Scott Blackwood grew up in Texas. His novel We Agreed to Meet Just Here (New Issues Press, 2009) won the 2007 AWP Prize for the Novel and was named a best book of 2009 by the San Antonio Express-News.  His award-winning collection of stories In the Shadow of Our House was published by SMU Press in 2001. His fiction has appeared most recently in American Short Fiction, the Gettysburg Review, Boston Review and Southwest Review, and the title story from his collection is featured on the New York Times Book Review's "First Chapters" website. His feature essays and reviews have appeared in the Austin Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, Bookslut, and Revenant Record's NPR-featured American Primitive Volume II. He's received a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, The Associated Writing Program's Award for the Novel, Two Texas Commission on the Arts Fellowships, and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.  Blackwood holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University. He currently teaches in and directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at Roosevelt University in Chicago.