C.R. Hurst, who taught writing and language at a small college in Pennsylvania for over 25 years, retired early and moved to the North Carolina mountains, where she lives with her husband and a little tabby cat named Mattie. CR loves the outdoors, reads too much and writes too little, though she is still committed to her second act of writing from the head -- and the heart. A realist with two feet planted in the 21st century, she nevertheless enjoys escaping into the past with historical fiction.