Les Standiford is a historian and author and has since 1985 been the Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program. Although his most recent works have been narrative non-fiction historical pieces in the style of David McCullough, his John Deal novels set him firmly in the Miami School of Crime Fiction whose progenitors are Charles Willeford and John D. McDonald, and which include Elmore Leonard, Jeff Lindsey, Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall, Paul Levine and Barbara Parker. Standiford's students have included successful novelists Dennis Lehane, Barbara Parker, Vicki Hendricks, Ginny Rorby, and Neil Plakcy. While Chairman of the Creative Writing Program at University of Texas El Paso, "Standiford gave Raymond Carver his first job in 1976, when Carver was recovering from his infamous alcoholic crash and burn." Standiford has been awarded the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and belongs to the Associated Writing Programs, Mystery Writers of America, and the Writers Guild. 

November 1st, 1945 in Cambridge (Age 79)