Born in California to two Vietnam War refugees, Linda Yang understands perseverance and the challenges of adapting to a new culture. Today, she shares her testimony as a Co-Author in the International Bestseller Women Who Dream by Kate Butler, in hopes that other First Generation Americans will realize that they are not alone.

We often have fond memories of our parents reading us bedtime stories when we were kids. Cozy blankets, sitting next to mom or dad, and happy endings are usually what comes to mind. For New Jersey native and mom of two, Kate Butler, she discovered that she wasn’t always pleased with how these stories ended. As she read to her children, she often found herself dissatisfied not only with the stories’ endings, but also with the characters themselves. She started changing the stories as she read them.

Children’s Author Mary Beth Stevens enjoyed a successful career in marketing and PR in New England, but made some big life changes when she met two dogs named Tippy and Suzie. Suzie was Stevens’ first dog, which she and her husband adopted from a rescue group out of Tennessee and instantly fell in love with. They took Tippy in as a foster, and the connection wasn’t as instantaneous. “He was a challenge,” she admits. “Lots of training helped, and now he’s such a funny dog.” Stevens says she got the idea for the first book from those first weeks with Tippy, and when she shared stories of his antics with her friends, they told her she should write a book.