Daniel Mason is a Northern California native who grew up in a family of musicians. He went to Harvard University for biology and the University of California, San Francisco for medicine. His first novel, The Piano Tuner, was a national hit in 2002 and has since been translated into 27 languages. A Distant Land, The Winter Soldier, and A Register of My Journey Upon Earth are among his other publications, and his work has featured in Harper's Magazine and Lapham's Quarterly. He resides in the Bay Area of San Francisco.