Stephen Kirk was an editor at John F. Blair, Publisher, for 27 years. He has a B.A. from St. Lawrence University and an M.F.A. from UNC-Greensboro. A story he wrote while working on his M.F.A. appeared in the Greensboro Review and was subsequently selected by John Updike for reprinting in the Best American Short Stories series. Since then, he has written First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina and Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.