Chris Black is a writer and communications consultant. She was a political reporter for more than thirty years and worked at the Boston Globe and as a White House and Congressional Correspondent for Cable Network News (CNN). B. Jay Cooper met Baldrige while covering him as a reporter in Waterbury, Connecticut. Baldrige asked him to come to Washington to be his speechwriter. Cooper later became director of public affairs at the Commerce Department and was appointed deputy press secretary at the White House by Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. This is their first collaboration as a married couple. They live on a tidal river in Marion, Massachusetts.