Ben Fountain is author of a short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which won the Pen/Hemmingway Award and most recently Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, The LA Times Book Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and a Barnes and Noble Discover Award. He has a law degree from Duke University. He is from North Carolina and lives in Dallas, Texas.