From author's website:
Monique’s experience spans twenty years as a writer and producer of books, film, and new media content. She began writing professionally in the analog age as a broadcast journalist in California’s Napa Valley, where she covered the wine industry, food, culture, and local politics. After graduate study in history at Ohio University and teaching with the Institute of Reading Development in Berkeley, California, she came to New York in 1994 to pursue book publishing.