Amy Dickinson

Amy Dickinson was born on November 6, 1959, and grew up on a small dairy farm in Freeville, New York. She attended Clark University from 1977 to 1978 before transferring to Georgetown University. Her career began in journalism, including work for NBC News. She contributed articles to publications such as The Washington Post, Esquire, and O: The Oprah Magazine. Dickinson also wrote a column on family issues for Time magazine and produced a weekly column for AOL’s News channels, where she shared insights from her experiences as a single parent and a member of a large family. She married CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason in 1986, and they had a daughter, Emily, in 1988 before divorcing in 1990. In 2008, she married Bruno Schickel, a builder from Dryden, New York.

In 2003, Amy Dickinson distinguished herself by succeeding Ann Landers as the Chicago Tribune’s signature advice columnist, a role that saw her syndicated column, “Ask Amy,” distributed to over 150 newspapers globally. She frequently appeared as a panelist on NPR’s radio game show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” and was a regular guest on “Talk of the Nation.” Her memoir, “The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them,” released in 2009 by Hyperion Books, quickly achieved recognition by appearing on The New York Times bestseller list within two weeks. A second memoir, “Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Coming Home,” followed in March 2017 with Hachette Books. After more than two decades, Dickinson announced her retirement from the “Ask Amy” column in May 2024, with her final column published on June 30, 2024, summarizing her philosophy and thanking her long-term readership.