George Cuomo, novelist, short story writer, critic and poet, was born in the Bronx, New York, on 10 October 1929. The son of machinist John Joseph Cuomo and Lillian Vogt, he attended Stuyvesant High School in New York before joining the army in 1948 for a one year stint. From the army he proceeded to an academic career, graduating with a B.A. magna cum laude in English from Tufts University (1952), and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Indiana (1955). During this period he worked as editor of the college newspaper, as college correspondent for the Boston Post and as a novelist, completing two novels while still a student. As a student he supported himself by working in a butcher shop, a factory, for a clothing manufacturer, and as an advertising and public relations man. In August 1954 he married Sylvia Epstein. They live in Castro Valley, California and have five children. From 1956 to 1961 Cuomo was an instructor of English at the University of Arizona, Tucson, working during the summers as a copy editor for the Arizona Daily Star. He taught at Victoria College (later the University of Victoria) as Associate Professor of English from 1961 to 1965. Since 1965 he has been Professor and Head of the English Department of California State College at Hayward, California. Cuomo's fiction, criticism and poetry have appeared in such periodicals as The Saturday Review, The Nation, Literary Review, Colorado Quarterly and San Francisco Review. No doubt his literary agent, Monica McCall, to whom many of his manuscripts are addressed, helped to place much of his work. He has published five novels, a book of short stories and a text book on reading. Two collections of poetry remain unpublished.