holds a master’s degree in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She is the author of five nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters, Motherless Mothers, and the recent memoir The Possibility of Everything. Publisher’s Weekly, which gave The Possibility of Everything a starred review, called the book “a charming memoir full of self-deprecating humor.” Her books have been published in seventeen countries and twelve languages. She has written essays, articles and reviews for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Writer’s Digest, Glamour, Child, Parade, Real Simple, Self, The Iowa Review, and The Crab Orchard Review, among others, as well as for the anthologies The Bitch in the House (William Morrow), Toddler (Seal Press), Blindsided by a Diaper (Three Rivers Press), Behind the Bedroom Door (Delacorte), and Racing in the Streets: A Bruce Springsteen Reader (Penguin). She is currently co-editing an anthology of essays from graduates of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and working on her first novel.