LINDA SPALDING was born in Kansas and lived in Hawaii before immigrating to Toronto in 1982. She is the author of three novels and her nonfiction work was short-listed for the Trillium Book Award and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. Her most recent work, Who Named the Knife, is a memoir of crime and punishment. She is an editor of Brick, A Journal of Reviews and has been awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for her contribution to the Canadian literary community. The Purchase, a novel, will be published in Canada in the fall of 2012.