Matthew Vollmer is the author of two story collections—Future Missionaries of America and Gateway to Paradise—as well as two collections of essays—inscriptions for headstones and Permanent Exhibit. He was the editor of A Book of Uncommon Prayer, which collects invocations from over 60 acclaimed and emerging authors, and was co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. His work has appeared venues such as Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, Ecotone, New England Review, DIAGRAM, Colorado Review, The Normal School, Willow Springs, The Antioch Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, Carolina Quarterly, Oxford American, The Sun, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Essays. A winner of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, he teaches creative writing and literature in the English Department at Virginia Tech, where he is an Associate Professor.