Miroslav Penkov was born and raised in Bulgaria. His stories have appeared in A Public Space, Granta, The Best American Short Stories 2008, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013. His debut collection, East of the West, was published in over a dozen countries. Winner of the BBC International Short Story Award 2012, he is the current literature protégé in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, working with mentor Michael Ondaatje. Miroslav is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas and a fiction editor of the American Literary Review.