Deborah Baker is the author of the acclaimed, unconventional biographical studies The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award, and A Blue Hand: The Beats in India, as well as of In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding, a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Making a Farm: The Life of Robert Bly. She is a recipient of a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere.