His fiction often focuses on characters on the fringe of society-outsiders, wanderers-and allows his readers to see into the minds of these otherwise invisible characters.
Is a professor of creative writing at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at the Stanford Writing Program from 1995 to 1997.
Is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow.
Received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1998.
Formerly taught fiction at the University of Pennsylvania.