Jessica Watson is a mom to five, four in her arms and one in her heart. After the loss of her infant daughter in 2007, Jessica left the corporate world behind and discovered her writing roots again.

Jessica's first children's book was released April 2016. "Soon" tells the heartwarming story of the journey of a preemie, inspired by Jessica's own NICU experience with her children. When she's not crossing her fingers that you buy her new book you can find Jessica writing with her heart on her sleeve at her personal blog, Four Plus an Angel. Her work has been featured on sites such as Cosmopolitan, Women's Day, Good Housekeeping, SheKnows, Huffington Post, Parade, Mamalode and Parenting.com.

Alexa Bigwarfe is a wife, mother to 3 wildlings, devoted advocate, blogger, author, and publisher. Her writing career began after her infant daughter passed away at 2 days old. She has written and/or edited and published numerous books, including Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother and Ditch the Fear and Just Write It!

Alexa coaches authors through the publishing and marketing process in her company Write|Publish|Sell (writepublishsell.co). She also owns the small hybrid-publishing company Kat Biggie Press (katbiggiepress.com), dedicated to sharing women’s works of inspiration and self-help, Purple Butterfly Press, a children's hybrid press, and Chrysalis Press, a small traditional press. She hosts the Women in Publishing Summit (womeninpublishingsummit.com) annually to help provide education, resources, and encouragement to women across the spectrum of writing, publishing, and selling books.

She enjoys drinking wine, spending time with her husband and friends, traveling, and just because life isn’t full enough, hosting the “Lose the Cape!” podcast featuring inspirational mothers and women making a difference in the world.

Start your writing journey with her free 30-days of simple strategies to start writing at http://bit.ly/write30days. You can find her on Facebook @Writepubsell IG as @writepublishsell and on twitter @katbiggie or @writepubsell.

Katia started writing in 2012 when she went on her second maternity leave. One evening after bathtime, Katia's husband reassured their three year-old toddler that his milk (served in a bottle) was waiting for him in his room. Upon hearing the word "milk" Katia's brain went into Pavlovian mode and a little voice inside her reported for duty ("I AM READY" it said, in all caps).When Katia caught herself responding thusly and identifying so profoundly with food, she decided something needed to be done and started her blog IAMTHEMILK. Her writing initially focused on parenting humour and IAMTHEMILK became a Wordpress recommended blog in the Family category (2014-2015). The blog soon assumed a life of its own and it now also covers a variety of non-parental (and non-so-funny) topics like immigration, identity and loss.

Some of Katia's proudest achievements since starting the blog include being named a BlogHer Voice of The Year in 2013 and once again in 2017 and being twice featured on Wordpress's Freshly Pressed Editorial platform. Katia's writing has been featured on websites such as Huffington Post, Scary Mommy and Yahoo News and her blog was referenced by CNN Parents, Today Parents and tens of memes which Katia creates and posts on her personal Facebook page.

Katia's writing was published in print. You can find her humorous essays in New York Times bestselling author Jen Mann's upcoming anthology "But Did You Die?" and in "Life Well Blogged - Parenting Gag Reel" (Editor: Abbey Fatica). Her personal essays were featured in two installments of the acclaimed series The HerStories Project ("The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendship" and "So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real About Motherhood") and her essay on her experience with pregnancy loss can be found in "Sunshine After the Storm - A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother" (Editor: Alexa Haddock Bigwarfe).

Suzanne M. Tucker is mom to twins plus two and five baby angels, storyteller and journal keeper. She and her husband run a holistic health center in Saint Louis Missouri where, among other things, she teaches about the power of attachment and infant massage, as close to her bliss as she has ever found.

Suzanne created MyMommyManual.com, a website reminding moms to look inside for instructions. A fan of intuition, Suzanne believes there is no manual greater than the one that lives within. Whether exploring the topics of motherhood and parenting or grief and loss, Suzanne's work stems from a deeply held belief that "our lives are not our own, they are for us to share."

Jennie Goutet is the best-selling author of twelve Regency romances, including the Clavering Chronicles, Memorable Proposals, and Daughters of the Gentry series. Her books have received first place in historical romance for the New England Reader’s Choice Awards and have hit the number one spot in Regency Romance on Amazon. They have been featured on BookBub and Hoopla, and are translated into five languages. Jennie is an American-born Anglophile who lives with her French husband and their three children in a small town outside of Paris. Her imagination resides in Regency England, where her best-selling proper Regency romances are set. You can learn more about Jennie’s books and sign up for her newsletter on her author website: JennieGoutet or visit her shop at JennieGoutetBooks.

Photo credit: Caroline Aoustin

Anna Whiston-Donaldson is a former high school English teacher who lives in the DC Suburbs. Her blog, An Inch of Gray, shares Anna's stories of humor, motherhood, and loss and has twice been voted one of BlogHer's Voices of the year.

In 2011 her two children went out to play in the rain and only one came home.

Her New York Times bestseller Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love (Convergent) deals with raw, new grief and finding faith and hope in impossible circumstances.

Rare Bird was one of Publisher's Weekly's top picks of 2014.

Her children's picture book, A Hug from Heaven (Mascot Books 2018) comforts grieving children and models healthy grieving.

Anna has also contributed to Modern Loss: Candid Conversations about Grief (Harper Collins) and Sunshine after the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother.

