Christian Kiefer is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his short fiction and is also the author of "The Animals" and "Infinite Tides." He holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the University of California at Davis and has served as contributing editor for Zyzzyva and as fiction reader for VQR. He is currently the West Coast editor for The Paris Review and is the director of the Ashland University MFA. He lives in Placer County, CA, where his newest novel "Phantoms" is set.