Brian Phillip Whalen’s writing appears in The Southern Review, Spillway, Mid-American Review, North American Review, Cherry Tree, Fiction International, Poets.org, and elsewhere. Brian received his PhD from SUNY Albany and is a lecturer in the English Department. He was a finalist in this year’s River Styx Microfiction Contest and his forthcoming micro-essay To Shoot Straight in a Gunfight was awarded second runner-up for the Chautauqua Editors Prize. Brian lives with his wife and daughter in upstate New York where in his spare time he teaches creative writing workshops in public libraries (this year with a grant from Poets & Writers).