Carolyn Hax

Her first husband, Galifianakis, has provided a single-panel cartoon for her columns since their inception. He has continued to do so, even though they have been divorced since 2002.

When Hax divorced Galifianakis in June 2002, she was already pregnant with twins, by Ackerman. Although she had been separated from Galifianakis for 10 months, at the time she got pregnant, some of her readers were critical of Hax. Hax discussed her situation in her weekly online chat, Carolyn Hax Live.

Hax was associate editor and news editor at the Army Times and copy editor and news editor at The Washington Post. In 2001, Hax published her first book, Tell Me About It: Lying, Sulking, and Getting Fat and 56 Other Things Not to Do While Looking for Love. Her essay “Peace and Carrots” was included in the 2006 anthology Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families (ed. Leslie Morgan Steiner; Random House, 2006).

The column debuted in 1997 and is published daily and syndicated by The Washington Post Syndicate to more than 200 newspapers. Featuring cartoons by Hax’s ex-husband, Nick Galifianakis, Tell Me About It originally provided advice targeted at readers under 30, but has since broadened its audience.

Hax married her first husband, cartoonist Nick Galifianakis, in 1994. They divorced in 2002. She then married her second husband, her childhood friend Ken Ackerman, who is the father of her twins, in November 2002.

Born December 5, 1966, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Hax grew up in Trumbull, the youngest of four daughters. Her father, now retired, was director of research planning at Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford. Hax graduated from Hopkins School in 1984 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University (1988).