William Carpenter grew up in Waterville, Maine, graduated from Dartmouth College and got a PhD at the University of Minnesota, taught at the University of Chicago, then returned to Maine to help found the College of the Atlantic, where he has taught for 48 years. He is the recipient of the Pablo Neruda award, the Black Warrior award, and the AWP award in poetry. His previous novels are A Keeper of Sheep, set on Cape Cod in the 1980s, and The Wooden Nickel , set in a Maine Coast lobstering community. He and the writer Donna Gold live in an old coastal inn and spend summers exploring Maine islands in their family sloop, Northern Light.