David Allen Rhodes was an American author. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1946. He attended Beloit College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Marlboro College (1969). In 1971, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop (1971). In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him paraplegic. He continued to write. He wrote six novels, The Last Fair Deal Going Down (1972), The Easter House (1974), Rock Island Line (1975), Driftless (2008), Jewelweed (2014), and Painting Beyond Walls (2022). His awards included The Milkweed National Fiction Prize (2008), the UW-Whitewater Chancellor's Regional Library Award (2009), The Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative… Arts (2010), and the Wisconsin Notable Author Award (2018). Driftless was named a Best Book of the Year by the Christian Science Monitor and California Literary Review. Jewelweed was a runner-up for the All Iowa Reads program (2015). Davide Rhodes died on November 10, 2022, from complications from surgery for cancer.