Maureen Howard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on June 28, 1930. She graduated from Smith College in 1952 and immediately went to work in the publishing industry. She later taught at several universities including Columbia, Princeton, Amherst, and Yale. She is the author of several novels including Not a Word about Nightingales, Grace Abounding, Natural History, A Lover's Almanac, Bridgeport Bus, Expensive Habits, and The Rags of Time. Her autobiography, Facts of Life, received the National Book Critics Award for general nonfiction in 1980. She received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.