Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award), a novel, Stern Men, and, most recently, The Last American Man, a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. As a journalist, she wrote for GQ for five years and was nominated three times for the National Magazine Award. In her early 30s, plagued with despair following a nasty divorce, Gilbert got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world-all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year.

Catherine Gilbert Murdock is a big fan of family farms and Wisconsin, although she never played high school football or milked cows. She herself grew up on a tiny farm (with honeybees and two goats) in Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania. Dairy Queen is her first novel. Elizabeth Gilbert is her sister.