Tamara Madison grew up on a citrus farm in the southern California desert, near a town called Mecca. She has traveled and lived in many places, including the former Soviet Union and Grenoble, France. A graduate of Georgetown University, where she majored in Linguistics, she currently teaches French and, reluctantly, English in a public high school in Los Angeles. Don't get her started on the subject of the current state of education because she is very, very angry about it. She is also a nature enthusiast whose beautiful dog recently died so she is in mourning.