Anna Battle is on a mission. To write erotic fiction for grown-ups. Anna’s characters desire intimacy and great sex — after all forty is the new twenty — but can’t ignore that life is a perpetual juggling act to corral children, jobs, finances, friends, ex-spouses, online dating, confounding smartphones, and a sudden stash of reading glasses. They seek comfort in the dream of romance…, but learn self-empowerment may be the ultimate reward if they explore the expanding realm of sexual novelty and freedom. Anna is an attorney (currently working on strategies to prevent sexual harassment in the STEM fields) and writer. Awake is her debut novel in the erotic genre. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. Anna shares custody of her two children and commutes regularly between Maryland and Washington state. She can often be found on the tennis court playing competitive doubles.