Grace Paley, née Goodside (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007) was an American short story author, poet, teacher, and political activist. Paley wrote three critically acclaimed collections of short stories, which were compiled in the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Collected Stories in 1994. Her stories home in on the everyday conflicts and heartbreaks of city life, heavily informed by her childhood in the Bronx.Beyond her work as an author and university professor, Paley was a feminist and anti-war activist, describing herself as a "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist." Source: Wikipedia (en)