A graduate of Oberlin College, Gayle Ridinger worked briefly as a journalist in Ohio before moving to Milan, Italy, in 1981. She has taught English and translation techniques at Italian universities for the last thirty years. During this time she has published translations of modern and contemporary Italian poetry in such reviews as Modern Poetry in Translation (King's College London) and Yale Italian Poetry. She received the National Translation Prize from the Italian Ministry of Culture in 1997 and was subsequently named "Knight of the Star Order of Italian Solidarity." Her short short stories have appeared in Chelsea (New York ) and her children's book, A Star At the Bottom of the Sea (Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens, 2002), has been published in six languages. Author of The Shadow Wife (2007), a novel about twin sisters, she has also published the novel The Secret Price of History, co-authored with Paolo Pochettino (Wellesley, MA: Dante UP, 2014), which was a Finalist for historical mysteries in the 2015 Readers' Favorite International Book Awards.