JENNIFER HEATH is an independent scholar, award-winning activist, cultural journalist, curator, and the author and/or editor of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, including A House White With Sorrow: A Ballad for Afghanistan, The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam, and The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics. She came of age in Afghanistan and is the founder of Seeds for Afghanistan and the Afghanistan Relief Organization Midwife Training and Infant Care Program, now International Midwife Assistance. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.