Kent Haruf

Kent Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado. He received a B.A. degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. He served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Turkey, and taught high school English in Wisconsin and Colorado, and later at Nebraska Wesleyan University and Southern Illinois University.

His latest novel, Plainsong, is set on the hight plains of Eastern Colorado, and has been widely celebrated. It was a finalist for the National Book Award, the New Yorker Magazine Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, winner of the Mountains and Plains Books Award, Salon.com Book Award, the Midlands Authors Award, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the year, and received an Alex Award from the American Library Association.

Plainsong has appeared on both hardback and paperback bestseller lists across the country, including the New York Times, Los Angeles, Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Denver Post, and USA Today. It has been published in eight different languages.

Kent Haruf is the author of two earlier novels, The Tie That Binds, which received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the PEN/Hemingway Foundation, and Where You Once Belonged, which received the Maria Thomas Award for Fiction. He has received an Illinois Arts Council Grant, and his short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories.

He is the father of three daughters and he and his wife Cathy live in Colorado.