Born December 14,1951, in Chicago, Illinois, Amy Hempel moved to San Francisco as a teenager and attended several California colleges during an academic career that saw frequent interruptions. Deciding to become a writer, she settled in New York City and attended Columbia University where her creative writing instructor was Gordon Lish, a noted novelist, short story writer, and editor. Hempel credits Lish with having had a special influence on her work. She also names other contemporary short story writers such as Mary Robison and Raymond Carver as having affected her style. Hempel says that these writers "re-invent" the language, tell the truth in "shocking ways," and use "a kind of compression and distillation in their work that gets to the heart of things and that gives the reader credit for being able to keep up without having everything explained."

Although Hempel lives and works in New York...