Thad Ziolkowski is the author of the memoir On a Wave, which was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award in 2003, and Wichita, a novel. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Bookforum, Artforum, Travel & Leisure, and Interview magazine. He has a PhD in English literature from Yale University and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the associate director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.