Former restaurant chef turned blogger Dana DeVolk is newly wed, a homemaker, a daughter, lover of a good book, Mama to four beautiful fur babies and a cookin’ fool!

Dana was born near Chicago, where she spent the first half of her childhood. The other half was spent in and around Durham, NC. Raised in a family that always had a passion for cooking, Dana attended Johnson and Wales University where she received her Associates Degree in Culinary Arts.

Dana worked in well known restaurants for over six years, primarily in management roles. She was transferred from North Carolina to Florida where she currently resides, just outside of Jacksonville.

Dana’s first cookbook, The Cozy Table: Comfort Food Recipes for One, Two or a Few, was published September 19th, 2017 by Countryman Press, a division of W. W. Norton.

Dana's work has appeared in Woman’s World Magazine June 19th issue, Food Network’s The Kitchen Sink and many online publications such as Huffington Post, Country Living, BuzzFeed, Red Book Magazine and more.

Lisa Lott's work has been featured in a multitude of online outlets including Honest Cooking, Men’s Fitness, Today, Better Homes & Gardens, BuzzFeed and Shape, to name a few.

Her food photography stretches beyond her blog. Lisa styles and shoots dishes for restaurant menus and websites and she aspires to photograph a cookbook.

Having grown up in Southeastern Virginia, Lisa has a natural affinity for well-seasoned cast iron skillets, Smithfield ham, soft-shell crabs and old fashioned oyster roasts.

Lisa's approachable fare tastes like home.

Irena Macri's combined her background in digital media and journalism with her passion for food and well-being to create her dream job: full-time food blogger and online entrepreneur.

Drawing on her love of world cuisines and all-natural ingredients, Irena creates delicious recipes that promote wellness and longevity. She is a published author with multiple cookbooks and eBooks under her belt, as well as a creator of online nutrition and wellness plans and courses.

Irena and her recipes have been featured in Women's Health, Woman's Day, The Guardian, Marie Claire and Yahoo!. She has appeared on popular radio shows, podcasts and at conferences.

Melissa Megginson is resident Marketing Manager and Cat Lady at Tailwind, the leading visual marketing tool for brands. Melissa specializes in content creation, social media, blogging, PR outreach and pretty much all things marketing.

Tailwindapp is a Pinterest and Instagram analytics and marketing company.

Here is their story:

They were their own first customer. The founders of the Tailwindapp began using Pinterest in early 2011 as a solution for their own marketing purposes while building BridesView.com. The very first version of Tailwind (then named PinLeague) asked a simple question: how could they identify brides-to-be using Pinterest to plan their weddings? As they dug in deeper, they began to see rapid success on Pinterest. Pretty soon, our friends started asking if we could generate similar insights for them.

A huge opportunity was emerging and they decided to pivot, focusing on opening the best Pinterest marketing and analytics platform to everyone.

Since then, their users have led them in new and exciting directions, and have helped them to understand that:

1. ROI from Pinterest isn’t just about what happens on Pinterest.
2. The greatest rewards come from leveraging insights across marketing channels, and even across entire organizations.

So, they've grown with their users’ needs and are thinking bigger each and every day.

Today, over 100,000 of the world’s leading brands and 400 of the top agencies trust Tailwind, and they are excited to see how social intelligence can transform your business.

Sara Forte discovered a love for whole foods when she volunteered at an organic farm while working towards her English degree at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

This interest led to an internship in Italy at a bed and breakfast/cooking school, jobs at a few different markets, and eventually to creating a food blog, Sprouted Kitchen, that she produces with her husband Hugh.

Sara writes recipes and stories about life while Hugh documents the couple's whole food approach to eating well. Sara has written two cookbooks, The Sprouted Kitchen, which was nominated for a James Beard in the Healthy Cookbooks Category, and Sprouted Kitchen: Bowl + Spoon.

Sara's work is featured in InStyle, Better Home & Gardens, Sunset and Fine Cooking. The blog has been recognized by Saveur for Best Food Photography and Best Food Blog. Sara continues to work on a third book; she freelances in recipe development; and she is a personal chef and mother of two toddlers. Sara and Hugh currently live in Dana Point, California: working, eating and inspiring people to cook fresh, real food.

Hugh Forte is a self-taught photographer – an endeavor that was born from traveling and wanting to document the life playing out around him. While Hugh focuses most of his energy on wedding and lifestyle commissions, he created Sprouted Kitchen as a gift to Sara, for them to have a creative outlet together – her cooking and him documenting - and has since begun to experiment with a fresh approach to the art of food photography.

With an aesthetic inspired largely by the natural beauty of the subject, his talent is perfectly paired with Sara’s cooking style. Hugh’s work has been recognized by the Smithsonian, Photo District News and Conde Nast. While photography is both his profession and passion, Hugh’s time is also invested in great books, fun waves, and the pursuit of a really good cup of coffee.

Lynn Hoefer is a German Food and Health Blogger, better known for her blog Heavenlynn Healthy. On her bilingual food blog, Lynn shows how fun and colorful healthy eating can be and that it does not mean deprivation in any way. Lynn is studying to become a holistic health coach and lives in the picturesque town of Lueneburg, Germany.

A few years ago Lynn was diagnosed with a severe form of hypertension. Since she was already an active, normal weight, healthy eating young woman, this came as quite a shock to her.

Lynn visited several doctors and specialists, but they all told her the same thing: that she had to rely on heavy drugs for the rest of her life. Not wanting to accept this destiny, Lynn started researching for alternative medicine. She found that a plant-based diet was most suitable for hypertensive patients.

