NATASHIA DEÓN is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Literature, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominee, and the author of the critically acclaimed novels Grace and The Perishing. A practicing criminal attorney and professor of creative writing at University of California, Los Angeles, and Antioch University, she has published essays in The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Married and a "sandwich generation" caregiver for her mother and two children, including a son with special needs, Deón brings a deeply lived sense of justice, history, and tenderness to her work.