About the Author

Mark Vinz was born in Rugby, North Dakota, grew up in Minneapolis and the Kansas City area, attended the Universities of Kansas (BA and MA in English, 1964 and 1966) and New Mexico (two additional years of graduate study, 1966-68), and from 1968-2007 taught as a professor in the English department of Moorhead State University (now Minnesota State University Moorhead), where he was also the co-founder and first coordinator (1995-98) of MSUM's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.