behind the scenes
Meet Les Rebelles Behind Rebelle
Andrea Balt
Founder & Creator
Andrea Balt is a Writer, Artistpreneur and Creator of Rebelle Society®, Write Yourself Alive®, Year of You® and Creative Rehab®, among other online platforms & programs + LIVE events, designed to help you turn your life into a work of art.
In her work she tries to reflect the wholeness of the human experience by combining Creativity & Writing, Art & Travel, Mind, Body & Soul into a more expressive, abundant & expansive Art of Being Alive.
She believes that education + creative practice, when artfully combined, are the most powerful tools for personal transformation, growth and freedom.
Her academic training includes a 2-year MFA in Creative Writing + Literature and a BA in Communication + Mass Media. She is also a Holistic Health Coach and a 200-hr certified yoga teacher.
For the past 8 years, she has been teaching Creative Writing + Applied Creativity to over 100,000 creators around the word, through a variety of online communities and mediums, creative programs and courses, LIVE workshops and retreats.
She is best known for inspiring creators from all walks of life to rediscover their innate creative superpowers, trust, write and share their stories, as well as re-create their lives, one act of courage at a time.
Visit her website – andreabalt.com for Creative Resources and connect with her on Instagram + Facebook for almost daily inspiration. For weekly emails with exclusive goodies and motivation to create your life, join her (our) Inner Circle.
Soumyajeet “Jeet” Chattaraj
Editor-in-Chief
After a more socially acceptable start to his academic and professional career, which included standing first in his High School exams (and joint seventh in all of India in his education board), a BE (with Honors) in Mechanical Engineering from one of the top engineering institutes in India (BITS Pilani), a 2250 in GRE with absolutely zero preparation, and a first job at Infosys, one of India’s top IT concerns, Jeet decided to venture out into the big, bad world to ditch bookish education and substitute it with an experiential one!
In his spare time, which is sparing at best, he loves engaging his geeky side to the fullest extent — and obsessively engages in absorbing random trivia, and solving puzzles of any and every kind, primarily crosswords and sudoku — one of his proudest achievements being able to completely solve the New York Times crossword 137 days in a row before being forced to break the chain due to 18-hour workdays that included weekends.
Having gone up to a High Red belt in HapKiDo, before being forced to move due to a job change just before his Black Belt test, he hopes to get back to it some day, and credits Yoga and his newfound love of running for staying in somewhat of a decent shape, while always being mindful of the ever present room for improvement. He also wishes to go back to writing poetry some day, something which has always occupied a special place in his heart, and helped him win awards in college.
A universalist when it comes to approaching people from all over the world, he considers himself to be a global citizen first and foremost, instead of identifying with any exclusive and divisive tags.
A lifelong and certifiable black sheep (irrespective of skin color, since that would have qualified him as a ‘brown sheep’), Jeet feels uncomfortable with certainty and strives for a meditation-driven comfort in uncertainty.
In spite of English and Mathematics being two of his greatest loves, his engineering degree placed him in IT, which is where he tries to make himself useful during regular work hours, and spends the rest of his time trying to accommodate other social and extracurricular activities, with an optional and approximately four-hour gap for sleep.
Other than his work as a Jack-of-All-Trades and Editor-in-Chief at Rebelle Society, he tries to spread positive awareness through Facebook, random acts of kindness, and recruiting of fellow dreamers — a la John Lennon — to be his kindred souls in this short journey called Life.
He’s a member of the Triple Nine Society, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, Intertel, Mensa and the International High IQ Society, and can be reached for all Rebelle Society editing/submission/website-related questions at jeet@rebellesociety.com.
Shanna Shafer
Managing Editor
A writer, artist & dreamer, Shanna has been potentiating talent since childhood. She is moved by nature, the arts, and academia, along with the vast mysteries of our inner and outer worlds. She has novels, art installations and several creative projects living inside her mind, each of which will eventually outgrow the cranial limits of both space and time, serving as proof that dreams grow into reality.
Shanna has a BSN, and has spent the majority of her career caring for others. She is now exploring new and novel ways to nurse the world back to health, tapping into the powerfully creative powers of Love and Compassion along the way.
When she’s not writing or dreaming her future alive, Shanna acts as an agent for evolution, raising up the world’s children so that they, too, may one day change the world.
She can be found any place under the sun or moon, and prefers life on the road to living in a box. It is possible to share your dreams & talents with Shanna by emailing her at shanna@rebellesociety.com an
If all else fails, she’ll likely find you in a dream, in which case, please feel free to introduce yourself.
Kristi Stout
Social Media Editor. In-House Designer.
Kristi L. Stout is a loving spiritualist, inquisitive adventurer, and die-hard dreamer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Media Arts and Animation.
Spending the entirety of her current life believing she was an artist who enjoyed writing, she later learned that she was more a writer, who enjoyed drawing. But then in further discovery, she learned she pretty much loved any and all things creative. Creation is the source of life!
Her current endeavors are with Rebelle Society as a contributing writer and social media editor extraordinaire. She also owns a publishing house called The Angel Publishing, LLC and has just published her first work, The Quest of Heart: An illustrated, allegorical short-fiction which is the first in a series.
The following is a compilation of various words, all of which Kristi dominantly associates with, but is not limited to: Lover. Mother. Daughter. Warrior. Goddess. Seeker. Do-er. Dreamer. Writer. Artist. Scientist. Existentialist. Spiritualist. Naturalist. Idealist. Realist. Romantic. Ninja. Jedi. Unicorn.
She loves the smells of Scotch-tape, roses, day-old cologne, fresh-roasted coffee, rain and the forest floor. Is riveted by angels, sand dunes, thunder, black Andalusian stallions, silk and the Pacific Northwest.
Participates in dance, aerial acrobatics, aerial Yoga, social coffee drinking, astrological study, philosophy, vegetarianism and emotions—every kind of emotion. Has been brought to instant out-of-the-blue tears by seeing the Milky Way from the Andes, a music venue by Jónsi, the movie Avatar, reading Harry Potter, and a handful of times by extra precious things her daughter does.
She currently resides in Southern California (though she has moved more times in her life than she can count).
In addition to Rebelle Society, you can find more of Kristi’s work here or connect with her on Facebook. You can also email her at kristi@rebellesociety.com.
Got any questions, suggestions or ideas?
Contact our editorial team: editorial@rebellesociety.com.
Our office hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST and we do our best to respond within 24-48 hours.