Once upon a time, Persia studied drama at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and all kinds of good stuff at Swarthmore College. She spent a year at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism to emerge with a master's degree.

She has worked for The Associated Press in Arkansas; Washington, DC; and New York. She has also written for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc., (RFE) in Munich, done cultural reporting and voice work for European publications.

She's fluent in German, breathtakingly disorganized, and sporadically inspired to cook. She enjoys Indian and Thai food for dining, romantic thrillers and detective stories for reading, movies about superheroes, and television programs about desperate housewives and true crime. Her perfect Sunday morning includes a lengthy and lazy browse through The New York Times online.

For more damaging information, you'll have to read her blog, Criminal Musings.