I (hollyshumas.com) grew up dreaming of being a writer, and woke up at age 24 after two semesters of an MFA program. For a time, I stopped writing, earned my master’s degree in counseling, and was so immersed in real life stories that I didn’t miss creating my own. But luckily for me, everything comes around again and at age 30, I started working on Five Things I Can’t Live Without. I’m now a licensed marriage and family therapist, working part-time in the San Francisco bay area and (mostly) hard at work on my second novel.