Michele Weldon was born June 5, 1958, the youngest of six in less than eight years. She inherited the "Juvenile Journal" from her older sister Madeleine, a publishing empire of monthly mimeographed newsletters sent to 50 relatives for 50 cents a year. A journalist for newspapers and magazines for more than 35 years, Weldon has written thousands of articles and columns as a magazine editor and newspaper columnist writing for Chicago Tribune, CNN, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, TIME, USA Today, Slate, Medium, More, Al Jazeera, Christian Science Monitor and more. She has an ebook memoir excerpt, "Just Me and My Three Sons," (Shebooks) released September 2014. Her updated full memoir, "Escape Points: A Memoir" (Chicago Review Press) is out in hardcover in September 2015 and was named to Booklist's Editor's Choice for 2015. Weldon is assistant professor emerita at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a senior leader with The OpEd Project. She is director of the Northwestern Public Voices Fellowship and was co-director of TEDxNorthwestern 2014. She also was a leader of Youth Narrating Our World for Chicago Public high school students, funded by The McCormick Foundation. Her first book, "I Closed My Eyes" (Hazelden, 1999) has been translated into seven languages and the 2012 edition contains a new foreword and updated text. Weldon's second book,"Writing to Save Your Life" (Hazelden, 2001) is a prescriptive book on the power of expressive, personal writing, that has been the source of Weldon's writing workshops for the last 15 years. The 2012 edition contains a new foreword and new essays. "Everyman News" (University of Missouri,2008) examines the trends in modern journalism and recently won the nonfiction book first place award from the National Federation of Press Women. Weldon's fourth book is a nonfiction memoir about raising her three sons alone while struggling with cancer and working as a journalist and professor. She contributed an essay to the 2011 book, "This I Believe on Fatherhood," (Wiley & Sons) and read it on NPR and was interviewed on the topic by Bob Edwards. Other chapters she has written for anthologies include "21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook," (2009) and "Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates" (University of Missisippi Press,1989)and "Belly Laughs & Babies (Laughing Stork Press, 1997). She produced an ebook, "Just Me and My Three Sons" in 2014 with SheBooks. It is also available as of 2015 as an Audible Book. Weldon is a popular keynote speaker on issues related to women and the media and is also a leader with The Oped Project. She has led core seminars as well as Public Voices Fellowships for Princeton, Stanford, Wellesley, Cambridge and Northwestern universities. The mother of three sons, she lives in the Chicago area and also is a frequent live storyteller in Chicago and was featured in the 2012 Chicago Moth GrandSlam. For fun, she skates with Derby Lite, an amateur roller derby group for fun and fitness and her derby name is "Mich The Masher."