Samuel Western has served in the Swedish merchant marine and worked as a commercial fisherman, contract logger, longshoreman, and hunting guide.He holds an MFA from the University of Virginia where he also taught English and is the recipient of a Wyoming Literary Fellowship. He is the author of Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming's Search for Its Soul, and A Random Census of Souls Poems. He lives and writes in Sheridan, Wyoming.