Maggie Anton is the award-winning author of historical fiction series "Rashi's Daughters" and "Rav Hisda's Daughter." She is a Talmud scholar, with expertise in Jewish women's history. Anton speaks to Jewish organizations all over the country about the research behind her novels. She is happy to join book groups by speakerphone or Skype, as well as do scholar-in-residence weekends, upon request.

Maggie Anton was born Margaret Antonofsky in Los Angeles, California. Raised in a secular, socialist household, she reached adulthood with little knowledge of her Jewish religion. All that changed when David Parkhurst, who was to become her husband, entered her life, and they both discovered Judaism as adults. That was the start of a lifetime of Jewish education, synagogue involvement, and ritual observance. Anton also worked full-time as a clinical chemist in Kaiser Permanente's Biochemical Genetics Laboratory for over 30 years.

In the early 1990's, Anton learned about a women's Talmud class taught by Rachel Adler, now a Rabbi and professor at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Nearly every Wednesday for five years, she and about six other women met around Rachel's dining room table to study the Steinsaltz Hebrew edition of Tractate Berachot. Teachers, tractates, locations and students changed, but Wednesday remained Talmud night for serious Jewish women scholars. Now Anton continues her learning individually and with a study-partner.

You can contact Maggie at author@rashisdaughters.com