Shira Nayman was born in South Africa, grew up in Australia, and has lived in Mexico, France, and Colombia. She now makes her home in Brooklyn, NY, and Highland Park, NJ. Nayman has a Psy.D. from Rutgers University (Clinical Psychology), and completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in psychology at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center in Westchester. The recipient of three year-long grants from the Australia Council for the Arts Literary Board, Nayman also received the Cape Branch Award for Emerging Woman writer and a Hadassah Brandeis Institute grant for fiction writing. She has taught psychology, creative writing, literature and narrative medicine at Barnard College, Rutgers University, and Columbia University. Nayman has also built a career as a strategic marketing consultant, working with Fortune 100 companies and national political campaigns to develop positioning strategy for major brands, product launches, and political candidates. Nayman continues to divide her working life between consulting and writing fiction. She has published fiction and non-fiction in a variety of literary journals and newspapers. Her previous acclaimed novels include A Mind of Winter, The Listener, Awake in the Dark, and River.