Alison Lurie has published ten novels, among them Foreign Affairs (which won the Pulitzer Prize), The Truth About Lorin Jones (winner of the Prix Femina étranger), and The Last Resort. She is also the author of many works of non-fiction, including The Language of Clothes, Don't Tell the Grownups, Familiar Spirits (a memoir of the poet James Merrill) and two collections of essays and reviews, Reading for Fun and Words and Worlds. She taught literature, folklore and creative writing at Cornell University for many years and is now the Whiton Professor of American Literature emerita. She lives in upstate New York but has also spent much time in Key West, Florida and in London, all of which have provided settings for her fiction. She is married to the writer Edward Hower, and has three sons and three grandchildren.