Meet the Staff

Lori Allen

Lori Allen is the Director of the Travel Division at AWAI, which publishes The Ultimate Travel Writer's Program and Turn Your Pictures into Cash as well as myriad books and special reports geared to helping folks master the art of getting paid to travel.

Lori is also the Editor of The Right Way to Travel, which features articles geared to help writers and photographers improve their skill and sell their work.

Over the past ten years, Lori Allen has worked personally with more than 1,500 budding travel writers and photographers to help them meet those same goals -- to hone their writing and photography skills and to better market themselves to prospective clients and editors.

Bonnie Caton

Bonnie is the editorial manager for AWAI's Travel Division, a regular contributor to The Right Way to Travel, and editor of the online newsletter Breakfast Stock Club, which focuses on selling your photos in online stock photo agencies. She got her first travel articles published after attending the Ultimate Travel Writer's Workshop four summers ago in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Before joining the Travel Division, she taught English for two years in the South of France and vagabonded through South America and South East Asia.

Jackie Gray

Jackie is the marketing manager for the AWAI Travel Division team, lives in Washington, D.C., where she manages the AWAI Travel Division’s marketing efforts, helps coordinate events, and oversees accounting. Before joining AWAI, Jackie went to college in North Carolina and spent a semester abroad in Australia. In the last five years she’s also traveled to Ecuador, Morocco, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Fiji, Mexico, and Spain.  Having been to six out of the seven continents, her goal is to travel to Antarctica in the near future.

Christina Merchant

Christina is a staff writer for AWAI's Travel Division and editor of online magazine Travel Post Monthly. Before joining AWAI, Christina worked as an editorial assistant at The World & I Online, and during college she was a writer and editor for The Rockbridge Report. In the last five years she's traveled to France, Italy, Portugal, The Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, and the Czech Republic.

Audrey Hartland

Audrey Hartland is the Marketing Assistant for AWAI's Travel Division. Before joining AWAI, Audrey worked as a Press Intern in the United States Senate and as a Marketing Intern for the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the last five years she's traveled to France, Brazil, Namibia, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Japan and Costa Rica.