The court of common pleas

Alexandra Marshall is an American novelist who was born in Western Pennsylvania, and raised in the suburbs close to New York City. In 1965, she graduated with a BA in French while also studying Modern Dance at the New England Conservatory. She worked in the Japanese consulate after studying Japanese Classical Dance in Kyoto, and then moved to Sanford University after marrying her first husband. In 1970, she and her husband lead a group of college students for Operation Crossroads Africa, where her husband passed away at the age of 28. After her husband's passing, Marshall moved back to the U.S. and started a doctoral program in American Studies. She wrote two practice novels which eventually became two of her published works. She met with a literary agent in Boston who introduced her to her current husband. On top of being a novelist, Marshall has been a film critic for The American Prospect, and has supervised the Courage In My Life essays of sixth graders in Boston Public Schools, which are published in an annual collection titled The Courage of Boston's Children.