Michael Downs’s first book, House of Good Hope (University of Nebraska Press), won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. His second book is The Greatest Show (Louisiana State University Press), a collection of linked stories featuring the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944. A former newspaper reporter, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. He lives in Baltimore and teaches at Towson University.