Richard Kenney is the author of The Evolution of the Flightless Bird (Yale, 1984), Orrery (Atheneum, 1985), The Invention of the Zero (Knopf, 1993) and The One-Strand River (Knopf, 2008). He has received the Rome Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. He teaches at the University of Washington.