Donald Harmsworth was born and raised in Moscow, Idaho- not far from the site of the nineteenth-century murders revisited in his debut novel, Strychnine Creek. After a distinguished career as a professional cellist, he turned to storytelling with the same precision and emotional depth that defined his music.

Today, he lives with his wife, Wendy, along the Big Blackfoot River, the river immortalized in A River Runs Through It, near Missoula, Montana, where landscape and history continue to shape his work.