Ron Hansen grew up in Omaha and attended Creighton University, The University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop, Stanford
University, and Santa Clara University. He is the author of eight novels, including Desperadoes, The Assassination
of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Mariette in Ecstasy, Hitler’s Niece, Exiles, and most recently A Wild Surge of
Guilty Passion, as well as a children’s book and A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith & Fiction. Twice nominated
for a PEN/Faulkner Award, he was a finalist for the National Book Award for his novel Atticus, and is a recipient of an Award
in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Scribner published his She Loves Me Not: New
& Selected Stories in 2012. Married to the novelist Bo Caldwell, Ron is Director of Creative Writing at Santa Clara University
where he is the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities.

Rebecca Rotert received her MA from Hollins College in Virginia where she was the recipient of the Academy of American
Poets prize. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Santa Clara Review, America magazine, Hospital Drive Journal
of Literature and Humanities, Temenos Journal, Outside-In magazine and the New York Times. Her essay, Proteus on the
Vasa was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Last Night at the Blue Angel is her first novel. She lives in Omaha, NE.