Deirdra McAfee

Deirdra McAfee did not murder the boss who inspired "Shield of the Norns," the story she contributed to Lock & Load: Armed Fiction. She also ignored the fact, true when the story appeared, that no woman had ever murdered a boss.

Soon after McAfee began writing, she attended a one-day workshop in which Grace Paley said she wrote the stories of those we can't hear. That seemed the right reason.

McAfee, a New York native, has also lived in Iowa, Florida, the Marshall Islands, and Virginia. She's worked all kinds of jobs, including swim coach, haberdasher, and telephone solicitor, and has taught at every level from elementary to graduate school.

She received an MFA from the New School and an MA in literature from Georgetown but considers family life the richest, most difficult, and most amusing part of her education as a writer. She now teaches adult classes in creative writing at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond (Virginia).

McAfee’s fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, Confrontation, Willow Springs, The Diagram, and elsewhere. She has received residencies in the US and abroad.