Michelle Goodman has been a full-time freelance writer and editor for more than a decade. Her articles about off-the-beaten-path careers, human mating rituals, singledom, and pup culture have appeared in publications such as Salon.com, Seattle Times, Bust, Bitch, The Bark, CityDog, Meridian, Frontier, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the anthology Moment of Truth: Women's Funniest Romantic Catastrophes (Seal Press). She recently ghostwrote a tongue-in-cheek dog owner's manual for a Northwest-based book publisher and is currently writing a book on alternative career paths for young women, to be published by Seal Press in winter 2007. During the dot-com heyday, Michelle sold piles of how-to articles on self-employment to websites such as Guru.com and techies.com. In 2000 and 2001, she penned a biweekly column on freelance writing markets for the now-defunct website Content Exchange. A native of New Jersey, she studied journalism and creative writing at George Washington University. To keep a leak-free roof over her head, Michelle also writes and edits for commercial clients such as Microsoft. In 2005, she became a Seattle-area homeowner, proving that miracles do happen, even to freelancers.

A seasoned freelancer, Diane Mapes has written essays on pop culture, the single life, television, travel, naked sushi, and more for BBW, Bust, Christian Science Monitor, Countryside, Health, Los Angeles Times, Mental Floss, Seattle Magazine, Seattle Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Southern Living, The Washington Post, and her personal favorite, Poultry Magazine. She has also published short speculative fiction in magazines such as Interzone, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, On Spec etc., and has had her fiction translated, anthologized, and used as university course material. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she studied journalism at Western Washington University and creative writing at the University of Washington where she won two awards for her short stories. Her popular reported essays about dating appear regularly in the Seattle Times and were the springboard for her first book, a humorous look at today's courtship practices, How to Date in a Postdating World, due out in June of 2006 from Sasquatch Books. Most recently, her work was featured in the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age, published October 2005 by Inner Ocean.