Maureen F. McHugh has spent most of her life in Ohio, but has lived in New York City and, for a year, in Shijiazhuang, China. She is the author of four novels. Her first novel, China Mountain Zhang, won the Tiptree Award and her latest novel, Nekropolis, was a Book Sense 76 pick and a New York Times Editor's Choice. McHugh is working on two novels, BabyGoth and Coming of Age in America. BabyGoth is a mother-daughter story: the Ya-Ya Sisterhood meets Alcoholics Anonymous. Coming of Age in America is a near future coming of age story -- and a romance. Chloe is a trailer park girl at a nice college. Derek is a rejuvenated 72-year-old returning student. McHugh teaches writing at the John Carroll University in Cleveland and at the Imagination and Clarion workshops. She and her husband and two dogs used to live next to a dairy farm. Sometimes, in the summer, black and white Holsteins looked over the fence at them. Now she lives in Austin, Texas.