Megan Hustad is the author of How to Be Useful. She has written for The New York Times, Salon, Slate, and American Public Media's Marketplace.

Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided, talks with Megan Hustad about our optimism obsession and what it has to do with the mortgage crisis, the media, and Joel Osteen’s parking spot.

In Not That Kind of Girl, Carlene Bauer turns the wild-chick confessional upside down. An evangelical Christian, she aspires to be a literary hipster in New York—while keeping her faith.

In her new erotic novel, the 85-year-old author (and mom of Anderson Cooper) writes sex scenes—with hairbrushes, masks, and bees?—that would make a Golden Girl blush.

Gwyneth Paltrow's new website about living the way-too-good life could not have launched at a worse time.