around the world walked the streets of Washington, DC, in protest of Donald Trump and all that he and his supporters stood for. We knew in our hearts and bodies that someday soon, our reproductive rights would be in jeopardy. Sadly, we were right. (more…)
July-August 2021: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — I love the month of July. Not only is it my birthday (July 8), the day I give thanks for every blessing I’ve ever received, but it is the month where we celebrate our freedom.
As the publisher of Inkandescent Women magazine and creator of the Truly Amazing Women project, I am on a mission to create a revolution: All women, everywhere, stand together and support each other in life, love, and the pursuit of everything that makes us happy, healthy, and in our power.
So it’s a pleasure to honor 8 women in the July-August 2021 issue who are standing up for what they believe in, making a powerful difference in the lives of many. (more…)
June 2021: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — June is National Safety Month, and at Inkandescent™ we can’t think of a better way to shine a light on what it means to be safe — Mind, Body, Spirit, Soul, and Heart — than by giving a shout out to philanthropist Melinda Gates.
For the last 20 years, she has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, she insists: “Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear. If you want to lift a society, you need to stop keeping women down.”
While she has been in the news quite a bit this spring regarding her divorce from Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, what makes Melinda truly amazing is her ability to stand up for what she knows is right.
This month we honor Melinda Gates and encourage you to pick up a copy of her book: The Moment of Lift. “How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings — and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.”
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Welcome to the May 2021 issue of Inkandescent Women magazine: A note from Hope Katz Gibbs and Cynthia de Lorenzi, co-authors, Your What’s Next Journal — If you have been following our adventure of crafting monthly issues of Your What’s Next Journal, you know that we offer Affirmations that we recite ourselves to open our hearts and remind us of our blessings.
On the cover of the magazine this month: You’ll meet our new friend, movie maker Martine Melloul. She was introduced to us by our client Tracy Schott, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has become an advocate to end domestic violence since producing her 2015 groundbreaking movie, “Finding Jenn’s Voice.” She interviewed Martine for one of her weekly podcast shows, and we all agreed we had to tell the story of this truly amazing woman on the May cover of the magazine. Click here to read that issue and meet some of Martine’s best pals in the movie business! (more…)
A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine — When it comes to women and their relationship with money, things can get complicated. In this month’s issue of Inkandescent Women magazine, we explore a dozen topics that will help women everywhere flex their financial muscles thanks to our April 2021 cover girl: Marguerita Cheng, CFP® Pro.
From tips from her upcoming book, Diary of a CFP® Pro, to insights from her weekly show on MargueritaCheng.tv, you’ll discover useful tips that you can begin applying to your life today! Click here to read all about it!
That’s not all!
Another Inkandescent client — Financial Planner Carmen Wu — explains in this video that women are twice as likely to live below the poverty line during retirement. “It’s shocking, but it’s true,” explains Carmen in this interview on News Channel 8s Let’s Talk Live, reporter Sonya Gavankar. (more…)
A note from Hope Katz Gibbs and Cynthia de Lorenzi, co-authors, Your What’s Next Journal — We begin the celebration of International Women’s Month this March 2021 with the above quote from Martha Beck, America’s first life coach.
Hope finished her Martha Beck Wayfinder Life Coach training in November, and for more than a decade before then has been a fan of the work of the woman who penned books including “Finding Your Own North Star,” and “The Joy Diet.”
We infuse Martha’s wisdom in much of what we do at Inkandescent™ Inc., including Cynthia’s word of the month.
“Each month, I love thinking of the one word that describes how I’m feeling, what I’m wishing for, and what I need to learn from,” Cynthia shares. “As we celebrate International Women’s Month in March 2021, the word that describes this month for me is: FLOW.” (more…)
By Cynthia de Lorenzi, author, Your What’s Next Journal.
As we roll out Your 2021 What’s Next Journal, I’ll be sharing monthly affirmations from the pages of each month’s Spirit section. We hope that you will take a look at the affirmations we are sharing for the month, repeat the ones that fit what you are feeling at the moment, then, as you get more comfortable with the art of Affirmations, begin to write your own.
