Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the novels The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children (winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards' Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and the Readers' Choice Award) and Dora: A Headcase. Her highly acclaimed memoir, The Chronology of Water, was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for Creative Non-fiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Awards' Readers' Choice. Her TED talk, 'The Beauty of Being a Misfit', has been watched over two million times. Lidia teaches in Oregon, where she lives with her husband Andy Mingo and their son. She is a very good swimmer.