Adam Haslett is the author of the novel “Union Atlantic,” from which “Single Purpose Vehicle” is excerpted. It will be published in late January.

His short story collection “You Are Not a Stranger Here” is among the most acclaimed debuts of the decade. It was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has been translated into fifteen languages.

His essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Zoetrope All-Story, Best American Short Stories, The O’Henry Prize Stories and National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts.

He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center and residences at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. In 2006, he won the PEN/Malamud Award for accomplishment in short fiction. He has also won the PEN/Winship Award for the best book by a New England author.

A graduate of Swarthmore College, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Yale Law School, he has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Columbia University.

Visit him online at www.adamhaslett.net.