About the Author

Jenna McCarthy is an internationally published writer and author of The Parent Trip and Cheers to the New Mom/Dad! Jenna’s work has appeared in more than fifty magazines, on dozens of websites and in several anthologies including the popular Chicken Soup series (for which she was never paid but she’s not bitter because she has met Jack Canfield in person and he is very nice and she is sure it was just an oversight).

Jenna was born in New York and raised in Florida. Thirteen years of overpriced private schooling paid off when she was admitted to the prestigious Florida State University. Industrious by nature, Jenna went to class nearly every time it was too hot or overcast to lay by the pool. Ultimately she earned a degree in advertising with a minor in French studies, the latter of which comes in extremely handy when she is craving a croissant.

She worked for a while in advertising sales before landing a job as a copywriter at one of the largest ad agencies in the Southeast. A painful lay-off on her twenty-fifth birthday launched an accidental freelance writing career, not to mention a nasty hangover.

Although Sex and the City wasn’t even a column yet (let alone a TV show), Jenna yearned to work in the glamorous world of magazines and managed to secure an interview at Seventeen. Dressed in head-to-toe white, she obviously stood out in Manhattan’s sea of black and was offered a staff writing position, which she accepted without having the vaguest idea of her salary.

She spent several years analyzing the pubescent male psyche and pushing gruesome prom dresses before moving to Mademoiselle—which is now defunct, although Jenna is almost positive this has nothing to do with her. At Mademoiselle she enjoyed the privilege of sharing an elevator with well-known, skeletal supermodels and legendary publishing icons on a daily basis. (Jenna proudly points out that amazingly, she managed not to develop an eating disorder or allow her obsessive-compulsive tendencies to morph into destructive habits during this time.) Eventually New York’s relentless winters, smelly and unreliable subways and one particularly aggressive panhandler got to her. On a whim Jenna traded in her wardrobe of black suits for a bikini and relocated to Los Angeles, where she became an editor for Shape magazine. In her exhaustive free time she continued to serve as a west coast editor for Mademoiselle. When she had settled into a comfortable California routine—perhaps intoxicated by the balmy Pacific breezes—Jenna let the urge to work in her pajamas overtake her and embarked on a full-time freelance career.

Over the next ten years, Jenna’s byline would appear in an array of national and international magazines and on dozens of web sites. She met and married a wonderful man who convinced her to move to Santa Barbara, home of the “newlywed and nearly dead.” During one two-year period of possible insanity, she decided to capitalize on her insomnia and accepted a position as co-host of Santa Barbara’s top-rated morning radio show. When she wasn’t busy embarrassing her husband by broadcasting the details of their every disagreement to their tight-knit community, she continued to write and also managed to get pregnant. After pumping breast milk on the air, Jenna felt she’d achieved her broadcast dreams and returned to writing exclusively.

Another pregnancy and many more articles ensued before Jenna turned to writing books. She continues to live in and humiliate her husband from Santa Barbara. The couple has two beautiful daughters who thankfully are too young to read, so Jenna is pretty sure she hasn’t humiliated them yet.