Steve Watkins is an accomplished author whose fiction, poetry, and nonfiction articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, Poets & Writers, and Mississippi Review, and have received many awards, including the Pushcart Prize. In his day job, he teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. He also teaches Ashtanga yoga and works as an investigator and advocate for abused and neglected children.

Down Sand Mountain was his first book for younger readers. He has written another novel for young adults called What Comes After. About Down Sand Mountain, he says, “Every time I look in a mirror I see Dewey Turner—twelve years old and always so worried about making mistakes. I want to tell him not to worry so much—that life is about the trying, and the stumbling, as much as it is about getting things right. I want to tell him what the writer Samuel Beckett once wrote: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’” Steve Watkins lives in Virginia with his wife and four daughters.