Sharon DeBartolo Carmack is a Certified Genealogist with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing. She is the author of twenty-eight books, including Madame Restell: The True Story of New York City’s Most Notorious Abortionist, Her Early Life, Family, and Murder; In Search of Maria B. Hayden: The American Medium Who Brought Spiritualism to the U.K.; Tell It Short: A Guide to Writing Your Family History in Brief; and Inheriting the Gordon Hips, a collection of humorous essays. She is also the author of hundreds of articles, essays, columns, and reviews that have appeared in nearly every major genealogical journal and publication, as well as essays in literary publications, such as Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Hippocampus Magazine, Portland Review, Steinbeck Review, and Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art. Sharon’s essays have also been finalists in contests for the Bellingham Review’s Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction and in Creative Nonfiction’s True Crime contest.