Tara Jensen is the author of A Baker's Year and has been baking professionally for over twenty years. She worked at Red Hen Baking in Middlesex, Vermont; Farm & Sparrow in Asheville, North Carolina; with Jennifer Lapidus at Carolina Ground, also in Asheville and ran her own bakery, Smoke Signals. Her bread and pies have been featured in publications such as Food & Wine and Bon Appétit and she teaches bread baking workshops in Virginia, where she lives with her husband and daughter.