The Authors

Tom McNeal was born in Santa Ana, California, where his father and grandfather raised oranges.  He spent part of every summer at the Nebraska farm where his mother was born and raised, and after earning a BA in English at UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing at UC Irvine, he taught school in the town that was the inspiration for his novel, Goodnight, Nebraska.  Tom has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and his short stories have been widely anthologized.

Laura Rhoton McNeal was born in Tempe, Arizona, and was raised near Air Force bases in Iceland, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Utah. She holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and taught middle and high school English in Salt Lake City before moving to California and beginning work as a freelance journalist.

The McNeals were married in Scotland in 1993 and now live with their two children in southern California.  They still visit the Nebraska farm whenever possible.