Barbara Straus Lodge is a writer whose personal essays have appeared in Parabola Magazine, The Good Men Project, Literary Mama, New York Times Motherlode, the "LA Affairs" section of the Los Angeles Times, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Keys To Recovery, and a variety of anthologies. She co-edited an anthology, Janeland, which will be published in early 2017. Barbara teaches writing to incarcerated young girls through WriteGirl, a Los Angeles based mentoring program and is the founder of TruthTalks workshops offering hope for parents of kids with substance use disorder. She is constantly in awe of her two young adult children. Learn more at www.barbarstrauslodge.com and www.truthtalks.us.