ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Bissell (Xbox Live gamertag: T C Bissell; PlayStation Network gamertag: TCBissell) was born in Escanaba, Michigan, in 1974. After graduating from Michigan State University, he briefly served in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan, and then worked for several years as a book editor in New York City. His work has appeared in many magazines, including Harper’s Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and McSweeney’s. His first book, Chasing the Sea, was selected by Condé Nast Traveler in 2007 as one of the eighty-six best travel books of all time. His second book, God Lives in St. Petersburg and Other Stories, won the Rome Prize. His third book, The Father of All Things, was selected as a best book of the year by Salon, The Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and by Details magazine in 2009 as the eighth-greatest Generation X book of all time. He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine and The Virginia Quarterly Review and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where he teaches fiction writing at Portland State University. His next book, Bones That Shine Like Fire, a travel narrative about his visits to the tombs of the Twelve Apostles, will be published in 2012.