Joanna Ruocco is a prize-winning American author and co-editor of the fiction journal Birkensnake. In 2013, she received the Pushcart Prize for her story "If the Man Took” and is also winner of the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize. Ruocco received her MFA at Brown, and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Denver. Her most recent novel is Dan, published by Dorothy, A Publishing Project. She also serves as Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Wake Forest University. Ruocco has also published romance novels under the pseudonyms Toni Jones and Alessandra Shahbaz. (from Wikipedia)