(c) 2004 Neil Alexander

Born in West Texas and raised in New Orleans, Michael Pettit graduated from Princeton University, then ran a family ranch in Pearl River County, Mississippi, raising Angus and crossbred cattle. For the past thirty years, he has written award-winning prose and poetry published in numerous anthologies and journals. He has been a professor of English and also directed the Mount Holyoke Writers Conference, the Santa Fe Writers Conference, and was co-founder of the National Association of Writing Conferences. A National Endowment for the Arts fellowship winner, Pettit's books include The Writing Path, American Light, and Cardinal Points, which received the Iowa Poetry Prize. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.