Alicia Gifford is a Los Angeles writer whose passion is the short story. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing and in a former life she worked as a certified Critical Care Nurse Specialist and Assistant Head Nurse in a busy, multidisciplinary ICU. She took the first of many short fiction classes at UCLA Extension�s Writers Program in the fall of 2000 with author Tod Goldberg, and now writes full time. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative Magazine, Confrontation, Best American Erotica 2005, The Barcelona Review, NFG Magazine, Mississippi Review.com, The Paumanok Review, Eyeshot, Pig Iron Malt and The Phone Book. One of her stories was nominated in 2004 for the Best American Short Stories series. She is completing a collection of her fiction and she is in the ruminative stage of a novel. Other passions include the Eastern Sierra, the game of chess, traveling the world, and a man named Gene.