Kerridwen Mangala McNamara is an Indian-American witha Master's degree in Bacterial Genetics who lives in FlyoverCountry (the far northern end of the US South) with her husband,The Professor, four of her six children, and three goats. Thegoats eat, The Professor plays chess, and the children largelyunschool while Mangala writes. (The remaining children arein college - you can blame the oldest for the excessive amountsof math showing up in Mangala's fantasy novels, the secondone for better attention to staging of scenes, the third for allthe economics, and the fourth for great attention to history- and all of them for a focus on political science!) Mangala isa former professional bellydance instructor, currently coachesmodel government teams, runs homeschool parent supportgroups, and used to enjoy knitting, crotchet and embroideringTemari balls but now is much more boring as she rarely doesanything but write, argue economic theory with her 18 and15 year olds, and wonder loudly if her 12 and 10year olds doanything other than watch Naruto videos. She owes her loveof books and reading to her mother, who was a professionalfolklorist and could recite - from memory - stories from everynation in the United Nations.