Colleen Sell has long believed in the power of story to entertain, inform, enlighten, and inspire. Storytelling is both her passion and her profession.

During her career as a professional writer and editor, Colleen has worked in freelance, staff, and management capacities in both book and magazine publishing as well as in the commercial sector, providing marketing communications development and management to businesses.

As a book author, editor, and ghostwriter, Colleen has produced more than 60 published books, primarily nonfiction but also including novels. She is the co-author of 10-Minute Zen (2002, Fair Winds) and the editor of 16 volumes of the bestselling A Cup of Comfort book series (2001-2007, Adams Media, an F+W Publications Co). Her freelance writing and editing clients have included book publishers, such as Adams Media, Bonus Books, Bowtie Press, The Crossing Press, Prima Publishing, NTC Publishing, McGraw-Hill, Business Research and Communications, Presidio Press, and Volt Press, as well as businesses and individuals.

Colleen is the former editor-in-chief of two award-winning and critically acclaimed consumer magazines — Biblio: Exploring the World of Books and Mercator’s World: The Magazine of Maps, Exploration, and Discovery. She was the home and garden columnist of Good Times, a weekly newsmagazine in Northern California, and a senior editor of Small Business Reports, a national trade magazine. She also has written hundreds of articles for numerous trade and consumer magazines.

Her extensive experience in the commercial sector includes creating a wide range of advertising, marketing, and public relations campaigns and collateral; corporate communications materials (annual reports, business plans, strategic marketing plans, presentations, employee handbooks, policy/procedure manuals, etc.); technical documentation; and Web content.

Colleen returns as often as her for-hire work schedule allows to two of her greatest passions: creative writing and investigative journalism. Works-in-progress include an anthology of essays for midlife women; nonfiction books on entrepreneurial women, on raising difficult and disturbed children, and on sustainable living; a feature film (a mystical historical romance); and a “chick-lit” novel.

As much as she relishes her career in words, nothing brings Colleen more joy and satisfaction than her home, farm, friends, and family — especially her three amazing children, three practically perfect grandchildren, five terrific siblings, two beloved parents, one handsome hubby, and cherished Scribe Tribe. A nature lover and devotee of the arts, Colleen enjoys gardening, hiking, bicycling, dancing, interior design/decorating, refinishing antique furniture, listening to music, and walking in the woods. She is an ardent advocate of children, the environment, diversity, civil rights, and the mentally ill.

Colleen lives with her husband, T. N. Trudeau (aka Nikk), in a tiny rural hamlet in the magnificent Pacific Northwest. She and Nikk share a turn-of-the-century farmhouse, which they are renovating, on forty wild acres, which they are slowly turning into an organic lavender, holly, blueberry, and pumpkin farm, with their Australian shepherd-Border Collie mix, Woodstock, who watches over it all with amusement.