Writer Amy Lyles Wilson was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Now based in Nashville, Tennessee, Wilson wrote the text for the New York Times bestselling cookbook Cooking with Friends, and her essay “The Guts to Keep Going,” about helping her mother adjust to widowhood, was featured on National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” and appears in This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies from Remarkable Men and Women (Henry Holt, 2008). Wilson holds academic degrees from Millsaps College, the University of Mississippi, and Vanderbilt University Divinity School. An affiliate of Amherst Writers and Artists, she leads writing workshops on such topics as creativity, spirituality, and grief. You can find her at www.amylyleswilson.com.