Manuel Gonzales received a BA in English from the University of Texas in 1996 and an MFA in creative writing (fiction) from Columbia University's School of the Arts in 2003. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Fence, Tin House, Open City, One Story, The Believer, i09.com, and Esquire. He is the author of The Regional Office is Under Attack! and The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, which won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. He teaches writing at the University of Kentucky and the Institute of American Indian Arts.