Beth Harpaz is currently on leave from her job with The Associated Press to promote THE GIRLS IN THE VAN and to write a second book, FINDING ANNIE FARRELL, the true story of five sisters from Maine (due out from St. Martin's Press in 2003). She joined the AP in 1988 after working at The Record of Hackensack, N.J., and the Staten Island Advance. Harpaz has won feature-writing awards from the Newswomen's Club of New York and the New York Press Club, and she's covered everything from plane crashes to trials to politics. Her coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign appeared in newspapers all over the country, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a graduate of Hunter College High School, Cornell University, and the Columbia University School of Journalism, and lives in New York with her husband and two children.