Anna's writing has been featured in Woman's Day, Ladies' Home Journal, and The Washington Post as well as on For Her, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post and other outlets.

Humorous and full of heart, Anna speaks to groups about resilience, loss, faith and finding a way forward when life is different than you expected.

Find Anna at annawhistondonaldson.com

Sarah Rudell Beach is a contributing author to Sunshine After the Storm: A Handbook for the Grieving Mother (2013). She is also the creator of Left Brain Buddha, where she explores ideas and practices for mindfulness, and shares the challenges and riches in her journey to live and parent mindfully in a left-brain, analytical life. Her writing has been featured on Tiny Buddha, the Power of Moms, and BlogHer.

Sarah lives in Minnesota with her husband and two children. In her free time, she enjoys reading, dancing, yoga, and hanging out with her little Buddhas.

Kelly is a native of California transplanted to Colorado. She writes because it keeps her sane. She resists niches and writes about anything and everything that happens in life as she sees it, and is in the process of writing several books. If you aren't nice, she'll write about you...so be nice.

I’m Heather and I write about life, love & my beautiful family. I’m the mama to four beautiful daughters, one of whom was stillborn in 2012. I’m a writer, a knitter, a liberal, and an activist.

I’ve been blogging since 2001 at http://www.thedestinymanifest.com, where I have poured my heart out into random musings, craft projects, and knitting designs. I love to read, as well as listen to either audio books or my husband’s voice as he reads to me.

I write about everything from mental health issues, dealing with anxiety and infant loss/grief & my own personal growth, to gardening, knitting & our family’s struggle to outrun our own financial dire straits.

Every day is an adventure!

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Stephanie Sprenger is a freelance writer, music therapist, and mother of two young daughters. Her work has been featured on The Washington Post, Brain, Child Magazine, Cosmopolitan.com, Redbook.com, The Huffington Post, Motherwell Magazine, Scary Mommy, and more. She is co-producer of Listen To Your Mother Boulder, and was named one of BlogHer's 2014 Voices of the Year. Stephanie has published four books as co-editor of The HerStories Project. Visit HerStoriesProject.com to learn more about the editors, contributors, and the project.

Starr works from her home in Arizona as a freelance writer. Her writing ranges from humor laced snarkfests, gritty and painfully raw non-fiction all the way to her recently discovered dark world of Erotica. ("It pays the bills!" she proclaims.) The author behind The Insomniac's Dream, she claims blogging was only the beginning of an amazing freelancing career.

She also writes fiction and is working on a book in her spare time, around all of her other deadlines and in between raising two fantastically funny and disgusting tween boys.

Starr loves Halloween, Zombies, and all things horror. She aspires to be a Vampire someday.

She enjoys adult grape juice, reading in her non existent spare time, and connecting with other writers, bloggers, and her readers.

Her claim to fame is her caustic wit, copious swears, and an ongoing battle with insomnia.

Happy Nightmares! XoXo

You can find Starr on FB https://www.facebook.com/sleepybard

Or at her blog www.theinsomniacsdream.com

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Regina Petsch born in 1970 in Nashville, Tennessee. Graduated from college in 1993 with a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing. Has worked in a variety of nursing and social work settings. Advocate, Mother, Teacher, and fierce protector of human rights. Having lost a child in 2007~ and barely surviving that nightmare~ very proud to be part of Sunshine After the Storm; A Guide for the Grieving Mother.

Marcia Kester Doyle is the voice behind the popular humor blog, Menopausal Mother, where she muses on the good, the bad, and the ugly side of midlife mayhem. Give her a glass of wine and a jar of Nutella, and she'll be your best friend. It's rogue humor at its finest!

Marcia has written for The Huffington Post, Humor Outcasts, In the Powder Room, and What The Flicka. Marcia has also been featured on numerous sites such as Scary Mommy, BlogHer, The Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, Midlife Boulevard, Boomeon, and BA50, among others. She is a contributing author to the following books: The Mother of All Meltdowns, Clash of the Couples, Motherhood: May Cause Drowsiness, Sunshine After the Storm, To Bliss and Back, Parenting Gag Reel, and will be featured in the forthcoming anthologies Surviving Mental Illness Through Humor, Mom for the Holidays, and How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This?

Marcia is a BlogHer Voice of the Year 2014 recipient and VoiceBoks Top Hilarious Parent Blogger 2014. She was also voted as a Top 25 Blogger in the Circle of Moms Contest 2013. She is a native Floridian and married mother of four children, as well as being a grandparent to a feisty toddler.

You can read Marcia's humor blog at http://www.menopausalmom.com or follow her at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MenopausalMother

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MenoMother

Official Author Website: http://www.marciakesterdoyle.com

AnnMarie Gubenko is a former teacher, aspiring writer and stay-at-home mom of four here on earth and one in Heaven. She married her college sweetheart and together they are riding this roller coaster of life. When not shuffling kids to football, basketball, baseball, cheerleading, volleyball and ballet and folding and putting away the endless mounds of laundry that a family of six creates, she loves to read, write and can often be found at Target or Barnes and Noble. She is the author of Tidbits from the Queen of Chaos which is a blog about the ups and downs of marriage to a sports-loving extrovert and motherhood involving a teen, twin tweens and a preschooler. Topics such as infertility, life with children that battle a chronic illness and triumphing through tragedy are also covered. It’s not always pretty but it’s always honest.