He graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA, and from Boston University with an MA.
[3][4] He currently teaches at University of Minnesota and heads the Department of Creative Writing there.
[5] His work has appeared in AGNI,[6] ArtNews, The Boston Globe, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The New Republic, Poetry,[7] Slate,[8] and The Yale Review.
[11] He won a Pushcart Prize, and Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, For five years, he edited the journal Literary Imagination, published by Oxford University Press, before turning over the editorship to Saskia Hamilton and Archie Burnett.
[12] He currently edits the literary journal Great River Review, published by the University of Minnesota Creative Writing Program.