Carla Harryman is the author of 11 books of poetry, prose plays and essays. Her two experimental novels, Gardener of Stars (2001) and The Words: after Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories and Jean-Paul Sartre (1999) are "explorations of the paradise and wastelands of utopian desire." Baby continues this exploration through the convolutions of Baby, who enters the book as "fire in the womb with a skirt." Harryman, a native Californian, now lives in Detroit where she teaches women's studies, creative writing and literature at Wayne State University. She has also written a number of essays on innovative writing by women. Her most recent essay, "Residues or Revolutions of the Language of Acker and Artaud," is forthcoming Devouring Institutions (SDSU Press).