David Wright Fal­adé is a pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. He is the author of the nov­el Black Cloud Ris­ing, and coau­thor of the young adult nov­el Away Run­ning and the non­fic­tion book Fire on the Beach: Recov­er­ing the Lost Sto­ry of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Life­savers, which was a New York­er notable selec­tion and a St. Louis-Dis­patch Best Book of 2001. The recip­i­ent of a Zora Neale Hurston/​Richard Wright Award, he has writ­ten for the New York­er, Vil­lage Voice, South­ern Review, News­day, and more.