The Practical Mom, Andrea Messina

As a longtime magazine editor and writer, Andrea Messina has covered lifestyle, design, beauty/style, childcare, and more. Over the course of her career, she has interviewed countless experts, and talked with parents about ways to make their lives easier and their days more fun. (And as a mom of three 'tweens, she's had plenty of opportunity to put what she's learned into practice.)

Lifestyle Director at Parenting Magazine for 11 years, Messina helped create the Mom Squad makeovers for real moms using a team of 7 experts, oversaw room renovations for readers, tested and wrote about hundreds of products, and appeared on TV and radio.

As a senior editor at Family Circle for 6 years, Messina covered design, food, beauty/style, and fitness, including an annual walking-workout special featuring the magazine's readers. She also created a pilot magazine for a chain of home centers and wrote and edited for a number of lifestyle magazines, including House Beautiful.

Messina received an M.A. from the University of Warwick (U.K) as a Rotary Foundation Scholar, and a B.A. from Fordham University.