David Means's second collection of stories, Assorted Fire Events, earned the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction, and his third, The Secret Goldfish, was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize.

His fourth, The Spot, was selected as a 2010 Notable Book by the New York Times. His first novel, Hystopia, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Means's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire among other publications. He lives in Nyack, New York, and teaches at Vassar College.