Steven Faulkner grew up in the Sudan and Ethiopia in Africa, and later in Arkansas and Kansas. After dropping out of college, he married, had children, and worked a variety of jobs: driving dump trucks and concrete mixers, carpet cleaning, roofing, newspaper and doughnut delivery, and spent fourteen years as a carpenter.

He returned to school and acquired the necessary degrees from the University of Kansas and now teaches Creative Writing at Longwood University in southern Virginia.

His previous book Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts has been made into a movie starring Hollywood actor Robert Cicchini and has been released across the United States and Canada and is now available on DVD. Faulkner has published essays in many literary journals and magazines including: North American Review, Fourth Genre, Southwest Review, Shenandoah Review, DoubleTake, and Wisconsin Trails Magazine. His work has been noted in Best American Essays and anthologized in Beacon's Best.