Larry Watson grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and received his BA and MA from the University of North Dakota and his PhD in creative writing at the University of Utah. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wisconsin Arts Board. He is the author of the novels "Let Him Go, Montana 1948, American Boy, In a Dark Time, White Crosses, Laura, Orchard, " and "Sundown, Yellow Moon; "the fiction collection "Justice;" and the chapbook of poetry "Leaving Dakota. "Watson s fiction has been published in many foreign editions, and has received multiple prizes and awards from, among others, the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association, the Mountain and Plains Library Association, the New York Public Library, and the Wisconsin Library Association, and he has been awarded the Critics Choice Award and the High Plains Book Award. He has published short stories and poems in a range of journals. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the "Los Angeles Times, " the "Washington Post, " the "Chicago Sun-Times, "and the "Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel." Watson taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for twenty-five years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003 as a visiting professor. He and his wife Susan live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.