Susan worked as an exercise demonstrator, flight attendant, go-go dancer, house painter, secretary and marketing executive (in that order) before settling on journalism. She's been a staff writer for Adweek, Business 2.0, M Business and InternetNews.com; her stories on technology, business, health and culture have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, WebMD and AlterNet.

Cynthia Nellis has worked in the fashion industry for more than 20 years, with a mission to make fashion less intimidating to women. She works as an award-winning journalist, covering women's fashion for About.com. She has also been a fashion columnist for the Dallas Morning News and her fashion expertise has appeared in publications ranging from People magazine to Family Circle. Prior to writing about fashion, Cynthia worked in many areas of the fashion industry, including as a buyer.

Celeste Perron is a health and lifestyle journalist who has covered health for magazines including Prevention, Women's Health, Marie Claire, Parenting and Cosmopolitan, where she served as lifestyle director for many years. She is also the author of a book, Playing House: A Starter Guide to Being a Grown Up (Collins, 2005). She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children. A few of the topics Celeste will write about regularly:

Jane Smiley is the author of thirteen novels, including "A Thousand Acres," which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, four works of nonfiction, and a horse book for young adults. She has two more works coming out this year, "A Good Horse," the second in the horse book series, and "The Man Who Invented the Computer," a biography of John Vincent Atanasoff, the first volume Sloane Foundation American Inventers series. In 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2006.

Lalita Khosla has worked in entertainment and marketing for twenty years, producing programming and commercials for television networks as diverse as PBS and FOX. She is also a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in Forbes, Country Living and on the web where she blogs about renovation and design. She lives in New York City with her husband, Paul, (aka hubby), and Labradoodle, Lafayette, (aka Laffy).

Beth Baker is a long-time freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, among them the Washington Post (where she has been a frequent contributor to the Health Section), AARP Bulletin, Ms., Nature Conservancy and Preservation. She is the author of Old Age in a New Age — The Promise of Transformative Nursing Homes (Vanderbilt University Press 2007).

Charlie White is an Emmy award-winning television producer/director, author and consultant who's been writing articles on the Internet since its infancy. Along the way, he's written for Wired and Popular Science magazines, was Senior Associate Editor for popular gadget site Gizmodo for two years, and for three years was Deputy Editor of NBC Universal tech site DVICE.

Caitlin Cohen is an award-winning global health activist. She founded the Mali Health Project. and AFUSC, a network of West African medical schools. She started volunteering at age 10 and has managed a multi-national volunteer staff since age 19. She is a regular contributor to Change.org and her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in several publications.

David Weiss is the Clark Kent side of songwriter and recording artist David Was. He was born and raised in Detroit, graduated from the University of Michigan, then exiled himself to Los Angeles, where he remains (somewhat ambivalently) to this day. After stints at Daily Variety and the LA Herald Examiner as a jazz critic, David started his own band — Was (Not Was) — with a childhood friend, and eventually racked up four top ten singles worldwide. More recently, he has been traveling the globe as a golf/travel writer, filing stories for Golfweek, T&L Golf and Golf magazine.

Frank Moldstad is the only 50-something at a west coast digital marketing firm full of millennials, which, to protect the innocent, must go nameless here. He has more than 25 years' experience editing and writing for print and web publishing ventures in New York and Los Angeles. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from the New York Times to Billboard and the Village Voice.

Chris Roush is a part-time business journalist and a full-time college journalism professor. He has written seven books, including three on business journalism. He worked for BusinessWeek, Bloomberg News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He's currently juggling paying for one son's college education, two sets of braces, and a Jaguar he bought from his parents, in addition to the other family bills.

One of the world's most acclaimed event designers, Preston Bailey has become renowned for his ability to completely transform raw, ordinary spaces into sumptuous, theatrical environments. Over the course of his 30-plus-year career, he has developed a client base that includes royalty, socialites, business moguls and celebrities such as Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers, Donna Karan, Liza Minnelli, Matt Lauer, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Uma Thurman, among others.

Suzanne Somers is one of America's most popular and beloved personalities. In a multifaceted career that has spanned nearly three decades, she has achieved extraordinary success as an actress, singer, comedienne, New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, and lecturer.

 Pamela Cytrynbaum has been telling other peoples' stories as a journalist for more than 25 years. She has taught writing for nearly that long. She teaches at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where she received her bachelor's degree.

This is me, Susan Crandell. I used to have a big-deal job. A founding editor of More magazine, I was editor-in-chief for two years until I flew the coop to make a lot less money freelance writing. These days I work for editors who used to report to me. Makes for some funny conversations, but I wouldn't trade places with my old self for a seven-figure salary and a Ferrari.

Cindy Pearlman is a self-described beauty junkie who has been known to beg for free samples at the nation's leading department stores. Shhhh. That stuff is expensive! She grew up in Chicago loving movies and everything Hollywood including the fact that Michelle Pfeiffer can wear blue suede pants ...and get away with it  (a.k.a. look skinny.) And she totally believes Jennifer Aniston who once told her that a six dollar bar of soap creates her perfect skin. Uh huh.

Travelzoo's Senior Editor Gabe Saglie is a leading expert on travel deals, travel tips and trends. He has appeared on dozens of highly-rated national and local news programs including CNN, NBC's Today Show, CNBC's On the Money, ABCNewsNow and Meredith Corporation's Better TV, as well as numerous affiliate stations in major markets around the country including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and many others.

Irene S. Levine, PhD is an award-winning journalist, author, and blogger. She has written hundreds of freelance articles—on health, mental health, travel and lifestyles—for some of the nation's leading magazines and newspapers. As a relationship expert, she provides information and advice to readers, blogging for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today.

Cherie Burbach specializes in relationships and helping people to connect. She is the Expert on Friendship at About.com and has penned eleven books and ebooks, including Internet Dating Is Not Like Ordering a Pizza and 21 Ways to Promote Your Book on Twitter.

Grammar maven Liz Buffa has spent the last twenty years working as an editor, writer, and teacher. She is the author of seven books, including the award-winning Grammar Smart Junior and Cracking the SAT II English Literature.

In addition to teaching test-prep classes and developing classroom materials for The Princeton Review, she taught English writing classes to community college students. She's also an avid fan of crossword puzzles, has been known to read grammar books "for fun," and believes it really is a bad idea to misplace your modifiers.

Barb Gonzalez looked at the back of a home-theater receiver and asked herself: "How is anyone going to figure out how to hook this thing up?"  Working at an electronics retailer at the time, she paired her cartooning and writing talents to create her first book, "The Home Electronics Survival Guide."  Customers began to make appointments with Barb to be advised on their home theater, computer and digital camera purchases, and to learn how to use them.

Parenting expert and small business guru Scott Steinberg is the creator of the The Modern Parent's Guide and Business Expert's Guidebookseries, and among the industry's most sought-after technology analysts and keynote speakers. Hailed as a leading high-tech family and small business expert by dozens of publications from NPR to The Wall St.