Cyn­thia Wein­er has had a long career writ­ing and teach­ing fic­tion. Her short sto­ries have been pub­lished in Ploughshares, The Sun, and Epiphany, and her sto­ry, Boyfriends, was award­ed a Push­cart Prize. She is also the assis­tant direc­tor of The Writ­ers Stu­dio in New York City. A Gor­geous Excite­ment, her first nov­el, was inspired by her upbring­ing on New York’s Upper East Side in the 1980s, and par­tic­u­lar­ly by the noto­ri­ous ​“Prep­py Mur­der” of 1986. Wein­er now lives in New York’s Hud­son Valley.