Alan Davis grew up in Louisiana and now lives in Minnesota. "Although these stories occur in many different parts of the country," Debra Marquart wrote of one of his books, "they are aesthetically shaped by the landscape of Louisiana, the muddy delta, and the oily bayou - the bottomland to which all things flow."

"I kept thinking that I wouldn't mind ending up as a character in one of his stories," Dorothy Allison wrote about another in The New York Times Book Review. "Odds are, he'd do me justice."

His three collections of stories are So Bravely Vegetative (winner of The Prize Americana for Fiction), Alone with the Owl and Rumors from the Lost World (both winners of the Many Voices Project Competition). He's co-editor of Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (2018) and 10 editions of American Fiction: The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, chosen by Writer's Digest as one of the best places to publish short fiction in the United States.

"There is magic in a world that still somehow seems devoid of magic." (Publishers Weekly).

"Moving easily between blue-collar types and Social Register summer people, New Age dancers and Old World immigrants, underground poets and Elvis freaks, Davis demonstrates an impressive range in this collection." (Kirkus Reviews)

"A magical collection of stories, one of the best I've encountered in years," Tim O'Brien wrote. "It's hard to convey my enthusiasm for this book - all the ordinary adjectives of praise seem trite and inadequate. But as personal testimony, I can say that I was tremendously moved and enlightened by each story, and that the collection as a whole lingers in my memory like a hometown - a place I once lived in and once loved."