Vanessa Manko earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College where she received a Hertog Fellowship. Prior to writing, she trained in ballet at the North Caroline School of the Arts and danced with the Charleston Ballet Theatre. She then earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Connecticut and an MA from the New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In addition to fiction, she writes about dance. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.