STEPHEN DIXON is the author of 25 books of fiction, including the National Book Award-nominated novelsFrogandInterstate. He wrote his first novel while working as a reporter in Washington, DC, but at the age of 26 he abandoned journalism for jobs that enabled him to concentrate on writing fiction—including tending bar and substitute teaching in public schools. Since then, his short fiction has won most of the major literary awards, including an O. Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize, and he is the recipient of honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is now on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University.