ShannanYoungerHeadshotShannan Ball Younger is a freelance writer and blogger living outside Chicago with her husband and daughter. She’s originally from Ohio and received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Notre Dame. She blogs at Mom Factually and at Chicago Parent. You can also find her writing in the book The Her Stories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain and Power of Female Friendship and several regional publications.

She has written about the adventures of raising an adolescent at Tween Us on ChicagoNow for more than two years, so it’s probably not a coincidence, then, that her essay in this collection is about a friend with whom she was close in middle school.

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