Joy Williams is the author of five previous novels—including Harrow, a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The Quick and the Dead, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and State of Grace, a Finalist for the National Book Award—as well as four collections of stories. Her book of essays, Ill Nature, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Among her many honors are the Rea Award for the Short Story and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008. She lives in Tucson, Arizona and Laramie, Wyoming.

(Photo credit: Jonno Rattman)