Mary Morris is the author of Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone, which was cited by the New York Times as one of the most notable books of 1988; two collections of short stories: Vanishing Animals, which was awarded the Rome prize by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letter, and The Bus of Dreams, which won the Friends of American Writers Award. Crossroads, published in 1983, was her first novel. She resides with her young daughter in New York City.