Michael C. Steiner is Professor Emeritus of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton, where he taught for forty years. He is the author of Regionalists on the Left: Radical Voices from the American West and Horace M. Kallen in the Heartland: The Midwestern Roots of American Pluralism; he is also the editor (with Wayne Franklin) of Mapping American Culture and (with David M. Wrobel) of Many Wests: Place, Culture, and Regional Identity. Steiner has received the 2027 MidAmerica Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature for distinguished contributions to the study of Midwestern literature. A native Midwesterner, he currently lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, and focuses his creative energy on writing and lecturing about American regionalism and the Midwest.