Ron Carlson’s newest novel is Return to Oakpine. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including the novel The Signal from Viking. His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Harpers, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and other journals, as well as The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize, The Pushcart Prize, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and other anthologies; they have been performed on National Public Radio’s This American Life and Selected Shorts. Ron Carlson Writes a Story, his book on writing, is taught widely. He is the author of a book of poems, Room Service. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Cohen Prize at Ploughshares, the McGinnis Award at the Iowa Review, the Aspen Literary Award; his novel Five Skies was selected “One Book Rhode Island” in 2009. He taught at Arizona State University for twenty years and is now Director of the Graduate Program in Fiction at the University of California, Irvine. [F]