About the Author

This little award-winning chapbook in the Celebration Series of poetry chapbooks is coauthored by Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball. Magdalena runs the online book review site, The Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews, and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry and fiction. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from CCNY (New York), an MBA from Charles Sturt University (NSW), and has studied literature on a postgraduate level at Oxford University (UK) and marketing at Newcastle University (NSW). She lives in on a rural property in New South Wales with her husband and three children. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment and two poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup. Carolyn's first novel, This Is the Place, won eight awards. Her book of creative nonfiction, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, won three. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renown Writers' Program for nearly a decade and has several multi award-winning how-to books for writers to her name. Her chapbook of poetry Tracings published by Finishing Line Press, was named to the Compulsive Reader's Ten Best Reads list and was given the Military Writers' Society of America's Silver Award of Excellence. She is the recipient of the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award. Her community's Character and Ethics Committee awarded her their Woman of the Year for her work promoting tolerance with her writing and its Arts and Culture Commission gave her their coveted Diamond award. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly's list of fourteen "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen." Carolyn's website is www.HowToDoItFrugally.com . She blogs writers resources at Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites pick www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com. Visit Magdalena's website at http: //www.magdalenaball.com and The Compulsive Reader at http: //www.compulsivereader.com/html Vicki Taylor's floral watercolors illustrate this chapbook.