Mary Caponegro is a fiction writer who is the author of several books, including Tales from the Next Village, The Star Cafe, Five Doubts, The Complexities of Intimacy and Materia Prima (in Italian). Her stories and essays have appeared in the Review of Contemporary Fiction, Bridge, Black Clock, Gargoyle, Epoch, The Fairy Tale Review, The Iowa Review, Storie, and Conjunctions. Recipient of the General Electric Foundation Award, the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy/Institute of Arts and Letters, the Bruno-Arcudi Award, and the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters, she is currently Richard B. Fisher Family Professor of Writing and Literature at Bard College.