Amy Morin

The list existed before the book. In 2013 Amy Morin, a licensed clinical social worker practising in rural Maine, wrote down thirteen habits she meant to avoid, addressed to herself and not to any reader. Her mother had died of a brain aneurysm, and three years later to the day her husband Lincoln died of a heart attack at 26; the two of them had been foster parents together. She posted the list, Forbes carried it, and it reached millions of readers within weeks. 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do (2014) took each item and filled it out with material from her practice and from her own bereavement. Morin later became editor-in-chief of Verywell Mind and now lives in the Florida Keys.