Andrew Wingfield's main interest as a writer and teacher is exploring the ways that people and places shape each other. He grew up east of Sacramento, California, in the bumpy transitional zone between the flat floor of the Central Valley and the steep slopes of the Sierra foothills. Like his novel, Hear Him Roar, much of his creative nonfiction deals with the human and environmental costs of the “development” that has denatured this home landscape dramatically over the past three decades.

Wingfield earned his B.A. in English from Rutgers University in 1988 and his M.A. in English literature from the University of Chicago in 1990. He did odd jobs and wrote awkward fiction in various cities—Bloomington, Madrid, Philadelphia—before enrolling in the creative writing program at George Mason University in 1996. After earning his M.F.A., Wingfield joined the faculty of New Century College (NCC), the integrative studies program at George Mason. His is currently an assistant professor at NCC, where he collaborates with other faculty members on courses that use interdisciplinary approaches and outdoor activities to explore the aesthetic, ethical, and ecological dimensions of the relationships people form with the places they inhabit.

Wingfield barely knew how to see until he started spending time with his wife, the painter Tania Karpowitz. In 2000, they bought and began renovating an old corner store building in a recovering neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia. On the ground floor, where customers used to buy candy, beer, and cigarettes, the owners now struggle mightily with colors on canvas and words on the page. They live in the upstairs apartment with their two young sons. Much of Wingfield's current writing is inspired by events and people in and around this new home.

Hear Him Roar (Utah State University Press) is Wingfield's first novel. His nonfiction has appeared in Terrain, Weber Studies, Wild Earth, The Antioch Review, ISLE, and other magazines.