Carol Miller Fradkin grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and earned her BS at the University of Maryland. She’s held a variety of positions, including multiple volunteer leadership roles in non-profit organizations, but her longest career positions were as a flight attendant and the administrator of BMT InfoNet, a nonprofit medical organization educating and supporting patients dealing with bone marrow and stem cell transplants. She previously published Moving Gracefully: A Guide to Relocating Yourself & Your Family.

One of her current volunteer positions involves visiting hospital patients (many with life-threatening illnesses), and in making conversation with them she discovered the dramatic changes to their spirit and even their posture when they answered the question “What brings you joy?” They forgot the physical and emotional pain they were dealing with and transformed in front of her—but was the patients who said they could no longer remember what brings them joy who inspired this book. Reading what brings other people joy will remind you and your loved ones of good times in your past, and will help you to experience joy more often.