The Illuminated Donkey

I linked to one of his stories below, but if you haven't checked it out yet go do so. Karl Iagnemma is the most interesting and talented writer I've come across in a while, not to mention one with the most impressive bio I've ever seen:

Karl Iagnemma is a research scientist in the mechanical engineering department at M.I.T. His short stories have received the Playboy College Fiction award and the Paris Review Discovery Prize, and have been included in the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies.

Sure, other terrific writers like, say, George Saunders may have "explored for oil in Sumatra, played guitar in a Texas bar band, and worked in a slaughterhouse," but I'd personally like to try the whole M.I.T. Research Scientist/Award-Winning Writer combo the next time I'm in a bar and somebody asks what I do for a living. Anyway, Iagnemma's first collection, "On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction," will be published soon, so you should probably go and pre-order a couple of copies to give to friends.