Telling stories is at the core of Mark Travis Rivera’s purpose in life. He is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and the Chief Executive Officer + Founder of The Professional Storyteller, where he embraces the power of story to create a more inclusive world. As a writer, Rivera’s bylines include The Bergen Record, Herald News, The Star-Ledger, Fox News Latino, and The Huffington Post. He was also a contributing author in the anthology, Crisis and Care: Queer Activist Responses to a Global Pandemic (PM Press, 2022), edited by Adrian Shanker. His debut collection, Drafts: An Imperfect Collection of Writing, was published in August 2017. He was also a contributing writer for Imagining: A Gibney Journal, where he shared his experience as a disabled choreographer and dancer. As a stubborn and determined 17-year-old, Rivera founded marked dance project (2009-2019), becoming the youngest person in the United States to create and lead an integrated dance company for disabled and non-disabled dancers. Inspired by his desire to dance as a person with cerebral palsy. As a Puerto Rican queer man, he was also one of just a handful of artistic directors of color in the disability dance field. As an independent disabled choreographer, Mark is determined to build a bridge between the main dance field & disability dance. More recently, Mark was selected to participate in Ballet Hispanico’s Instituto Coreográfico program, becoming the first physically disabled Latinx choreographer to do so. As a speaker, he has addressed audiences at various institutions, including Harvard, MIT, Rutgers, and NYU. As a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and facilitator, he has spoken to corporate audiences virtually in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Israel, China, and India, just to name a few. His TEDx Talk, “Embracing Yourself, Embracing Your Potential,” was a smash in 2014.A first-generation high school & college graduate, Rivera earned his bachelor’s degree in women’s & gender studies with a minor in public relations from William Paterson University. In 2013, he was honored with the Campus Pride National Voice & Action Award for his work with the LGBTQ community. More recently, he won the Audre Lorde Award for Social Justice from John Jay College & the Lavender Legacy Award from WP. He is a member of the WE CREATE SPACE global collective of LGBTQ+ leaders and the Head of Community for CoLab. He also serves as a Senior Consultant for Unlock Creative. He is a proud Tio (uncle) to five nieces and two nephews. He now calls Atlanta, GA, home.