Bob Hartley was raised on the West Side of Chicago. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. His first novel, Following Tommy, was published in 2012 by Cervena Barva Press to extremely favorable reviews. His second novel, North and Central, was published in 2017 by Tortoise Books. He has been, among other things, a writer, actor, singer, teacher, bartender, mail room clerk, and washer of soap molds. He currently makes his living as a respiratory therapist and lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two children.