About Sophia

Sophia Raday lives in Berkeley, California, with her soldier/police officer husband, their two children, a bipartisan dog, and assorted firearms. In marital disagreements, Sophia is apt to say, "Honey, you aren’t being present with me." Whereas her husband might say, "You’re messin’ up, Troop!" Back when Sophia thought she couldn’t possibly be a writer, she studied International Relations at Stanford University and took classes from Condoleeza Rice. She was also a student activist (see arrest photo below). After graduating from Stanford, Sophia worked in local politics, traveled, worked as a carpenter, and eventually got her masters degree in Public Policy from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. After GSPP, she spent several years working on innovative approaches to combat poverty, specifically in community impact finance, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, worker and consumer cooperatives, and increasing access to healthy food.

Sophia was a founding editor of the online magazine Literary Mama, where she first mused about her bipartisan marriage in the column "Mommy Athens, Daddy Sparta." Her work appeared in various anthologies and Stanford magazine. She got her big break when her essay was selected for the New York Times "Modern Love" column. Shortly thereafter she was able to sell her memoir to Beacon Press right around the time she found out her husband was being sent to Iraq.

Since publication of Love in Condition Yellow, Sophia has been writing a young adult literary adventure in which two teens have to crack a code hidden in three classic novels. She is also developing a Political Translator series explaining the American Right to the Left and vice versa. The first article along these lines appeared in Politico in October 2015.

CARRIED AWAY: A Stanford Daily photo (1985), shows Sophia's removal from an anti-apartheid sit-in B. and friend on the job on the streets of Oakland Goodbye hug prior to deployment 2007 2008 REUNION: Home from Iraq

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