VS Grenier ~ Award-Winning Author, Speaker & Podcaster

Jaclyn Weist is an Idaho farm girl who adores reading. She met Steve at BYU and they have six crazy children that encourage her writing. After owning a bookstore and running away to Australia, they settled back down in Utah. Jaclyn now spends her days herding kids to various activities and trying to remember what she was supposed to do next.   What do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? ~ I have my computer in the living room so my kids can hang out around me while I write. I let them help me brainstorm when I ’ m stuck. There are times when I do a lot more family things than writing, and other times I get caught up in my writing and forget everything around me. I just make sure that after that happens, I go find something fun to do with my kids. After school every day, I ’ m usually running around to various activities for them, so I wait until they ’ re in bed to write. Every day is a new day and a new way to work around what needs t...

Carolyn Howard-Johnson has been an instructor for nearly a decade at the renowned UCLA Extension Writers' Program. She is an author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally books including the second edition honored by USA Book News. She was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune—“A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper”—where she wrote features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige.  Later, in New York, she was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping Magazine. She also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List. She has also worked as columnist, reviewer, and staff writer for the Pasadena Star-News, Home Décor Buyer, the Glendale News-Press (an affiliate of the LA Times), Myshelf.com, and others and has appeared in commercials and on dozens of TV and radio shows.  Carolyn’s experience in journalism and as a poet and author...

Teri Harman is an author and book geek. Her books include BLOOD MOON, and the upcoming BLACK MOON, STORM MOON and A PAINTED LIFE. She also writes a book column for  ksl.com , and contributes regular book segments to Studio 5, Utah’s #1 lifestyle show.  Join in the magic and chaos at  teriharman.com What do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Religious devotion to schedules, routines, and calendars. My priorities are always taking care of my family, taking care of myself, and writing. Other things –like folding laundry – can slip. Who cares if we all pull our underwear and jammies from a basket instead of folded from a drawer? We also make sure to take time to be together on weekends – outings, movies, dinners, etc. How long have you been writing? It may sound a little cliché, but always. I was born a writer and storyteller, like many of us are. The first story I remember writing (and still have) was whe...