Hilary Black has spent her career as an editor in both books and magazines. She has held positions at Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, More magazine (where she was a founding editor), and Tango magazine (where she was editor in chief). She lives in New York City.

Laurie Abraham is a freelance writer and senior editor of Elle magazine. currently at work on a book about marriage and couples therapy for Simon & Schuster, she is the author of Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America. Her essays have been included in several collections, including The Best American Essays: 2006 and The Bitch in the House. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two daughters.

Kim Barnes is the author of two novels, Finding Caruso and A Country Called Home, and two memoirs, In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, and Hungry for the World. She is coeditor with Mary clearman Blew of Circle of Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Western Women Writers and, with Claire Davis, of Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by Twenty-Five Women over Forty. Her essays, stories, and poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including More, the Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. She teaches writing at the university of Idaho and lives with her husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow Mountain. Visit her online at www.kimbarnes.com.

Marisa Belger’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Travel + Leisure, Natural Health, and Prevention. She has also contributed to MSNBC.com, Beliefnet.com, and TODAYShow.com. She collaborated with Josh Dorfman on The Lazy Environmentalist, a comprehensive guide to easy, stylish green living, and with Ariane de Bonvoisin on The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More). She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

Veteran journalist Leslie Bennetts is the author of the national bestseller The Feminine Mistake, a groundbreaking examination of women’s life choices that was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1988, Bennetts previously spent a decade as a reporter at the New York Times, where she covered national politics, metropolitan news, and cultural news and wrote style page features. She was the first woman ever to cover a presidential campaign for the Times. Her work has also been published in Town & Country, Columbia Journalism Review, New York, Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, More, House and Garden, Worth, Family Life, Parents, Child, Parenting, Family PC, Condé Nast Traveler, Lear’s, The Nation, Modern Bride, Glamour, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Self, Women’s Health, Tango, and Woman’s Day, among many other magazines. Bennetts lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children. Visit her online at www.thefemininemistake.com

Bliss Broyard is the author of the collection of stories My Father, Dancing, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life—A Story of Race and Family Secrets, which was named the Humanist Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune. Her fiction and essays have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and The Art of the Essay and have appeared in Ploughshares, O: The Oprah Magazine, Cookie, and the New York Times. She is a contributing writer to Elle magazine. Visit her online at www.blissbroyard.com.

A black Latina born in Panama, Veronica Chambers’s work focuses most often on the intersection of women and culture. Her memoir Mama’s Girl was an American Library Association Best Book of the Year. Her most recent books include Kickboxing Geishas, Miss Black America, and a children’s book, Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Glamour. She also designs and produces a line of children’s clothes, Florabunda Tots, available at Etsy.com. Chambers lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her husband and daughter. Visit her online at veronicachambers.com.

Amy Cohen was a writer-producer on the sitcoms Caroline in the City and Spin City, a dating columnist for the New York Observer, and the dating correspondent for cable TV’s New York Central. Author of The Late Bloomer’s Revolution, she lives in New York City. Visit her online at www.byamycohen.com.

Abby Ellin is the author of Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs in on Living Large, Losing Weight, and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help. For five years, she wrote the “Preludes” column, about young People and money, in the Sunday money and business section of the New York Times. She regularly writes for the New York Times Sunday style section and has a series on MSN.com called “How to Raise a Millionaire.” Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Time, the Village Voice, Marie Claire, More, Self, Glamour, the Boston Phoenix, and Spy. But so far her greatest claim to fame is naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry’s.   Visit her online at www.abbyellin.com.

Joni Evans is the CEO of wowOwow.com, a website for women forty and older. Her career of more than thirty-five years in publishing includes serving as president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, publisher at Random House, and senior vice president of the William Morris Agency’s literary department. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York magazine, and O: The Oprah Magazine. She lives in New York City and Westchester, New York.   Visit her online at www.wowowow.com.

Laura Fraser’s memoir An Italian Affair was a New York Times bestseller and translated into five languages. A contributing editor at More magazine, she’s also written for the New York Times, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, Gourmet, and Travel + Leisure. Currently at work on another memoir, she lives in San Francisco.   Visit her online at www.laurafraser.com.

Julia Glass is the author of the novels Three Junes (which won the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction), The Whole World Over, and I See You Everywhere. She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. For her short fiction, she has received three Nelson Algren Awards, the Tobias Wolff Award, and the Pirate’s Alley Medal for Best Novella; for nonfiction, she has received the Ames Memorial Essay Award. She lives with her family in Massachusetts.  

Lori Gottlieb is the author of the national bestseller, Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self, an American Library Association “Best Books 2001” selection. She is a regular commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, and her work has also aired on public radio’s Weekend Edition, Marketplace, and This American Life. Her articles have been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Atlantic Monthly, Time, People, Elle, Glamour, Redbook, and Slate, among many others. She is the coauthor, with Kevin Bleyer of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, of I Love You, Nice to Meet You: A Guy and a Girl Give the Lowdown on Coupling Up, and her essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, including This Side of Doctoring, Scoot Over, Skinny, The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt, Mortified: The Big Book of Angst, and Fired: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed. She lives in Los Angeles. Visit her online at www.lorigottlieb.com.  

