Biography;

Novelist; professor of creative writing.  Born December 15, 1969, Mobile. B.A., Hampden-Sydney College; M.A., University of Southern Mississippi; MFA, University of Virginia.  Professor of  Creative Writing and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Publishes short stories and reviews in periodicals, as well as novels.  Winner of the John and Renee Grisham Emerging Southern Writers Award; the New Writers Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers; the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Special Citation for Fiction, the Henfield Foundation Award for Fiction;  the Alabama Library Association Award for the Best Fiction Work, 2013 (for The Typist); Robert Penn Warren Prize for Excellence in Fiction, 2013.

Sources;

University of Tennessee website; Contemporary Authors online.

Publications;

Divining Rod.  Penguin Group, 1999.

Dogfight, and Other Stories.  Penguin Group, 1998.

Goodnight, Nobody. Grove/Atlantic, 2004.

The Holiday Season.  Grove/Atlantic, 2007.

The Typist. Grove/Atlantic, 2010.