SHARON STRONG is a practicing psychologist and artist, mask-maker, and creator of towering sculptures for Burning Man as well as gallery exhibits in Northern California. She is the illustrator of two books—Serious Fun: Ingenious Improvisations on Money, Food, Waste, Water & Home, by Carolyn North, and Two Lines 13: Masks, edited by Zack Rogow—and in 2005 she self-published Soul Unmasked: A Personal Journey into the Ancient Ritual of the Mask. She lives in Angels Camp, California, on twenty acres in a straw-bale house with her husband, filmmaker Tom Weidlinger, whom she met at age seventy. Their story inspired her to write Burning Woman.