I write essays, memoirs, and journalism. My latest book, Great Expectation: A Father's Diary, came out from the University of Iowa Press in 2008. My first book was the memoir Love's Labors (Riverhead, 1999). I've published essays--on baseball, housesitting, blindness, opossums, and other topics--in literary journals and newspapers like The North American Review, SportsJones, Under the Sun, and The Louisville Courier-Journal. Awards for my writing include a 2005 fellowship in nonfiction literature from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the William Allen Prize in Nonfiction, and the Ohio State Alumni Magazine Award for the Personal Essay.
I grew up in various and very midwestern locations--deep in the hearts of Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas, with one uncharacteristic stint in Las Vegas. Since then, I've settled for varying amounts of time in Iowa, Colorado, the Caribbean island of Antigua, Arkansas, and (my current and probably final destination) Syracuse, New York. Along the way I've done time as a mechanical engineer, a newspaper reporter, and a grill cook, and now I teach creative writing, literature, and journalism at Le Moyne College.
Lately I've been writing about the relationship between autism and creative writing, and, on a completely different note, the passionate fans of Tom Jones.
I have a wonderful wife and two perfect kids, whom you can read all about in Great Expectation.