Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. (1)literature & fiction Elizabeth Noble is the author of several previous Sunday Times bestsellers: The Reading Group, which reached Number One, The Friendship Test (formerly published as The Tenko Club), Alphabet Weekends, Things I Want My Daughters to Know, The Girl Next Door, The Way We Were, Between a Mother and her Child and Love, Iris. Her last two books were also Richard & Judy Book Club selections. The Family Holiday is her ninth novel. She lives in Surrey. Follow Elizabeth on Facebook and Instagram: @elizabethnoblebooks

Anne Giardini is an author, lawyer, and the eldest daughter of late Canadian novelist Carol Shields. Giardini is licensed to practice law in both Ontario and British Columbia. As a journalist, Giardini has contributed to the National Post as a columnist. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband of more than 25 years and their three children. She has written two novels, The Sad Truth about Happiness (2005) and Advice for Italian Boys (2009), both published with HarperCollins. With Random House Canada, Giardini will be releasing (as editor) Startle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing in 2016. She is currently serving as the 11th Chancellor of Simon Fraser University. Since 2008, Giardini has been president of Weyerhaeuser Company Limited, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company in the forestry industry. Prior to her role as president, she joined Weyerhaeuser in 1994 and became Canadian vice-president and general counsel in 2006. She is an active volunteer and on the board for a number of local Vancouver organizations. She is a board member for the Vancouver Board of Trade; chair of the board of the Vancouver International Writers Festival; member of the board of directors for UniverCity at SFU; deputy chair of the board of governors at Simon Fraser University; supporter of Plan Canada, volunteer for Vancouver YWCA's Women of Distinction Awards, and Young Women in Business. Giardini was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in January 2013 for her fundraising efforts for Plan Canada’s “Because I’m a Girl” campaign, which supports females in Tanzania.

Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two short story collections, six novels, and numerous essays and reviews. Her work is noted for its humorous and ribald prose, which often disguises themes of human loneliness and the yearning for connection. Her heroines are usually urban, very smart, and chastened by lifetimes of unwelcome surprises. Kirshenbaum has been published in German, French, Hebrew, Turkish, and several other languages. Kirshenbaum grew up in New York and attended Columbia University and Brooklyn College. She is the chair of the Writing Division of the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, where she has served as a professor of fiction for more than a decade. Called, “a humorist, even a comedian, a sort of stand-up tragic,” by Richard Howard, Kirshenbaum has twice won Critics’ Choice Awards and was selected as one of the Best Young American Novelists by Granta Magazine. Kirshenbaum was also a nominee for The National Jewish Book Award for her novel Hester Among the Ruins. Her new novel, The Scenic Route, was published in May, 2009. Of the novel, Gary Steyngart says, “The Scenic Route is warm, wise, and very difficult to put down." Binnie Kirshenbaum lives and works in New York City. Binnie Kirshenbaum was born in Yonkers and grew up in Westchester County. After attending Columbia University as an undergraduate, Kirshenbaum earned her MFA at Brooklyn College. She taught at Wagner College before joining the faculty at the Writing Division of Columbia University's School of the Arts.

Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination." Patchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken. It was also there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. In 2010, when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November 2011. In 2012, Patchett was on the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

SHORT BIO: Amy Krouse Rosenthal was. She divided her time. NOT SO SHORT BIO: Amy Krouse Rosenthal was a person who liked to make things. Some things she liked to make include: Children's books. (Little Pea, Spoon, DuckRabbit) Grown-up books. (Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life) Short films. (The Beckoning of Lovely, The Money Tree) Guided journals. (The Belly Book) Something out of nothing. (see above) A longtime contributor to WBEZ and to the TED conference, Amy lived with her family in Chicago and online at whoisamy.com.

NYT bestselling author Joni Rodgers was born into a family of gospel/bluegrass musicians and grew up on stage, opening for huge-haired country music legends of the 60s and 70s. She continued performing until 1994, when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and used the chemo downtime to complete her first two novels, both of which were published to critical acclaim. Joni's memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair (Harper Collins 2001), garnered glowing reviews around the world, was excerpted in Good Housekeeping, condensed by Reader’s Digest, and is still in print after ten years. It also launched Joni's public speaking career and brought her to the attention of celebrities and others who began asking her to help them tell their stories. She's known on both coasts as a ghostwriter, book doctor and memoir guru who applies the fine art of fiction to the creation of well-crafted narrative nonfiction. Between novels and ghostwriting projects, Joni volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and blogs about books and publishing on "Boxing the Octopus". Married to jet plane mechanic/wine maker Gary Rodgers since 1983, Joni is the proud mother of two fine young adults. She lives in Houston, Texas. Her latest book debuted at #6 on the NYT bestseller list. “A mix of Moly Ivins' blowsy wit and Anna Quindlen's suburban logic...Rodgers manages the rare literary feat of being funny and painful in one urgent breath.” ~ Entertainment Weekly