Marnie Hanel is a reporter-researcher at Vanity Fair. She writes for the magazine’s blog, VF Daily, and contributed to The Filthy Rich Handbook. Her work has appeared in Jane, Tango, and the Seattle Times, and on Daily Candy, TO DAYshow.com, and Yahoo!. She lives in New York City.

Kathryn Harrison is the author of the memoirs The Kiss, Seeking Rapture, The Mother Knot, and The Road to Santiago; the novels Thicker Than Water, Exposure, Poison, The Binding Chair, The Seal Wife, and Envy; a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux; and most recently, While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family. Her personal essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, More, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other publications. A frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, she teaches at Hunter College. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their three children. Visit her online at www.kathrynharrison.com.

Sheri Holman is the author of four novels, including A Stolen Tongue, The Dress Lodger, a national bestseller nominated for an IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and The Mammoth Cheese, a Best Book of the Year (San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly) short-listed for the Orange Prize. Holman has written for More, Allure, and Self, among others, and is a regular reviewer for the Washington Post and the Barnes and Noble Review. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.  

Ann Hood is the author, most recently, of the novel The Knitting Circle; a memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief; and a young adult novel, How I Saved My Father’s Life (And Ruined Everything Else). She is the author of eight other books, including a short story collection, An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life; the novel Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine; and the memoir Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time. Her short stories and essays have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Paris Review, Salon.com, Bon Appetit, Traveler, Food & Wine, More, Good Housekeeping, and many more. She has won two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives with her family in Providence, Rhode Island.   Visit her online at www.annhood.us.

Rebecca Johnson is a writer who splits her time between Brooklyn and Pound Ridge, New York. She is the author of the novel And Sometimes Why as well as a longtime contributor to Vogue. She is married with two children and three stepchildren. Her website can be found at RebeccaJohnsonAuthor.com.   Visit her online at www.RebeccaJohnsonAuthor.com.

Karen Karbo is the author of three novels and a memoir, all named New York Times Notable Books. Her most recent work is How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great. She lives and attempts to manage her money in Portland, Oregon. Visit her online at www.karenkarbo.com.

Lucy Kaylin is the author of two books, The Perfect Stranger: The Truth About Mothers and Nannies and For the Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun. She is currently the executive editor of Marie Claire magazine and has held positions at GQ and Vogue. She lives in New York City with her husband, ten-year-old daughter, and seven-year-old son.  

Jennifer Wolff Perrine is an award-winning investigative journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in Self, New York, Men’s Health, and the New York Times. A 2008 nominee for the National Magazine Award for service journalism, Wolff also writes “The Literate Gourmet,” a literary food column in Best Life magazine. She and her family divide their time between New York City and Easton, Pennsylvania.  

Dani Shapiro’s most recent books include the novels Black & White and Family History, along with the bestselling memoir Slow Motion. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Elle, Vogue, Ploughshares, One Story, and O: The Oprah Magazine and have been broadcast on National Public Radio. Her books have been translated into seven languages. She is on the faculty of the Graduate Writing Program at the New School, and she founded the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. She lives in Connecticut with her family.   Visit her online at www.danishapiro.com.

Amy Sohn is the New York Times–bestselling author of the novels Run Catch Kiss and My Old Man, which have been translated into five languages. She is at work on her third novel for Simon & Schuster. She has written for the New York Times, New York magazine, The Nation, Harper’s Bazaar, and Playboy, among other publications, along with television pilots for HBO, Fox, and ABC. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter. Visit her online at www.amysohn.com.

Susanna Sonnenberg is the author of the bestselling memoir Her Last Death, published by Scribner in 2008. Her personal essays have appeared in a variety of magazines, as well as in the anthologies About What Was Lost and Behind the Bedroom Door. She lives in Missoula, Montana, with her husband and two sons. Visit her online at www.susannasonnenberg.com. 

J. Courtney Sullivan is a writer and researcher for the New York Times and the author of the novel Commencement. Her work has also appeared in the Times column “Modern Love,” New York magazine, Elle, Allure, Men’s Vogue, Cosmopolitan, the New York Observer, and Tango and on the website someecards.com. She is currently coediting an anthology of essays about young women and feminism. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her online at www.jcourtneysullivan.com.

Melanie Thernstrom is the author of The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder. She is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and has also written for The New Yorker, New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and other publications. She lives in southwest Washington State. Visit her online at www.melaniethernstrom.com.  

Rebecca Traister is a senior writer for Salon.com, where she writes about women in media, pop culture, and politics. She has written for the New York Observer, Elle, The Nation, Vogue, New York magazine, and the New York Times, among many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.  

Born and raised on a steady diet of Brady Bunch reruns and anything written by Norman Lear, Elizabeth Williams is a television writer whose most recent credits include programs for the CW, CBS, and ABC. She lives in Los Angeles.