Ellie Tesher

Ellie Tesher hosts Outlaw In-Laws, airing Fridays at 8:30pm ET/PT beginning March 9 on Slice™.

Ellie Tesher is an internationally syndicated advice columnist, whose column Ellie appears in newspapers across North America. Launched in September 2002, her wise and witty answers to readers now appear in more than 30 newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, the original home paper of Ann Landers for over three decades.

As advice columnist and journalist, Ellie has been a frequent guest on national and local television and radio shows and has hosted her own talk-radio call in advice show. She makes many public appearances and keynote speeches, and is often asked to participate in public events and panels. She appeared in a seminar of motivational speakers including TV's Dr. Phil.

Ellie brings a unique voice - smart, funny, compassionate and practical - to the advice scene. She combines insight and life experience with solid research skills and information on local resources, as well as her background in social work.

She has a personal perspective on the problems readers bring to her: She's experienced a childhood dealing with a depressive mother, a young marriage, divorce, single parenthood, a period with a live-in alcoholic partner, troubled teenagers, caring for a parent with Alzheimer's, a second marriage, step-parenthood, family diversity, and career challenges. Through it all, she became a shining example of her own advice philosophy- that people can successfully overcome all kinds of obstacles, rise above them and inspire those around them to do so.

Ellie has been an award-winning author and journalist for over 29 years. She has worked extensively at The Toronto Star, the biggest circulation newspaper in Canada, where she's been an opinion page columnist, news columnist, editor, investigative and features writer and reporter.

For seven years, her award-winning news columns established her as a popular voice for a wide audience. Her commentary spanned current news, controversy, government policies, observations on trends and talking points, and personal insights both sharp and humourous.

Her 1999 best-seller, The Dionnes, is the remarkable story of the adult lives of identical Canadian quintuplets - the first ever in the world to survive, and who became world-wide, money-making child celebrities during the Depression years, only to suffer family isolation, personal tragedies and adult poverty. The book sold out in hard cover and paperback.

Ellie graduated from the University of Toronto with a major in sociology, completed part of her master's degree, and began her career as a child care social worker with Children's Aid Society. She managed the cases of foster children removed from their parents' homes.

She wrote freelance articles for three years, and was published in many magazines and newspapers. She was sought out and invited to come on staff by the Toronto Star in 1977, without having applied for a job.

She's happily married to her second husband, Vian Ewart, a journalist, and between them they enjoy a family of five adult children and frequent surprises.