Susan J. Leonardi followed 16 years of Catholic education, (including time spent as a postulant in a California convent that was, she emphasizes, nothing like Julian Pines Abbey) with eight years of teaching in Catholic high schools. She currently teaches literature and writing at the University of Maryland (when she isn't preaching the gospel of simple living or slow food) and is the author of Dangerous By Degrees, The Diva's Mouth (with Rebecca A. Pope), and numerous articles, reviews, and short stories