Anita Shreve is the author of nine critically acclaimed and bestselling novels. She began writing fiction while a high school teacher. Although one of her first published stories was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975, Shreve felt she couldn't make a living as a fiction writer so she became a journalist. She spent three years in Kenya, writing articles for magazines such as Quest, US, and Newsweek. Back in the US, she wrote freelance articles for magazines. Shreve later expanded two of these articles into the non fiction books Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone. At the same time Shreve also beganher first novel, Eden Close. With its publication in 1989, she gave up journalism for writing fiction full time, thrilled, as she says, with "the rush of freedom that I could make it up. She lives in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.