Thad Ziolkowski is is the author of Our Son the Arson, a collection of poems; the memoir, On a Wave, which was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award in 2003; the novel, Wichita; and The Drop, a nonfiction exploration of surfing and addiction. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Bookforum, Artforum, Travel & Leisure, and Interview Magazine. He has a PhD in English Literature from Yale University and is the recipient, among other honors, of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the Associate Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.