Simon Van Booy is the award-winning and best-selling author of thirteen books, including Love Begins in Winter (winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award) and Everything Beautiful Began After, which Andre Dubus III called, "A powerful meditation on the undying nature of love and the often cruel beauty of one's own fate." He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, National Public Radio, the BBC and the Chinese edition of Elle, where he wrote the "New Yorker" column for eight years. Van Booy's books have been translated into many languages. When Van Booy was 17, he received a full scholarship to play American football at a university in Kentucky and later lived in a rural part of that state for several years. Now based in New York City, Van Booy has returned regularly to Kentucky for the past two decades.