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Christine A. Wolf
Christine Wolf (born April 8, 1968) is an American journalist, author, essayist, and memoir writing coach. She is Founder and President of Writers' Haven LLC, a cooperative workspace for women writers and President of Tinywolf Productions LLC, a literary management company. Wolf is the author of Politics, Partnerships, & Power: The Lives of Ralph E. and Marguerite Stitt Church and publishes the online series Writers On Writing. She hosts and facilitates writing retreats, workshops, and panels on storytelling and expressive writing techniques. Despite the lack of formal, traditional training in writing, journalism, or business, Wolf established a full-time writing career at the age of 40 by relying on gut instincts and a transparent approach to her personal challenges and accomplishments. Her writing focuses on topics many choose not to explore: women's issues, mental health, and writing through (and beyond) trauma. On January 30, 2012, Wolf was one of 6 people chosen from 227,000 who'd expressed interest in interviewing President Barack Obama in what was cited as "the first time in American history that a U.S. President or The White House conducted an online interview in real time."

Wolf is a former Board Member of The Chicago Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.. She's been published by (or featured in) Patch.com, the Chicago Tribune, Runner's World, The Writing Cooperative, The Good Men Project, Invisible Illness, The Author's Guild, The Pioneer Press, Better Humans, BestLife, The Muffin, ShoutOut Arizona, and more.

Early Life and Education
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wolf was an infant when her family settled in the Chicago area. A lifelong diarist, she dreamed of becoming a writer but lacked the confidence to do so. While attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she worked as an overnight DJ on WPGU-FM. Wolf hoped to pursue a career in communications but struggled when declaring a major, torn between journalism and advertising. After others convinced her there'd be more job security in a business environment, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Advertising from the College of Media. Wolf would later earn a Master of Arts in Teaching from National Louis University.

Professional Career
Wolf's professional career began in 1990 in the "Media PIT" at Chicago advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide. A promotion to the Client Service Department soon followed.

On March 9, 1993, Wolf was riding on an Amtrak train, headed to a client meeting at the Kellanova (then Kellogg's) Headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. In Comstock, Michigan, her train, traveling at 62 mph (100 kph), collided tanker truck carrying propane fuel, killing one and leaving many injured. For the next two decades, Wolf did not speak of the accident, unable to recognize the signs of survivor guilt or PTSD. Twenty-two years after the accident, she wrote about the incident for the first time and realized the healing power of opening up publicly about difficult times in our lives.

Soon after the train accident, Wolf left Burnett in 1993 for an account management role at DDB. Two years later, she was coordinating MBA recruiting efforts at Chicago consulting group Deloitte. While there, she began a Master's program in education at National Louis University. After her first child was born in 1997, Wolf left corporate life for a new career in early childhood education. She taught for nearly 10 years while raising her three children.

In 2008, as Wolf approached the age of 40, she took what she'd assumed would be a 1-year hiatus from teaching to write a book. Memoir was Wolf's dream (and favorite genre), but with little knowledge of the publishing world, she channeled her experience as a teacher into writing a children's novel. As a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Wolf found a writing community and began learning about the rapidly-changing world of publishing — and how to establish herself as an author.

Chicago Now...XXXX

In 2012, Wolf completed her first book-length, middle-grade manuscript. That same year, Wolf's casual response to a call for submissions by Google led her to be one of 6 people who interviewed then-President Barack Obama in the first ever live-streamed interview from the White House. On January 30, 2012, while speaking with Obama through a video monitor on her dining room table, Wolf stopped the interview and introduced her three children to the President of the United States.. It was the "first time in American history a U.S. President or the White House conducted an online interview in real-time." Wolf was later featured in videos promoting subsequent Presidential Google Hangouts — one that included two of her children, and another that did not.

On September 25, 2014, Wolf was featured in Robert K. Elder's podcast The Big Questions, in which she discussed the difference between opinion and judgment. That same year, Wolf founded Writers' Haven Michigan, her first cooperative workspace for women writers. She sold the business in 2017.

In 2017, Wolf received an honorable mention from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists for her column (published on the Chicago Tribune's now defunct ChicagoNow Blog) titled The Groping and The Boy Across the Hall — a piece she wrote describing how she'd been sexually assaulted as a teen.

In 2018, Wolf founded Tinywolf Productions LLC and launched her first paid blog on Medium.com.

In 2019, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Wolf interviewed photographer Suzanne Rothmeyer about her provocative, visual series Melancholia, which puts a spotlight on depression.

In October 2020, Wolf was invited to speak on the podcast The CheckOut about her journey as a writer.

In 2021, Wolf shared an essay about her complicated relationship with her biological father and the challenges of grieving an estranged parent. Since publishing it, she regularly hears from readers who are trying to navigate this difficult and often-unspoken dynamic.

On June 20, 2022, Wolf was named a StorySLAM Champion at The Moth. The theme of the night was "Birthdays". Her story described how she'd suddenly lost a younger sister in 2018, then suddenly discovered and older sister four years later using an at-home DNA test. Both of her sisters were named Elizabeth at birth.

In X, Wolf re-launched her cooperative workspace for women writers, Writers' Haven LLC — this time near Chicago. She opened the doors to writers on X, but was forced to close X weeks later during the Covid-19 Pandemic. During the pandemic shutdown, Wolf found work as a U.S. Census Enumerator, then as a Covid-19 Case Investigator and Contact Tracer for the Illinois Department of Public Health. At night, she updated her website, longing to reconnect with her beloved writing community. In March 2021, Wolf began hearing regularly from friends and strangers requesting feedback on their personal essays and memoirs. She decided then to focus her professional life on memoir coaching.

In XXX, Wolf launched her Substack newsletter, Writers' Haven by Christine Wolf.

In August of 2022, the new owners of the Chicago Tribune, Alden Global Capital, quietly closed ChicagoNowin what former ChicagoNow manager Jimmy Greenfield described as "a cowardly and horribly unprofessional way". While trying unsuccessfully to reach anyone at Alden, Wolf and her ChicagoNow colleagues scrambled to preserve what they could of their years of contributions and content. The platform, launched by the Trib in 2009, had been considered by many to be the future of digital journalism, paving the way for modern-day digital newsletters.

Books
• Politics, Partnerships, & Power: The Lives of Ralph E. and Marguerite Stitt Church by Jay Pridmore and Christine Wolf (Master Wings Publishing, December 2023)

• Home for the Holidays, Farnsworth? (Contributor) (Wesley Writers Workshop, November 2011.