Internationally published and nationally awarded author Barbara Esstman, BA, MFA, is the co-editor, with Virginia Hartman, of A More Perfect Union: Stories and Poems About the Modern Wedding (St. Martin’s Press). She is also the author of The Other Anna and Night Ride Home, both published in the U.S. by Harcourt Brace and Harper Perennial and in numerous translations by Bertelsmann and other foreign presses. Both novels were adapted for TV film by Hallmark Productions. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Lear’s and various literary magazines such as Confrontation, and they have been recognized by the Pushcart Prizes and the Redbook Fiction Award. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, LA Times, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among others, and she writes travel copy for Biotrek Adventure Tours. She is a NEA, VCCA and Maryland Commission for the Arts fellow. She teaches creative writing and creative non-fiction at universities and The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD and McLean, VA.