Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in nearly three hundred journals and anthologies. Among his eight books are two chapbooks, Redneck Poems and Broke as well as two collections of poetry, I Am Not Ariel, and On Broad Sound, a collection of poems set in or inspired by Revere MA, where he lives with the poet Heather Sullivan and their family.