Rick DeMarinis is the author of seven novels, including The Year of the Zinc Penny (1989), The Mortician's Apprentice (1994), and A Clod of Wayward Marl (2001), and five collections of short fiction. His Borrowed Hearts: New and Selected Stories appeared in 1999. He has also written The Art and Craft of the Short Story, which was published in 2000. His short stories have appeared in Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, GQ, The Paris Review, The Iowa Review, and other journals. DeMarinis has taught creative writing at the University of Montana, San Diego State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Texas at El Paso. Among his awards are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Drue Heinz Prize for short fiction (1986), the Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1990), the Jesse H. Jones Award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters (1999), and the Independent Publishers Award for the best book of short fiction (2000).