Richard Schmitt has published stories in Puerto del Sol, Gulf Coast, Flyway and Marlboro Review. His story, “Leaving Venice, Florida,” won the 1999 Mississippi Review Prize in fiction. Schmitt has two novels: The Aerialist (Overlook Press, 2000) and Kodiak, forthcoming from Harcourt Brace, which also published The Aerialist in paperback in 2002. An MFA graduate of Warren Wilson College, he received a National Endowment of the Arts Grant in 2002, and is an associate professor of creative writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College.