Shelby Hearon was born in Marion, Kentucky, in 1931, lived for many years in Texas and now makes her home in Westchester County, New York. She is the author of twelve novels, including Owning Jolene, which received an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Literature Award. She has taught in a number of writing programs, including the University of Houston and the University of California at Irvine, and was the recipient of an Ingram Merrill grant in 1987, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in 1983, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction in 1982 and the Texas Institute of Letters award for fiction in 1978 and 1973. Married to philosopher Billy Joe Lucas, she is the mother of a grown daughter and son.