ROBERT GIRARDI is the author of five novels and one volume of novellas. His short fiction has been published in Tri-Quarterly and Virginia Literary Review, and his non-fiction has appeared in The New Republic, Washingtonian Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and The Washington Post. His novels have been translated into nine languages--including Hebrew and Estonian. He lives in Washington, DC with his three children. He sells tickets at a movie theater in Bethesda, Maryland, and works as sexton of Our Lady of Victory Church in Washington, DC. (Visit him on the web at girardilit.com : email at bob@girardilit.com.)