RICHARD STERN is the Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. In 1985 he won the Award of Merit for the Novel awarded every six years by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His recent works include Pacific Tremors, published by TriQuarterly Books in 2001, and What Is What Was (Chicago, 2001). New editions of three of his major novels—Natural Shocks, Other Men's Daughters, and Stitch-are also forthcoming from TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern in 2004.
