Scott Russell Sanders is one of the most distinguished authors of creative and environmentalist fiction, nonfiction, and poetry of the contemporary Midwest alive today. His many publications include novels, such as The Invisible Company, Bad Man Ballad, Terrarium, and the Engineer of Beasts, as well as books for children. His writings have appeared regularly in such literary trade publications and journals as the Georgia Review and Orion, as well as the environmentalist publication Audubon, and numerous anthologies. He is not merely a great writer, however. Sanders is also a great thinker who seeks to connect saving the individual soul, saving the environment, and seeking a quality spiritual live through the medium of creative works and prose. He is, in many ways, a kind of modern, Midwestern Transcendentalist along the lines of Thoreau and Emerson. He seeks to connect writing to nature, and a love of nature to a more holistic and spiritual vision of world peace and a better-quality American life for the next generation.

             Despite Sander's Southern origins and his numerous international and national awards and fellowships from such respected bodies such as the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lilly Endowment, Sanders has chosen to remain in Indiana for most of his adult and teaching life. (Indiana University Creative Writing Program, 2001) The "Hoosier Connection" has informed almost all of Scott Russell Sander's mature works of prose. Sanders has made Indiana, specifically Bloomington, Indiana his home since 1971. "Deeply influenced by his surroundings, the landscape of Southwestern Indiana is a constant inspiration for his writing." (Our Land, Our Literature-Scott Russell Sanders, 2002) .

             Sanders was born in 1945 in Memphis, Tennessee, and moved to Ohio with his family as a child.