Grace Paley was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in New York City and attended Hunter College and the Merchants and Bankers Business and Secretarial School. From the start of her writing career, the power of dialogue has been an important element of her work: one of her recurring story lines has been the portrayal of the relationships that women develop by talking to each other. Paley has also been active in fighting for various social concerns, fro protests against the Vietnam War to demonstrations against the production of nuclear weapons. Her short stories are collected in such volumes as The Little Disturbances of Man (1959), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974), and Later the Same Day (1985).