Ann Beattie is the author of eight novels, most recently A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, and eleven collections of stories, most recently The Accomplished Guest. She has been included in three O. Henry Award collections and John Updike's Best American Short Stories of the Century, and she has received an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/Malamud Award for the Short Story, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine and Key West, Florida.