Madison Smartt Bell was born and raised in Tennessee. He is the author of 12 novels including Soldier’s Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award and All Souls’ Rising, a 1995 National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/ Faulkner Award. Bell's most recent books are The Stone That the Builder Refused and Freedom's Gate: A Brief Life of Toussaint Louverture. A graduate of Princeton University and Hollins College, he is Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College.