Mark Levine was born in New York City in 1965, grew up in Toronto, and attended Brown University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His books are: Debt (1993), Enola Gay (2000) and The Wilds (2006). He has also written journalistic nonfiction for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Outside, and many other magazines. He has received a Whiting Writers' Award and a fellowship from the NEA, and has taught at University of Montana and, since 1999, at the University of Iowa, where he is an Associate Professor. He lives in Iowa City and Brooklyn.