Nicole Mones, the author of the New York Times Notable Book Lost in Translation and A Cup of Light, is a frequent contributor to Gourmet Magazine.  Her work, in print in eleven languages, has won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best work of fiction by an American woman and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.  She started a textile business in China at the close of the Cultural Revolution and ran it for eighteen years before she turned to writing about that country.  She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.  For more information, visit www.nicolemones.com.