Anthony V. Ardizzone received his B.A. from the University of Illinois and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. He joined the English department at IUB in 1987 and teaches courses in the writing and craft of fiction, ethnic American literature, and 20th-century American fiction. He is the author of seven books of fiction, including the novels The Whale Chaser, In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu, and Heart of the Order, and the short story collections Taking It Home: Stories from the Neighborhood and Larabi's Ox: Stories of Morocco; and he has edited four anthologies, including The Habit of Art: Best Stories from the Indiana University Fiction Workshop. His writing has been awarded the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the Friends of Literature's Chicago Foundation for Literature Award for Fiction, the Pushcart Prize, the Virginia Prize for Fiction, the Lawrence Foundation Award, the Bruno Arcudi Literature Prize, and two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships. He also completed an interconnected collection of short stories set in the churches, synagogues, and temples of Rome. Ardizzone has served two terms of office on the Board of Directors of the nation's leading nonprofit literary and educational organization, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and at IUB has twice served as Director of the Creative Writing Program (1996-98 and 2002-05). In 2005 he was awarded the Tracy. M. Sonneborn Award, and in 2006 was named Chancellor's Professor of English.