Daniel Waters is a native of Southern New Jersey. He graduated from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and has been publishing stories and essays since 1981; his work has appeared in the Journal of The American Medical Association, The New Physician, The Examined Life (University of Iowa) and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine (Columbia University). He has practiced open-heart surgery for thirty years and is the author of A Heart Surgeon’s Little Instruction Book and A Surgeon’s Little Instruction Book, pocket collections of surgical advice, and aphorisms. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Narrative Healthcare and a Master of Arts in Writing from The Center for Graduate Studies/The Thomas Wolfe Center for Narrative at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Asheville, NC. He and his wife Pamela have three grown children and live in Clear Lake, Iowa.