MICHAEL JAMES RIZZA was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on January 6, 1972. He has been teaching writing and literature for the past tweleve years. He has an MA in creative writing from Temple University in Philadelphia and a PhD in American Literature from the University of South Carolina. He has published academic articles on Don DeLillo, Milan Kundera, Harold Frederic, and Adrienne Rich in peer reviewed journals, such as Arizona Quarterly and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. His fiction has recently appeared in Switchback (2012), Atticus Books Online (2011) and Curbside Splendor (forthcoming). He has won various awards for his writing, including a fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts in 2003. The first chapter of Cartilage and Skin was performed at Playwrights Theatre in Madison, New Jersey. His current projects are a book about the theories of Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, and Michel Foucault, and a novel tentatively titled Domestic Men’s Fiction. He lives in New Jersey with his wife Robin and their son Wilder.