Lucas Southworth grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, and has studied writing at Knox College, Iowa State University, and the University of Alabama, where he received his MFA. Everyone Here Has a Gun, his first collection of short stories, recently won the Grace Paley Prize and was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2013. His work has appeared in Conjunctions, Mid-American Review, Willow Springs, Hayden's Ferry Review, West Branch, and others. He is an assistant professor in writing at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches screenwriting and fiction.