R. F. McEwen was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1945. Since 1962 he has been a professional logger and tree trimmer, working trees throughout the United States as well as in, during the late 1960’s, Guyana, South America. In 1972 he began teaching Middle School English in Chadron, Nebraska, and is currently a professor of English at Chadron State College. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Kansas Quarterly, The Prairie Schooner, Melville Extracts and in The Yellow Nib.