Marcy Dermansky always knew she wanted to be a writer. She began making up stories in elementary school, writing about a sensitive standard poodle and a rebellious goldfish who wanted out of his school. After graduating from Haverford College, she headed to San Francisco, only to discover that numerous young women with degrees in English and dreams of writing fiction had the exact same idea. For five years, she moved up from unsatisfying temp jobs to unsatisfying full-time administrative work, before packing up and moving to the amazement of many (including a stunned UPS man) to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She received her MA in fiction, studying with Frederick Barthelme and Mary Robison at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Twins was a NY Times Editors Choice Pick, a New York Public Library 2006 Selection of Books for the Teen Age, and long-listed for the prestigious international 2006 IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards. Marcy is also the recipient of a MacDowell and Edward Albee Fellowship. She is the winner of the 2002 Smallmouth Press Andre Dubus Novella Award and the 1999 Story Magazine Carson McCullers short story prize. Her stories have been published in numerous literary journals, including “McSweeneys,” “The Alaska Quarterly Review,” and “The Indiana Review,” and included in the anthology “Love Stories: A Literary Companion to Tennis.” She is a film critic for About.com and belongs to the New York Online Film Critics and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. She lives in Astoria, New York. She is not an identical twin.