Tony Medina, two-time winner of the Paterson Prize, was born in the South Bronx and raised in the Throgs Neck Housing Projects. He served in the United States Army and earned a BA in English at Baruch College, CUNY, on the G.I. Bill. He has taught at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus and Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. The author of several books for adults and young readers, his poetry, fiction, and essays appear in over forty anthologies. Medina, whose most recent books are MY OLD MAN WAS ALWAYS ON THE LAM (NYQ Books, 2011) and I and I, Bob Marley (Lee & Low Books, 2009), earned an MA and PhD in English from Binghamton University, SUNY, and is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University.