Debra Dean - Confessions Of A Falling Woman And Other Stories

At Whitman College, Dean double-majored in English and drama: "If you can imagine anyone being this naive, I figured if the acting thing didn't work out, I'd have the English major to fall back on." After college, she moved to New York and spent two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse, a professional actors' training program. She worked in New York and regional theater for nearly a decade, and met her future husband when they were cast as brother and sister in A. R. Gumey's play The Dining Room . "If I'd had a more successful career as an actor, I'd probably still be doing it because I loved acting," she said. "I understudied in a couple of long-running plays, so I was able to keep my union health insurance, but the business is pretty dreadful. When I started thinking about getting out, I had no idea what else I might do. What I eventually came up with was writing, which in many ways was a comically illadvised choice, given that the pitfalls of writing as a career are nearly identical to acting. One key difference, though, is that you don't have to be hired before you can write. Another big advantage is that you don't need to get facelifts or even be presentable: most days, I can wear my ratty old jeans and T-shirts and not bother with the hair and makeup."

In 1990, Dean moved back to the Northwest and got her MFA at the University of Oregon. She started teaching writing and publishing her short stories in literary journals. The Madonnas of Leningrad , her first novel, was published in 2006. It was a New York Times Editors' Choice and a finalist for the Quill Award and the Guardian First Book Award (UK).

"In retrospect," she said, "I'm very grateful for my circuitous journey, that I wasn't some wunderkind. I like to think I have more compassion now and a perspective that I didn't have when I was younger."