Robert Hazel, poet and author, was born in Bloomington, Indiana, son of a physicist and teacher. When he was eighteen, his family moved to the South. HIs first interests were science and law, but while in college he became absorbed in literature. His college career was interrupted by military service, but he later returned to George Washington University for his Bachelor of Arts Degree, and took his Masters Degree at Johns Hopkins University. He has taught at both universities and also at Florida Southern College. His poetry has appeared in The Hopkins Review, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The University of Kansas City Review, The Western Humanities Review, Harlequin, New Directions 12, and New Directions 14. He left college teaching in 1952 to join the staff of a New York publisher. His first novel, The Lost Year, was published in 1953.