Russell Potter was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio; he attended Goddard College and The Evergreen State College, and earned his Ph.D. in English from Brown University. He's the author of nonfiction books on topics as various as the history of Hip-hop and British Arctic exploration, and appeared in Arctic Passage, an episode of PBS's NOVA in 2006. His first novel, PYG: The Memoirs of Toby, the Learned Pig, is based on the career of an actual "learned" pig that appeared throughout England in the 1780's. The pig's ability to reply to all manner of inquiries amazed all who saw him prompted the poet Robert Southey to declare him "a far greater object of admiration to the English nation than ever was Sir Isaac Newton." Originally published in the UK by Canongate books, PYG is now out in paperback from Penguin Books, and has been translated into Swedish, Turkish, and Italian.