Jim Ruland is the author of the short story collection Big Lonesome and co-author with Scott Campbell, Jr. of Giving the Finger, forthcoming in 2014. He has been a columnist for the indie music zine Razorcake since 2001 and writes the book review column The Floating Library for San Diego CityBeat. His work has appeared in The Believer, Esquire, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Oxford American and is forthcoming in Granta. He is the curator of Vermin on the Mount, an irreverent reading series based in Southern California, now in its ninth year.