Tyurina Allen no longer uses the name Tyurina Allen. She is almost a grown up now. She lives somewhere in the Midwest where she is pursuing a PhD in English and teaches writing and literature at two local universities. Doing all this leaves her little time for anything else, but she loves her job every day. She is the co-author of Especially the Deer, which was first published in 2003 and was re-released in paperback in 2011.