Ray Gonzalez received his MFA in creative writing from Texas State University and is a professor in the English Department and Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of ten books of poetry including Faith Run (University of Arizona Press, 2009); Cool Auditor: Prose Poems (BOA Editions, 2009); The Religion of Hands (2005), which received the 2006 Latino Heritage Award for Best Book of Poetry; The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande Poems (2002), a winner of a 2003 Minnesota Book Award; Turtle Pictures (2000), a winner of a 2001 Minnesota Book Award; and The Heat of Arrivals (1996), a winner of a 1997 PEN/Josephine Miles Book Award. He is the author of three books of nonfiction: Renaming the Earth: Personal Essays (University of Arizona Press, 2008), Memory Fever (1999), and The Underground Heart: A Return to a Hidden Landscape: Essays (2002), which received the 2003 Carr P. Collins/Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best Book of Nonfiction. He is also the author of two books of short stories: The Ghost of John Wayne, and Other Stories (2001) and Circling the Tortilla Dragon: Short-Short Fiction (2002). His poetry has appeared in the 1999, 2000, and 2003 editions of The Best American Poetry.