Kyoko Mori, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and educator is a Professor of Creative nonfiction and Fiction at George Mason University. Kyoko Mori’s award-winning first novel, Shizuko’s Daughter, was hailed by the New York Times as “a jewel of a book, one of those rarities that shine out only a few times in a generation.” Professor Mori’s most recent book is a memoir, Yarn: Remembering the Way Home (GemmaMedia, 2009). She has also published a book of essays entitled Polite Lies (Henry Holt), a memoir entitled The Dream of Water (Henry Holt), and two other novels: Stone Field, True Arrow (Henry Holt); and One Bird (Henry Holt). Her essays and short stories have appeared in journals such as The American Scholar, The Missouri Review, Harvard Review, and The Kenyon Review. Mori holds a Ph.D. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She was born in Kobe, Japan, and moved to the United States in 1977. Prior to joining the faculty at George Mason, she was a Briggs-Copeland lecturer in creative writing at Harvard University. Professor Mori has also taught at such institutions as St. Norbert College in De Pere and Lesley University.