Born and raised in the American South, T. Geronimo Johnson is the bestselling author of Welcome to Braggsville, Longlisted for the National Book Award and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence; and Hold It ’Til It Hurts, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He won the inaugural Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the Rome Prize, Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing; received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he later taught writing; and has held Stegner and Iowa Arts fellowships.