Dan Stolar received his AB from Harvard University and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His first book, a collection of short stories calledThe Middle of the Night (Picador), was an American Booksellers Association Book Sense 76 Pick and a Finalist for the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction. His fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including The Missouri Review, Bomb, Virginia Quarterly Review,DoubleTake, Utne Reader, North American Review, Prism International, Five Chapters, Chicago Tribune and St. Louis Post Dispatch. The Washington Post Book World wrote of Stolars stories: Each one of these stories resonates with an elegant simplicity. Psychologically complex and fully realized, they manifest equal parts wisdom and wit. He is currently at work on a novel, prospectively titled Family Values, which follows the members of an extended family who inhabit opposite extremes in the current Red/Blue, religious/secular divide in the United States.
Stolar advises the DePaul student literary magazine, Threshold, and has served as the Coordinator for the Visiting Writer Series. He teaches a range of classes in fiction and creative nonfiction, from craft seminars that focus on reading, analysis and emulation, to workshops in which students practice critiquing each others work with an eye toward revision.