Brian Evenson received an O. Henry Award for his story "Two Brothers" and has twice received O. Henry honorable mentions. In 1995 he received an NEA Fellowship; that same year he was told by Brigham Young University that if he continued to write fiction in the same vein as his first book, he would be fired. Instead, Evenson chose to leave of his own free will to teach at Oklahoma State University. He now teaches in the creative writing program at Brown University.