Dennis McFarland is the author of two highly acclaimed novels, The Music Room, a New York Times bestseller, and School for the Blind. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. McFarland attended Brooklyn College to study music composition, then turned to fiction and went on to Goddard College to study creative writing with Frank Conroy, among others. He is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University, where he later taught creative writing. Born and raised in the Deep South, with years spent in New York City and San Francisco, McFarland now lives in "the People's Republic of Cambridge" in Massachusetts with his wife and two children.