Gwen Strauss is the author of The Nine and a col­lec­tion of poet­ry, Trail of Stones. Her poems, short sto­ries and essays have appeared in numer­ous jour­nals includ­ing The New Repub­lic, Lon­don Sun­day Times, New Eng­land Review, and Keny­on Review. She was born and spent her ear­ly years in Haiti. Strauss lives in South­ern France, where she is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Dora Maar Cul­tur­al Center.