Mark Brazaitis is the author of The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, a novel published in 2000 by Van Neste Books. His latest book of fiction, An American Affair: Stories, won the 2004 George Garrett Fiction Prize from Texas Review Press. He is also the author of The Other Language, winner of the 2008 ABZ Poetry Prize. A former Peace Corps Volunteer, he directs the creative writing program at West Virginia University.