Liam Callanan, Council for Wisconsin Writers Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. Callanan was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Los Angeles, but now calls Wisconsin home. He is the author of two previous novels — “The Cloud Atlas,” an Edgar Award finalist set in World War II Alaska, and “All Saints,” set in a beachfront high school in California, as well as a short story collection, “Listen and Other Stories.” He teaches in the English department of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.