Aaron Zaritzky was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He graduated from the Creative Writing Workshop at Oberlin College and completed an MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona. He taught Spanish language at the high school level for two years, and then worked as a language instructor at the University of Arizona. He has read for the literary journal Sonora Review, and he received a Tinker Grant to research Benitez’s use of literary allusion in the Spanish National Library and elsewhere.