Mary C. M. Phillips is a caffeinated reader, writer, and poet. Her work can be read in numerous national bestselling anthologies.

She blogs at www.CaffeineEpiphanies.com

Follow Mary on twitter: @marycmphil

Amy Newmark is Chicken Soup for the Soul’s author, editor-in-chief, and publisher, after a 30-year career as a writer, speaker, financial analyst, and business executive in the worlds of finance and telecommunications. Amy is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, where she majored in Portuguese, minored in French, and traveled extensively. She and her husband have four grown children and grandchildren.

After a long career writing books on telecommunications, voluminous financial reports, business plans, and corporate press releases, Chicken Soup for the Soul is a breath of fresh air for Amy. She has fallen in love with Chicken Soup for the Soul and its life-changing books, and really enjoys putting these books together for Chicken Soup’s wonderful readers. She has co-authored and/or edited the last 196 Chicken Soup for the Soul titles, all the ones published since mid-2008.

Follow Amy on Twitter @amynewmark. Listen to her free podcast — Chicken Soup for the Soul with Amy Newmark — on Apple, Spotify, Google, or by using your favorite podcast app on your phone.

Ilana Long is the author of PICKLEBALLERS, a romantic comedy. Preorder for Novemeber 12, 2024!

A pickleball newbie looking to recover from life’s swings and misses crosses paddles with love in this debut romantic comedy.

Other books: ZIGGY'S BIG IDEA (Kar-Ben, Lerner Publishing, 2014) noted for its “dialogue-driven approach” (Kirkus review.) Several of her non-fiction essays are published in CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL (2016-2021) Simon & Schuster. Ilana is the author of a regular column for "The Tico Times", Costa Rica’s national English language newspaper, readership 12,000. Besides writing, Ilana travels and lives abroad, hikes, paints, acts, sings, teaches, and parents her twin teens.

Piper Dellums is a powerful inspirational speaker with 15 years of experience; speaking at social and political activists’ conferences and events, women’s prisons, women's rights and empowerment conferences, myriad synagogues, churches, schools, and human rights forums all over the United States, American Samoa, Belarus, South, East and West Africa.

She was the keynote speaker at Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday celebration at the Spielberg/Capshaw auditorium in Los Angeles, Nelson Mandela’s LA vigil, International Day of Peace Celebration of Vietnam Vet and Peace Activist, Ron Kovic for the MYHERO FOUNDATION, United Nations USA San Diego Annual Conference, and was chosen to be one of the United Nations USA Delegates at the CSW58- (Commission on the Status of Women). She was the keynote, and is an active member of the International Superwoman Equality and Empowerment Summit on domestic violence and human trafficking; Celebrate Freedom, Celebrate Diversity, and University of California San Diego International House graduation., She is the keynote and a continuing advanced agenda advocate for AAA (Area Agency on Aging) & ETCOG (East Texas Counsel of Governments the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence); The Center for aging and Elder Abuse; The juvenile correctional facility in Honolulu, Hawaii, The Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and The American Samoan Alliance against Domestic and Sexual Violence. She is the International Ambassador to Stop the Silence in Washington DC and has been the keynote at three International IVAT conferences, (Institute for Violence and Trauma).

Piper is also an awarded producer, writer, narrator and director- Her 2017 feature film, STRIVE starring Danny Glover was accepted at Tribeca film festival and awaiting a 2018 public release. She has written and produced award winning documentaries such as RED ROAD, RENT PARTY:PAYING IT FORWARD IN RHYTHM AND HUES, TO NOT STAND IDLY BY. Her feature film about adolescent homelessness, DANDELIONS, won many awards including best film at the HARLEM film festival. All films dedicated to spawning activism and missionary work and bringing awareness, funds, change and restoration to the homeless, the poor, teen addiction and exploitation, sex trafficking, gang activity, the Native American plight, and the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

Piper is the mother to two daughters, Sydney and Dylan. She resides in Southern California

Annmarie B. Tait resides in Harleysville, PA with her husband Joe Beck. She has over one hundred stories published in many volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul, the Kiwi Press "Thin Threads" anthology series, the HCI "Ultimate" anthology series, Patchwork Path anthologies, Grace Publishing and Reminisce Magazine.

Annmarie is newly retired and enjoying her new found freedom. Her passion is writing stories about having grown up as the youngest child in a large Irish Catholic family. Equipped with a crystal clear memory of her childhood she is thankful for an endless amount of material.

Annmarie also enjoys singing and recording Irish and American folk songs with her husband Joe as well as cooking, baking, crochet and playing scrabble.

Mitch, who holds graduate and doctoral degrees in public health nutrition and education, has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel. She spends most of her time teaching others more than they likely want to know about public health. When she isn't doing that, she can be found scampering up and over mountains whilst munching on eggplant bacon, writing odd things, or doing zoomies with her dogs.

Sky khan is a storyteller and illustrator of Pakistani-Scots-American heritage. Her guiding principles have formed from time spent sitting with the dying in hospice, her work with Giving Austin Labor Support, parenting a cancer survivor, surviving cancer herself, and her experience raising four humans in Texas Hill Country and New York City with her best friend Ben.

Sky's projects were mentioned twice in The New York Times. Her writing appeared in two anthologies that reached #1 new release status on Amazon. She studied painting at The Art Students League of NY and The Contemporary Austin, as well as interior design principles at NY School of Interior Design. She trained in Gestalt psychotherapy at Gestalt Associates and was a founding member of New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. She taught at SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology and holds a Master’s degree in Marketing from NYU.

After graduating from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with his Bachelor’s Degree in Communications, Tim Chizmar has written for various magazines, newspapers and websites including Fangoria, First Comics News, and many others. He has sold short stories to such collections as Chicken Soup for the Soul and has written various screenplays for Hollywood production companies. Tim has been a proud member of various writers’ organizations including co-founding the Las Vegas Chapter of the prestigious Horror Writers Association.

Aside from the darker topics, it has not all been a career of terror as his lighter credits to date include ABC, FOX, Showtime, Comedy Central, Playboy, NBC, The Hallmark Channel, and many more. He has produced various pilots including in 2010 he developed a comedy/action series for CMT with wrestling superstar Rob Van Dam. As a headlining comedian Tim was a favorite at The World Famous Hollywood IMPROV, The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, has toured all over the world playing sold-out casinos, clubs and colleges. To date he has worked with such standup legends as Jeff Foxworthy, Gabriel Iglesias, Jon Lovitz, Daniel Tosh, Brad Williams, and many others.

When he’s not inspiring fellow writers by being on various panels such as San Diego Comic-Con, WonderCon, Scare LA, or speaking at Hollywood Success events, he's constantly working on his next project. Because for Tim Chizmar... There’s always a next project! After Tim had been successful enough to become a regular at red carpet premieres, he left all the glitz and glam behind in early 2017 for the mountains of Idaho as he completed his first full length books. He always looks forward to having frank, honest, and engaging discussions on the business of the writing craft with his fellow writers. Tim’s advice to young writers is this…

“Be inspired. Are you alive, or are you just breathing?”

Leslie Wibberley lives in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada with her amazing family and an overly enthusiastic cocker spaniel named Pepper. Her work has been published in multiple literary journals and anthologies, including the Bram Stoker-nominated Not All Monsters and the Aurora-nominated Prairie Witch & has placed 1st in the Writers Digest’s Annual Writing Competition, Popular Fiction Awards, the Pacific Northwest Writers Literary Contest, and Chanticleer International Book Awards. She is represented by Naomi Davis of Bookends Literary.