Gary Parks is an English professor at Shoreline Community College, in Shoreline, Washington. He has been teaching composition, literature, and creative writing for almost twenty years. His research interests include online communication and distance learning, and he helped pioneer his college's first Web-based distance learning courses. A member of NCTE and CCC, he has given presentations at various assessment and distance learning conferences as well as at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity. He is a contributing author to the Bedford/St. Martin's VirtuaLit Fiction site and has had short stories published in several literary magazines.