DAVID HAYNES grew up in Saint Louis, and now lives in Saint Paul, where he teaches middle school and writes fiction. He has won several grants and awards, including a Loft Mentor Series Award, the Lake Superior Contemporary Writers Series, and a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant. Haynes has had writing published in Other Voices, Glimmer Train, and Stiller’s Pond: New Fiction from the Upper Midwest (New Rivers Press, 1991). Right by My Side is his first novel.