Sandra J. Schumm is Professor Emerita of Spanish at Baker University. She earned her PhD in Spanish from the University of Kansas, with a concentration in twentieth-century Spanish and Latin American narrative. She taught university Spanish classes for more than twenty-five years and continues to instruct yoga classes. Girl in a Cage is her first novel. Previous publications include two books of literary criticism—Reflection in Sequence: Novels by Spanish Women, 1944-1988 (Bucknell University Press) and Mother and Myth in Spanish Novels: Rewriting the Maternal Archetype (Bucknell University Press). She is the mother of four children and lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her husband, Robert.