Kenny Fries is the author, most recently, of In the Province of the Gods (2017), which received the Creative Capital literature grant, and In the Gardens of Japan: A Poem Sequence (2017), a companion to the memoir. His other books include The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory (2007) and Body, Remember: A Memoir (1997). He is the editor of Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (1997) and was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera to write the libretto for The Memory Stone. He was a Creative Arts Fellow of the Japan/US Friendship Commission and the National Endowment of the Arts, and twice a Fulbright Scholar (Japan and Germany). He teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College. (Author photograph by Michael R. Dekker)