Grant, Tracy: - Tracy (Teresa) Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting conceptions of honor in late fifteenth century England. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter and three cats. In addition to writing, Tracy works for the Merola Opera Program, a professional training program for opera singers, pianists, and stage directors. Her real life heroine is her daughter Mélanie, who is very cooperative about Mummy's writing. Tracy is currently at work on her next historical mystery chronicling the espionage adventures of Regency-era spy couple Malcolm and Mélanie Suzanne Rannoch. That's the short version of my bio. The longer version is that I've been making up stories as long as I can remember and writing them down since third grade when we were assigned writing a story in class and I realized I had a wealth of characters and plots inside my head. My mother, a social psychologist (as was my father), loved books and read out loud to me a great deal. We also went to the movies a lot as a family, particularly old movies. When I was six, we saw the Laurence Olivier-Greer Garson "Pride and Prejudice". I loved it and immediately wanted to read the book (or rather have it read to me). My mom said "I'm not sure you'll like it, but we can try". I thought it was wonderful--to me, at that age, it was a story about girls (older than me but young enough that I could identify with them) dealing with their sisters and parents, growing up, falling in love. (Every time I reread "Pride and Prejudice" I get different things from it, but I was totally hooked at the age of six). Georgette Heyer's novels (which my mom also read aloud to me) cemented by love of the Regency era. My family also went to Shakespeare plays a great deal from when I was quite young. I work Shakespeare parallels and quotes into my books whenever I can, and I get a lot of inspiration from the three trips a year my own daughter and I take to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Other influences on me as a writer range include Dorothy Dunnett, Dorothy Sayers, Tom Stoppard, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and The X-Files. It's hard as a writer and a mom to find time to read, but I try never to miss a new book by Lauren Willig, Deborah Crombie, C.S. Harris, Tasha Alexander, and Deanna Raybourn.