This diet has been shown to drastically lower blood-pressure and even though the drastic change of going to a plant-based diet was difficult, Lynn managed to eat completely plant-based, gluten-free, and processed sugar-free for 5 months.

Surprisingly, it worked. Lynn was not able to completely get off her medications, but she found that she could at least lower the doses.

That was one year ago, and Lynn has been trying to stick to this diet ever since. However, eating this way is not always easy, because although Lynn's friends were all very understanding and open, she realized that strictly adhering to this diet is exhausting and even a bit unsocial. That’s why Lynn tries to eat healthy whenever she can, but does not give herself a hard time whenever she isn't successful.

Lynn believes that our bodies can handle some “bad” food from time to time. The liver is a natural de-toxifier and so she can allow herself to rely on it from time to time.

Lynn tries to cook from scratch because she loves all the goodness that you can do for your body by adding delicious healthy foods to your diet. Lynn tries to avoid processed foods whenever she can, and this is probably the one rule she can manage to stick to all the time. Lynn doesn't eat fast foods and only eats at restaurants that make their food from scratch, too.

Lynn recently started nutrition school, and is on the way to become an integrative nutrition and health coach.

Casey Markee has probably forgotten more about SEO than I will ever know. Casey is the guy to talk to when you want to up your SEO game!

As the on-staff SEO expert for FoodBloggerPro.com and one of the most experienced food blogging SEO experts in the world, Casey Markee brings a level of relevant experience that is hard to match. Among the top food blogs Casey has worked with include; Simply Recipes, Steamy Kitchen, LeitesCulinaria.com, ToriAvey.com, the Brown-Eyed Baker and many more.

Casey is also the founder of digital marketing firm Media Wyse and the Lead SEO Consultant and Trainer for industry news site www.searchenginenews.com. He's trained SEO teams on five continents, spoken at dozens of conferences, and is a co-author of The Unfair Advantage Book: Winning the Search Engine Wars, along with hundreds of articles on SEO, social media, and link building topics.

When Casey isn't doing SEO, he spends his days wrangling his wife, two kids, three dogs, two cats and assorted horses at his home in the San Diego Country Estates in CA. He's a craft beer enthusiast and believes bacon should be its own food group.

Katie Parla is a popular blogger who writes from Rome, Italy about food and travel and who could (and often does) eat pizza every day!

Katie Parla is a Rome-based food and beverage educator and journalist. Originally from New Jersey, she has an art history degree from Yale, a master’s degree in Italian Gastronomic Culture from the Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, a sommelier certificate from the Federazione Italiana Sommelier Albergatori Ristoratori, and an archeological speleology certification from the city of Rome.

Whew! Way to go, Katie!

Katie’s mission is to highlight great food and beverages, praise the people dedicated to feeding us well, and inspire readers to talk about what they are eating and drinking. She focuses special attention on threats to local food culture, critical reviews of restaurants and trends, and food and dining in Rome, where she lives.

Katie has written and edited more than 20 books. Her food criticism and travel commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, Condé Nast Traveller UK, Bon Appétit, Travel + Leisure, Lucky Peach, Corriere della Sera, Imbibe, Monocle, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Olive, AFAR, Punch, Wine Enthusiast, National Geographic Traveler, Eater, Delicious, Epicurious, Serious Eats, Food Republic, The Atlantic, Gather Journal, and The Sunday Times Magazine.

Katie is the author of the ebook Eating & Drinking in Rome, the mobile apps Katie Parla’s Rome and Katie Parla’s Istanbul, and the book National Geographic’s Walking Rome.

Her latest cookbook Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City won the IACP Award for Best International Cookbook 2017.

Liren Baker is the food photographer, writer and creator of the award winning food blog, Kitchen Confidante, where she shares seasonal recipes that are inspired by her life in California as a wife and mother of two, the flavors of her heritage, and her travels.

Liren Baker is a New York native with a background in marketing research and a Master’s degree in clinical psychology. But despite her education and training, Liren found her passion for food too irresistible to deny.

After she moved to San Francisco in 2000, Liren embraced life in California and immersed herself in the Bay Area’s vibrant culinary culture. She founded her food blog, Kitchen Confidante in 2010 to express both her great love of food and her love of photography.

Her work has been featured on sites including Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Huffington Post, the Kitchn, Food52, Today, and Refinery29.

Liren also works extensively with brands and websites as a recipe developer and food photographer. She has spoken at conferences on how brands and bloggers can effectively work together, as well as on the subjects of food styling and photography.

Liren was honored to receive The IACP Legacy of Julia Child Award in 2012 for her piece: Homework with Julia. Kitchen Confidante was also featured as one of the 10 Best Food Blogs of 2013 by PBS Food.

When Kathryne Taylor started her blog, Cookie and Kate, she didn't start it as a food blog but as a mixture of different interests. She quickly switched to reflect her love of food!!

Kathryne Taylor is the personality behind the hugely popular food blog, Cookie and Kate, named for the duo that is Kate and her crumb-catching dog, Cookie.

In 7 years, the vegetarian and all-natural food blog has grown from a hobby to a full-time project. Kathryne researches, develops, cooks, photographs, and writes every recipe on her blog. She has also published a cookbook: Love Real Food.

Originally from Oklahoma, Kathryne now lives in Kansas City. In her spare time, you'll find her practicing yoga, traveling near and far, and clinking drinks with friends.