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ROBIN ADAMS-HAYS is a gypsy. She received her BA in English and Film Studies from the University of Iowa, where she participated in the Undergraduate Writers’ Workshop as a poet. She lived for awhile in San Francisco and Costa Rica. She has made short films, studied theater arts, black and white photography,and worked as a Medical Research Specialist at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine while earning her MA in English. She has made two trips to China, most recently Hangzhou, to teach English.

BECKY ALLEN is a Virginia-based freelance writer who specializes in “human interest” pieces, always looking for stories, interviews, and articles to write that explore how people meet their life challenges. She has been published in Spirituality and Health and Conscious Choice magazines, as well as writing regularly for a growing music-oriented publication. In addition, she is the editor and publisher of a local monthly newspaper with an ever-increasing reader base.

JOHN ALLEN served five years in the U.S. Navy, then was a police officer for 15 years. He earned a journalism degree while working the streets and made the career jump. As a newspaper man in Waco, TX, he covered farm and ranch, sports, health, wrote features and helped out with spot news reports. He has also freelanced for military, women’s, Hispanic and sports publications and done spot sports coverage for newspapers. John is now a PR Specialist-science writer at Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta.

JUDEE AMAYA was raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and grew up with a profound sense of love for nature and animals, especially the sea. After graduating from Rising Sun High in 1966, she started on a career of writing and travel that led her first to Colorado, where she settled in 1972, and then back East to North Carolina. A long-time freelance writer, she has published current events articles for many publications, as well as poetry and tech writing. She is currently at work on a book of essays.

BARBARA ARNTSEN is an award-winning journalist working for a daily newspaper in North Carolina. With a background in communications and business, she spent almost a decade in corporate America editing manufacturing documents, writing articles for company newsletters and creating training modules. During this time, she honed her writing skills with free-lance articles for a variety of local publications. Seven years ago, she began a full-time career as a reporter for a daily newspaper. Since then, she has won a half-dozen state press awards for investigative reporting.

CHARU BAHRI is a versatile writer residing in India. She has authored two books, Aligning the Economic Cycle with the Time Cycle (2003) and Sexual Dualism to Spiritual Oneness (2004). As a freelance writer, she has contributed to a wide range of magazines and websites in India and overseas. Among the publications/websites for which she regularly writes are HealthWorlds Magazine (Switzerland), HappyNews.com (USA) and Treasure Life (USA). She has also contributed to New Woman (India), Harmony (India), The Canadian (Canada), Writer Corporation (India), Paramount Magazine (India), and The Times of India (leading Indian newspaper) etc. In recent months she has been published in Nexus Magazine (Australia) and Complete Wellbeing (India).

RON BAYGENTS, a veteran newspaper reporter and editor, currently covers Arab and Muslim news from Washington for the Kuwait News Service. Prior to that, he was the managing editor of the Manassas (VA) Journal-Messenger, and previously worked for newspapers in Hopewell, VA; Albany, GA; San Jose, CA; Lexington, NC and Stuart, FLA. Ron is a graduate of the University of Florida.

TOM BENTLEY, of Watsonville, CA, has run a writing and editing business for the past 10 years, serving the small business community and the technology industry. He is also an essayist and freelance journalist. He is the author of one consumer business book, 10+ computer user manuals, and 40+ freelance articles. He has also edited more than 25 nonfiction books, both consumer and technical. He has a Master's Degree in English from San Francisco State University and thinks Mark Twain is the greatest writer that ever lived. His work can be found at www.tombentley.com.

TERRY BIBO is an award-winning columnist for the Peoria (IL) Journal-Star, serving also as that newspaper's special projects editor.

Now based in Barcelona, Spain, ALISON BOSTON is an artist and writer. She cut her teeth as a non-fiction writer in the late 1980s contributing soft news commentaries and documentaries to CBC radio in Canada and credits CBC producers Marguerite MacDonald and Miriam Fry with teaching her how to write and tell a non-fiction story. In the early 90s, Alison took her writing skills to print and wrote for almost every magazine and newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia. Then, in 2002 she returned to radio, this time practicing skills in brevity and speed, churning out rewrites every 30 minutes as a news anchor for a Montreal-based all news radio station. Concurrent with her non-fiction career, Alison is an active artist and has written and produced seven performance-art pieces and two one-act, one-woman shows based on her poetry, receiving Canada Council Arts Grants for that work. She also enjoyed a two year stint as a milliner. An avid swimmer, she has written a large body of poetry inspired by swimming, and continues her artistic obsession with water by writing a series of personal essays on her experiences in Hungarian bathhouses.

SHANNON BRENNAN has 10 years of newspaper experience as a reporter and copy editor at newspapers from Florida to Maine. She graduated with honors in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her "real world" experience includes a stint in the Peace Corps in Zaire, organic farming in Maine and media relations at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. After several years of covering environmental issues for a daily in Lynchburg, VA, she now works in public relations at Lynchburg College.

JOSHUA SAMUEL BROWN is co-author of two travel guides, Lonely Planet's Taiwan 7 and Fodor's China 2007. Since 1994, he's contributed features articles on arts, leisure, culture, travel and politics to publications far and wide. Among the magazines his work has been published in are Beijing Scene, the South China Morning Post, the HK Standard, Clamor Magazine, Things Asian, Antiwar.com, City Weekend and Cat Fancy. He is former China corespondent for The Albion Monitor and the Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, and his photographs have been published in Elle (France) and Le Monde. Josambro's features articles and photographs have appeared in publications throughout Asia, North America and Europe. Offering tales of betel nut beauties and how to avoid jail time by impersonating a Mormon, his first book Vignettes of Taiwan is available at Amazon.