Let the Affirmations guide you! As you repeat them, scribble, doodle, and draw freely about the thoughts and images that these powerful words conjure up. Simply move your intuitive thoughts into your hands and move the pen, paint whatever unconsciously, even with your eyes open or closed, to freely move healing in through and out of your body and consciousness.
Why are Affirmations so powerful? As most women know, there is magic in science and science in magic. So we turn to Positive Psychologist and MBA Catherine Moore for insight. “Science-based MRI evidence suggests certain neural pathways are increased when people practice self-affirmation tasks,” she explains in her article, Positive Affirmations: Is There Science Behind It? (more…)
A Note from Cynthia de Lorenzi, co-author, Your 2021 What’s Next Journal — What a relief — 2021 has arrived. Not only am I thrilled to launch Your 2021 What’s Next Journal with my co-author Hope Katz Gibbs, but it’s a pleasure to begin the New Year featuring one of the heroines on the frontline of saving lives and confronting coronavirus: Caryn Iverson, the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) of Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, NM.
As you’ll learn through our interviews with Caryn in this month’s cover story, she shares adept insight into where we have been since the Pandemic’s onset and where we should expect to go as the virus continues to rage, almost out of control! Her thoughts on the first positive news that we now have a vaccine. (more…)
Welcome to the launch of Your 2021 What’s Next Journal
This month we celebrate: “The Art of Saying Goodbye — and Hello!”
December 2020: A Note from authors Hope Katz Gibbs, Cynthia de Lorenzi, and book designer Cindy Seip — If you are like us, it’s with a sigh of relief that we say goodbye to 2020! After months of living with the coronavirus pandemic, a polarizing presidential election, and homeschooling our kids, women everywhere are asking the same question, “What’s Next?” and “Where do we go from here?”
That’s where Your 2021 What’s Next Journal comes in: With our award-winning photographer and book designer Cindy Seip, we have created an aspirational, informational, educational gut check guide to help you master your world, one month at a time.
This journal is designed to inspire you to envision your future. The prompts on the pages that follow each Truly Amazing Woman of the Month encourage you to express what’s in your mind, body, spirit, soul — and especially your heart — as you make your way through 2021.
What you’ll need: Grab any and every art supply you desire that will help get your creative juices flowing — that perfect pen, paintbrushes of all sizes, markers, the 64-pack of those waxy sweet Crayolas that you loved as a kid. Then unleash your inner artist. (more…)
November 3, 2020: A Note from Hope, publisher Inkandescent Women magazine — I sit here on election day, chewing my fingers and slugging back coffee as I await the results of the most contested election of my lifetime. That the future of our nation, our children, and with world is at stake is not understating the reality we are about to inherit.
If I know anything, though, it is that we are all only in control of three things — our thoughts, our feelings, our own actions. With that in mind, I choose to focus on the gift of giving thanks and focus on all that I believe is beautiful in the world. The first thought that pops to mind is to pick up my copy of a magnificent book that I have carried with me for decades, “Give from the Sea,” by Anne Morrow Lindberg. (more…)
October 2020: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher Inkandescent Women magazine with Tracy Schott, documentary film producer and director Voices4Change
It goes without saying that 2020 has been a year full of challenges for everyone — health, economic, social, emotional. But for victims of domestic violence, the challenges of isolation has also led to increased violence, and a decrease in access to services, Tracy explains.

Tracy Schott, documentary film director and producer — Voices4Change.net
“Since we released Finding Jenn’s Voice in 2015, intimate partner homicides have risen across the United States and the world,” Tracy notes. “It’s a sad statement about our humanity, especially since these murders are preventable.”
Earlier this year, in partnership with the social change community based in India, 1Gen, Tracy launched Voices4Change: a movement that envisions a world where intimate partner abuse is not tolerated by any community, where systemic interventions to domestic violence are effective and evidence-based, and where survivor voices lead the change.
It’s October: That means that it is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Through the campaign — #RaiseYourVoice — there are 4 easy ways to help Voices4Change.net
- Share the campaign
- Watch the film and gift it to someone else
- Sponsor a training (for police officers and health care professionals)
- Donate
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