is the author of What Light Becomes: The Turner Variations (winner of the Red Mountain Press Poetry Prize), Hermits in Our Own Flesh: The Epistles of an Anonymous Monk (Oloris Publishing, 2016), Meditations Before the Windows Fail (Lost Horse Press, 2015), and many other books. He founded the BFA in creative writing at Penn State Erie, where he is Professor of Literature and Creative Writing and editor of the international literary journal Lake Effect.