William H. Gass is the author of four novels -- Omensetter's Luck , Willie Masters' Lonely Wife , The Tunnel , and Middle C -- as well as two volumes of short stories and eight collections of essays. Gass was a professor of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis from 1966--2000, and Director of the International Writers Center from 1990 until 2000. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Pen-Nabokov Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and National Book Critics Circle Awards for Criticism in 1985, 1996, and 2003, among others.