Martha Sherrill was born in Palo Alto, California and was raised by a single mother in suburban Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA where she studied film and art history. For several years after college, she worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. before landing a job at The Washington Post, initially as a fashion assistant in the Style Section and then as an award-winning essayist and feature writer covering the arts and politics. She is more fascinated by human behavior than news -- and specialized in profiles of complex personalities and relationships. The author of four books -- two novels and two works of nonfiction -- her work describes the struggle of the individual, particularly freethinkers and nonconformists, to find a home in society. Her fifth book tells the story of her family's move to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and her volunteer job at the town dump. See her author website for more details, www.marthasherrill.com