Born and raised in upstate New York, Jon Clinch has been an English teacher, a metalworker, a folksinger, an illustrator, a typeface designer, a copywriter, and an advertising executive. Teaching and advertising took him from rural New York State to the suburbs of Philadelphia, and with the publication of his first novel, FINN, he was able to return to the surroundings he’d loved from the start: This time, in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

In 2008 he organized writers (including Tom Perrotta, Arthur Phillips, David Gates, and Stewart O’Nan) to help the financially-troubled Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT. The benefit event was covered by the NEW YORK TIMES, the WALL STREET JOURNAL, and CBS SUNDAY MORNING, and wiped out the House’s considerable operating debt.