William Hoffman was born in West Virginia and, after living in Washington, D.C., and New York, returned to the South to live in Charlotte Court House, Virginia, population 566. He lives on a fifty-acre farm with his wife. Alternating between teaching at Hampton-Sydney College and taking leaves to write, William Hoffman has published ten novels, as well as three short story collections. His writing has won numerous awards over the years, including the Andrew Lytle Prize, the Goodheart Prize, the John Dos Passos Prize, and the Hillsdale Foundation Fiction Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His short stories have been featured in Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, 1996.