Kath Weston grew up working-class, dreamed of becoming a writer, put in time on the street, and trained as an anthropologist on scholarship at the University of Chicago and Stanford. She has taught at Arizona State, Harvard, Wellesley, Brandeis, and Tokyo University. In 2008 she will join the faculty at the University of Virginia. Her previous books include Families We Choose; Long Slow Burn; Render Me, Gender Me; Gender in Real Time; and The Apprenticeship and Blue-Collar System.