Mayapriya Long is a lifelong student of Bhakti Yoga. She and her husband founded the Bhaktivedanta Center for Bhakti Studies in 1993 in Charlottesville, VA. Ms. Long is also a Shodan (black belt) in Aikido and trained for ten years with some of the foremost teachers in this complex martial art. She has been a vegetarian for 38 years and cooking and reading vegetarian cookbooks for just as long. She is also an award-winning book designer and owner of Bookwrights, a book design and production studio.