JOY BUTLER is a pet rescue worker and medical laboratory technologist whose writing interests include nature, animals, dog care and training, health and fitness, and Texas travel. Joy's passion for writing led her to study with the Institute of Children's Literature and Writer's Village University. Since 2001, she has served in various roles for Suite101.com, including course writer, feature writer, community manager, and editor. Some of Joy's articles may be seen online at http://www.suite101.com/articles.cfm/extraordinary_animals/more and http://www.suite101.com/articles.cfm/_texas/more. Look for her story, I Love You Carly, on Chicken Soup for the Soul dog food bags.

GAYLE BUTZGY is a freelance writer in North Carolina. She graduated from Towson
University in 1983 with a major in journalism, and promptly fled to Lynchburg VA, where she became a reporter for the daily newspaper and won several awards from the Virginia Press Association. In 1990, she moved to Raleigh, NC and got a job as a writer/editor for the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. In that capacity, she wrote news and features and even ran a national political campaign. Her candidate captured 45 states. Later, she served as executive director of a 24 hour crisis/suicide hotline. Gayle is most proud of the volunteer work she did recruiting bone marrow donors for the National Marrow Donor Registry. After a friend's nine-year-old boy was diagnosed with leukemia, she and four friends raised nearly $200,000 to pay for 6,000 people to be tested. In November 1995, her friend's child underwent a successful bone marrow transplant.

KELBY HARTSON CARR is a seasoned writer with nearly 14 years of experience. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including ePregnancy Magazine, National Motorist, France Today and Transitions Abroad. Based in Indiana, Carr is the author of the forthcoming book, Adventure Guide to Southwest France, Northern Spain and the Pyrenees, and the editor of the France travel site for About.com, a New York Times company. She is the mother of three, including twins born in 2006.

BARBARA CERDA is a native of Austin, TX, where her family has lived for seven generations. She and her "wonderful son" now live on the North Shore of Chicago, where she is a wireless project manager. During six years of writing technical proposals and journals for business operations, Barbara also completed a series of full length novels entitled MeretNeith. Most recently, she was asked to coauthor the autobiographical memoirs of Brij Lal, describing his family’s participation in the ejection of British rule during the days of Mahatma Gandhi. Barbara has had short stories e-published under the name "Bobann" in "Fiction Prison" and "Ultimate Hallucination" She also operates and edits the Website Forbidden Garden. Her passions are researching and writing about ancient Middle Eastern history, music and dance. She has an Associate Degree in General Science Studies at Harry S. Truman College in Chicago and has studied economics and biological science at Northeastern Illinois University.

DEBBIE CHIKOUSKY is a writer/farmer living near the hamlet of Narcisse, Manitoba, where she and her husband (and with their four children) raise Jersey cattle, goats, sheep, beef cattle, and poultry.  Debbie currently writes a How to Start Farming column for the Grainews magazine. Her other works, ranging from news articles to op-ed have appeared in the Agripost, Manitoba Co-Operator, Shepherds Journal, and the Goatkeeper magazine.  As well as being involved in agriculture she is also involved in the Weston A. Price Foundation and homeschools two of their school age children.

During the day, ANNE deLAIN W. CLARK is the coordinator of the New Mexico Radioactive Waste Consultation Task Force. In this capacity, she has been quoted in newspapers ranging from The Santa Fe New Mexican and the Albuquerque Journal to The New York Times. But during those few hours of the week in which she's not keeping her family of four together or protecting New Mexico from the dangers of radioactive waste, Anne writes poetry, personal and expository essays, and short stories.  She has written, graphically designed, edited, and published two newsletters -- "Reach Out" for the New Mexico Division of Health Improvement and "ePO Today" for an Internet based company that helped new corporations with initial public offerings (IPOs). She has also functioned as a part-time public information officer for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department. Anne has had a poem published in the inaugural issue (July 2001) of “Illness: A Journal of Personal Experience,” several press releases published in New Mexico papers, and has self-published many poems and essays on websites such as ThemeStream, WrittenByMe and ThoughtCafe(c). Most of Anne's professional writing has been focused on grant applications and government reports to the public, the New Mexico Legislature, and the U.S. Federal Government.

BRUCE COULTER writes for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts. A Marine Corps veteran, he has also published a number of freelance articles on military topics.

HARRY COVERT, a former daily and weekly newspaperman and broadcaster, writes from Alexandria, Virginia. He has been editor and publisher of “The Covert Letter” for more than a decade, and his eclectic writing has appeared in numerous national secular and religious newspapers and magazines. He writes often regarding international relief projects and religious subjects. Covert is former editor and publisher of the weekly Hampton (Va.) Monitor. Early in his career he was a staff member of the Newport News Daily Press & The Times-Herald, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the Petersburg Progress-Index. He has edited national publications, including several church-related national newspapers. He also produced and written radio commentaries.

NATE CROSSMAN is a 29-year-old freelance writer who is currently living in southeastern Massachusetts. He notes: "In my nine-year career I have been fortunate enough to write on a wide range of topics, from ACC football to the virtues of backing up the hard drive on your computer. I’ve also been fortunate to work for some great newspapers and magazines. But I’m always looking for the next story and a challenge." You can visit Nate's blog at: http://natesnewsnotes1224.blogspot.com/

SUZANNE DRISCOLL is a freelance writer and editor based in Rochester, NY who enjoys writing about business, healthcare, education and parenting issues. She worked as a marketing consultant for the past 10 years and is now completing a book.  Suzanne has published several articles for education and business publications, and frequently writes articles for web sites on just about any subject.  She can be reached at suzan.javanet@rcn.com.