Maria Dahvana Headley is the author of not only The Year of Yes, but of a bunch of other things, including a couple of children's plays, some plays for adults - this doesn't mean they're rated R, just that there aren't any torch-song-singing lions in them, vast quantities of short stories, two novels-that-aren't-done, and the occasional screenplay. Maria was born on June 21, 1977, and spent most of her childhood in The Great Potato. In grade school, people called her Maria Diarrhea. In high school, she was dubbed Maria "Gives Good" Headley. Immediately after high school, she fled Idaho for NYC, and New York University. The Year of Yes probably adversely affected her grades there. Now she lives in Seattle, with her husband, the spectacularly brilliant Robert Schenkkan, two teenage stepkids, and two devious Bengal cats.