Mary Beth Keane graduated from Barnard College in 1999, and received an MFA from the University of Virginia in 2005.  She was a winner of the Chicago Tribune‘s Nelson Algren Prize, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. One of her stories was selected as a PEN/O. Henry Recommended Story for 2009, and her first novel, The Walking People, received Honorable Mention at the 2010 PEN/Hemingway Awards. She is currently working on her second novel, and lives in Pearl River, New York with her husband and two sons.