Born in Port Jefferson Station, New York, one year after the beginning of the Summer of Love, John Popielaski attended SUNY-Stony Brook and American University. He has worked as a mover, lackey to a well-heeled tropical biologist, tent erector, lobsterman, and teacher. His poems have appeared in such journals as The Hollins Critic, New South, Post Road, and Redivider. He is the author of several poetry collections, including Isn't It Romantic? which won the Robert Phillips Chapbook Award from Texas Review Press. The Hollow Middle is his first novel.