Matthew C. Brennan (1955-) was born and grew up in St. Louis, MO, graduating from St. Louis U. High. He earned a B.A. at Grinnell College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. at the U. of Minnesota, where after graduating he spent 1984-85 as a visiting assistant professor of English. Since then he has taught at Indiana State U. He has published four works of literary criticism, including Dana Gioia: A Critical Introduction (Story Line Press, 2012), two chapbooks of poems, and four volumes of poetry--Seeing in the Dark (Hawkhead Press, 1993); The Music of Exile (Cloverdale Books, 1994); The Sea-Crossing of Saint Brendan (Birch Brook Press, 2008); and The House with the Mansard Roof (Backwaters Press, 2009), which was a finalist for the 2010 Best Books of Indiana. He has also won the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, selected by Wendell Berry, and has had his poetry read on The Writer's Almanac.