I was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I've lived in warmer climes but have always returned to Minnesota. The world is never so pure as when snow is falling, and newly-fallen snow rounds all rough edges. I have five college degrees and won't mention what they are because I don't use any of them. I've worked as a law librarian and as a college professor of Russian literature. I fear that, having spent fifty years buried in Russian literature, its novels color my work. This means that I'm far from mainstream American and British fiction. Do students of Russian literature become depressed because of the novels they read, or do the novels draw depressed people into studying Russian literature? For me, it goes both ways. My most recent work is "My Moms and Me". The story is about a quirky boy who lives in abandoned buildings with his grandfather while attending a ritzy private Catholic grade school. He's convinced himself that sexual abuse by a priest will not destroy his bizarrely fun life. This isn't a polemic or a religious tract. Well, it is, but there's more. It's been called "tragic, satirical, enraging, funny, and ultimately uplifting." My novel, "The Greatest Vice", is about a professor of Russian literature who walks into his office one afternoon and finds out that in his two-hour absence, one year has passed...It's now 2005, not 2004. This lapse occurred while he was teaching a Russian novel of magical realism that includes the devil, "The Master and Margarita". He tries hypnosis with a therapist; she gradually steers him towards events he doesn't want to remember, and then... . My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/williamfjack My Twitter home is: https://twitter.com/