Ellis Avery studied Japanese tea ceremony for five years in New York and Kyoto, and now teaches creative writing at Columbia University. She is the author of a novel, THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, and an award-winning nonfiction book, THE SMOKE WEEK: SEPTEMBER 11-21, 2001. Her work as appeared in The Village Voice, Publishers Weekly, and Kyoto Journal, and produced onstage at New York's Expanded Arts Theater.