James Scott was born in Boston and raised in upstate New York. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA from Emerson College. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story, American Short Fiction and other publications. He has received fellowships and awards from, among others, Yaddo, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the New York State Summer Writers' Institute and the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and dog. The Kept is his first novel.