CLARENCE MAJOR is a novelist, poet and painter. His novels include Dirty Bird Blues (a Penguin Classic), Such Was the Season, a Literary Guild selection; My Amputations, winner of the Western States Book Award; Painted Turtle: Woman with Guitar, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year; and other novels. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Harvard Review, and dozens of other periodicals. Major won a National Book Award Bronze Medal and many other awards. He was elected to The Georgia State Writers Hall of Fame in 2021. Major is a distinguished professor emeritus of twentieth century American literature at the University of California at Davis.